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Hardware Support Discussions related to using various hardware setups with SageTV products. Anything relating to capture cards, remotes, infrared receivers/transmitters, system compatibility or other hardware related problems or suggestions should be posted here.

View Poll Results: What's your story with the HD-PVR
It just works! 11 23.40%
Once you get it going, it's fine 23 48.94%
Works for me, most of the time that is 9 19.15%
Well, the jury is still out on this one 0 0%
Too much trouble 4 8.51%
Horrible! 0 0%
Voters: 47. You may not vote on this poll

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  #1  
Old 04-02-2009, 10:36 PM
flavius flavius is offline
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To have or have not: HD-PVR

I'm thinking about finally getting one, but I'm still having trust issues.
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  #2  
Old 04-02-2009, 10:51 PM
Striker:WG Striker:WG is offline
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My first HDPVR was a pain in the ass. When it finally died and I RMA'd it the second one has been amazingly better.

My only major complaint with it anymore is that if I minimize Sage and go back to Windows or if my 2 year old son starts playing with the power button the unit seems to loose sync with the IR blaster and cannot tune channels until I either reboot the entire system or shut down sage, reboot the PVR then start sage.

I still have trust issues with it because of the months of aggrivation with the original unit so I still dedicated two tuners to recording my content, one for SD and one for HD. I'm slowly starting to move away from that as I trust it more.

-Striker-
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  #3  
Old 04-02-2009, 11:40 PM
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sleonard sleonard is offline
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I ordered 3 from the very first batch back in May '08. All 3 had the original heat related lockup and had to be RMA'd. The 2nd batch of 3 all would randomly stop responding to Sage and would have to be power cycled at least once a day. This issue plagued a number of us Sage users including Andy. I gave up trying to figure out the cause and RMA'd again. The 3rd batch were all E1's and while a vast improvement all 3 would still experience the "stop responding" lockup issue. I put up with that for several more months and finally got the parts together to build a new server in February.

The new server is based on an Intel G45ID microATX board and a Q9550 CPU w/ 2 GB of DDR2800 RAM. All 3 of the E1's have run perfect since moving to the new system. That's 2 months now and counting. <cross fingers>

I never did identify the issue for sure but my guess is that it was some arcane little incompatibility between the HD-PVR's and the USB controller on my old board (a Gigabyte GA-965G-DS3)

So I have two votes: Old system - Too much trouble. New system - It just works!

S
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  #4  
Old 04-03-2009, 06:06 AM
Graygeek Graygeek is offline
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Im happy using my HAVA platinum for now. Gives me 16:9 DVD quality and it just plain works all the time!

My long term plan is I'm waiting for the rumored cable capture device from Silicon Dust. If it is as good as the HDHomerun then the HD-PVR will be toast for cable captures!
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  #5  
Old 04-03-2009, 06:22 AM
bhyman1 bhyman1 is offline
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I've found that once set up and working, they stay working.

I've done three set's of two HD-PVR's.

The first set it mine, both C2's, running on an older Pentium 4 3Ghz box. Plugged right into the motherboards USB ports. Works great with the latest drivers and a 4 second tuning delay, capturing 1080i locked at the DirecTV box, and 5.1 digital audio.

It was a little work getting the latest drivers all working, but the tuning delay solved all of those isses.

The other two sets are running on older Athlon 64 3200's, the Hauppuage HD-PVR 1.0b driver, 1080i locked at the DirecTV/Cable box, with analog audio. Again, plugged direct into the motherboards USB ports. These are all C2 or newer HD-PVR's.
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  #6  
Old 04-03-2009, 06:49 AM
paulbeers paulbeers is offline
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I received one from the second batch (C2) and it has worked from Day 1. The only issue I ever have is that I have to power cycle it if I restart my server. I do not use optical recording and I am only playing back from the HD100/HD200. I also have STB set to output only 1080i. I think this makes me probably the "perfect" user in that I don't have the issue with the HDPVR having to decide which resolution to record at (requiring the delay in tuning), I don't have to worry about which decoder software to use (since I only use HD100/HD200's), and I am not using digital audio which has had some mixed reviews.
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  