HD-PVR 1.0.3.53 Beta AC-3 5.1 Audio Drivers are out

[sic0048]

Has anyone been able to upgrade to the new drivers AND make the Hauppauge IR Blaster work? I know there are several users like me that have tried it and found the IR blaster did not work. But if someone has been successful in getting both to work together, I might try a little harder to find a solution.

Thanks,

[simonen]

It working great for me. All I did was run the upgrade installer and reboot. I get the occasional pop when tuning to a channel and a slight lag where the video will play with no sound for about 10 seconds and then I have sound. I only use the HD extenders with my TVs though.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

But the 2 channel sound is fine. So you're no worse off than before.

Absolutely correct and this driver does seem to fix other problems I was having, like the microstutters on 720p content.

However, the 5.1 sound would be nice and I thought I would give other Fios users a heads up before they spend all afternoon troubleshooting their STB and optical cables like I did

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

I wonder if the issue is driver of firmware.. I am ordering an optical cable to connect up my HD box, but I run the hd-pvr in linux. If you have access to a linux box and are familiar enough to add in driver support, you may give it a try.

B

A good suggestion, but no linux box available to try it on I'll just have to wait and see if Hauppauge is able to track down the problem.

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by sic0048

Has anyone been able to upgrade to the new drivers AND make the Hauppauge IR Blaster work? I know there are several users like me that have tried it and found the IR blaster did not work. But if someone has been successful in getting both to work together, I might try a little harder to find a solution.

Thanks,

I had to run the hcwclear.exe program to dump all the drivers, reboot, install the new HD-PVR drivers, reboot, and then reinstall the IR Blaster program. It's working fine for me.

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

Absolutely correct and this driver does seem to fix other problems I was having, like the microstutters on 720p content.

However, the 5.1 sound would be nice and I thought I would give other Fios users a heads up before they spend all afternoon troubleshooting their STB and optical cables like I did

I wish it solved my 720p problems. There is no change at all. I even checked to make sure I'm running the new driver.

[Beefcake550]

My microstuddering on 720p did not go away either. I started dabbling with Reclock and it fixed my problem with the microstudders, but seemed to cause SageTV to crash more often. I did, however, discover that while my content was @ 59.94 Hz (correct for 720p), my video output (integrated G35) was outputting @ 60.121 Hz. This leads me to believe that I should try using DTD (over at AVS Forum) to "fix" my video output clock to match cloder to 59.94. I haven't had the time to invest into that one yet.

-Brian

[J3G]

I installed the new beta driver. I have audio issues. So I read this entire post and tried each suggestion. No luck fixing my problem. Problem is that SageTV shows the picture fine but I get static noise for sound. If I switch to the STB optical stream its DD or PCM. Also, the passthrough of HD-PVR pass DD to my receiver. I can verify that I get sound from TME but my reciever says its only PCM. I never see DD from TME. I'm not sure if I see 720p "stutter" but I thought the picture didn't play very smooth. I have no clients to mix into this equation...just play locally with Sage Media Center.

Things I tried:
hwclear, drivers upgrade, hwclear+beta driver (without upgrade), removing souce in SageTV many times, AC3Filter as audio decoder

Thing that happened along the way:
my HD-PVR locked up (all lights on) -- power cycled
SageTV gives me "no signal"
SageTV crashes -- reinstall hauppauge drivers

Machine Specs:
Quad core, XP, 1 HD-PVR, Nvideo 8600gt

I guess last thing to try is re-install SageTV...maybe this will reset the 21 day trial period? I'm new to SageTV and i'm trying to decide if I want to pay or go free with MythTV. So far my time to get this working is comparable to a MythTV install

[thomaszoo]

Originally Posted by thomaszoo

I had to power down the HTPC last night for just a minute. When tried to bring it back up it wouldn't boot at all. After unplugging everything I determined it was an external drive. After plugging everything back in the HD PVR was no longer working. I have uninstalled and reinstalled all Hauppauge drivers and the best I can do is to get it to work with the analog inputs. Anytime I try to use SPDIF I lose my picture (including in TME). I didn't make any other changes and am at a total loss as to what to try next. Any ideas?

Thanks.

I finally had the time to troubleshoot this today and all I had to do was to put the SPDIF cable in the input instead of the output! 5.1 is back!

Wayne

[TechJunkie]

spacecadet,
Have you heard anything more regarding the sound issue with a verizon fios stb? I read your entry right after I came across the same issue.

Originally Posted by spacecadet

Absolutely correct and this driver does seem to fix other problems I was having, like the microstutters on 720p content.

However, the 5.1 sound would be nice and I thought I would give other Fios users a heads up before they spend all afternoon troubleshooting their STB and optical cables like I did

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by TechJunkie

spacecadet,
Have you heard anything more regarding the sound issue with a verizon fios stb? I read your entry right after I came across the same issue.

I pinged them yesterday and got the following response: "This is still be looked at by our engineering staff and the hardware developers."

So there is nothing new to report, I guess.

My suggestion would be to open your own ticket with them. I have to believe that the more people we have complaining about this problem, the more likely it is to get addressed.

[Chriscic]

Yesterday I got my replacement unit, a D2 (after already going through a C1 and a C2). My tentative conclusion is that the HD-PVR is a piece of junk, at least for me on all my PCs and clients.

Things are actually working quite a bit better from my WHS server to my HD100 client. But they're still not working well. Sometimes I'll switch to a channel and it will be perfect, including the 5.1 audio. Other times (and this includes switching off a channel working well and then switching right back) I'll get video which pauses on and of (1 sec on, 1 sec pause, 1 sec on, ongoing), sound which is seriously out of sync, no sound at all etc.

I'll do the drill (again) trying it on different sever PCs and trying my PC client in addition to my HD100, but don't expect a positive outcome. I'm also trying a bunch of recordings on different channels throughout the night on the off-chance that it's really a live TV issue with the HD100 anyway.

Sigh... at some point you just have to give up. I just found out that DirecTV now has single wire multiplexing, so I can install that whole house without having to run new wires. That's not the whole-house DVR solution I've been pining for, but that just doesn't seem attainable (unless I go cablecard PC or buy two R5000s with Dish).

[HelenWeathers]

Chriscic: I looked thru a lot of your comments to see if I could find the equipment you are using because it seems to me at least that your problems are for the most part systemic. I found this.

Originally Posted by Chriscic

My WHS Sage server is pretty weak, an old 1.3ghz P3. What are other folks using for their server? I wonder if there's any chance my servers feeble CPU power might be contributing to my problems running to my HD100. I wouldn't think so, since all the server is doing is sending the bitstream (not to mention my Core2Duo wasn't any better when I briefly tried it as server), but who knows.

My equipment is working flawlessly and my family routinely watches thru two clients at the same time. But my equipment has evolved over that past three months to cope with the load created by HD. I had to add a gigabit switcher, replace some of my old Cat 5 cable and upgrade the cpu and graphics on one of the clients. On my server I had to find the right combination of where to plug in devices. I now only have the two HD PVRs on the usb ports. No USB-UIRT, no MS ir receiver and no keyboard/mouse except when I have to. I had problems when I had other devices on the USB buss. HiDef is extremely taxing to a system and yours may not be up to it in it's current config. I have fealt your pain.

Have you downloaded some of the clips in the HD PVR before/after samples thread? Can you play them back without issues? Do you have an OTA tuner? How does that work? I hope you find a solution.

[Chriscic]

Thanks for the thoughts.

I have no indication that I don't have the hardware for proper playback. The main client I'm trying to get to work is the HD100. The other clients I've tried (3.0ghz P4 with hardware accel and Core2Duo 2.4ghz) I've just been trying because I can't get the HD100 to work right. The HD100 is supposed to play back the files near perfectly and "just work."

The 1.3ghz server is weak processing-wise, but it takes almost no processor power to record with the HD-PVR, and the decode is done entirely on the client-side (again, the HD100 should "just work.") But to try everything, I set up a Sage server at various times on both of the two PCs above, then streaming to the HD100 (or each other... what the heck I try everything) and still can't get the plaback to work right.

The HD100 is always hooked directly into the same gigabit router as the server PC.

So I'm at a loss. The only thing I can think of at this point is maybe I have a bad HD100, but it seems to work fine for MPEG2 and X264 video playback (I haven't done a lot of that, but did some to test the unit). Or even less likely maybe the output coming out of the Comcast box is weird somehow.

For sure I'll spend probably 10 hours more futzing around, installing a totally clean OS on a server PC (for the third time), etc before I finally give up. Maybe I'll wait for a new or non-beta version of the drivers first before I spend the time though.

Ok, I'm surprised nobody has told me to shut up and stip whining yet, so I'll shut up myself for the moment.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

Thanks for the thoughts.

I have no indication that I don't have the hardware for proper playback. The main client I'm trying to get to work is the HD100. The other clients I've tried (3.0ghz P4 with hardware accel and Core2Duo 2.4ghz) I've just been trying because I can't get the HD100 to work right. The HD100 is supposed to play back the files near perfectly and "just work."

The 1.3ghz server is weak processing-wise, but it takes almost no processor power to record with the HD-PVR, and the decode is done entirely on the client-side (again, the HD100 should "just work.") But to try everything, I set up a Sage server at various times on both of the two PCs above, then streaming to the HD100 (or each other... what the heck I try everything) and still can't get the plaback to work right.

The HD100 is always hooked directly into the same gigabit router as the server PC.

So I'm at a loss. The only thing I can think of at this point is maybe I have a bad HD100, but it seems to work fine for MPEG2 and X264 video playback (I haven't done a lot of that, but did some to test the unit). Or even less likely maybe the output coming out of the Comcast box is weird somehow.

For sure I'll spend probably 10 hours more futzing around, installing a totally clean OS on a server PC (for the third time), etc before I finally give up. Maybe I'll wait for a new or non-beta version of the drivers first before I spend the time though.

Ok, I'm surprised nobody has told me to shut up and stip whining yet, so I'll shut up myself for the moment.

Are you running the latest versions of SageTV, Java and HD100 firmware?

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Are you running the latest versions of SageTV, Java and HD100 firmware?

Yes on Sage and HD100 firmware. I keep Java updated but I'd have to check that. Actually, I don't think I have Java at all on the WHS server because I can't access the Sage interface, which must need Java; I can only start Sage as a server and see it running in the WHS console. It's on the other two PCs I tried as a server though.

[HelenWeathers]

On my server I installed Win XP SP3 and Sage 6.4.8 (which installed Java and that has since updated to latest version). I have not installed any codecs on the server. I can't even see a preview of my HiDef sources with the video card I have in the server while I set up sources. It's the maximum minimalist setup. If it doesn't have to be there for Sage to record, it isn't on my system.

Big question, Does your server have gigabit ethernet and is it working?

If you don't whine, we don't know you are in pain.

[stanger89]

Chriscic, how do recordings (not Live TV) work?

[Chriscic]

My router is gigabit, and there are no switches in between. I can't imagine the gigabit is not working; large file transfers between PC are pretty fast, and I put a gigabit card in the server.

My WHS server is already minimalist, as is one of other PCs (recent XP install) I've tried as a server. So hard to believe that's the problem, but like I said I'll probably give it a go with a fresh XP install one more time; you never know with PCs.

I've been so focused on live TV I haven't watched any recordings since installing the new drivers. I did try to record a glitchy program last night and the HD100 just got stuck for a few minutes and then I just turned it off.

Last night I set Sage to record about 10 different programs off of different channels overnight (HH100 still off)... I'll see what the wreckage looks like tonight : ) I'll try the recordings on both the HD100 and my client PC and see what happens.

Also, I am recording to 64kb clusters (or whatever Sage recos I can't recall) on the WHS server, and the drive is not part of the WHS pool, also per Sage reco.

Thanks for the thoughts.

[killervette]

I too have some minor issues with my setup. Running WHS with a HD100. I almost never have problems with the recordings, its only live tv. Sometimes i will tune to a channel, get "no signal", then have to go turn off all the HD PVRs and back on again to get it to work.

Many times i will tune to a channel, and have studdering for several seconds before the video smooths out.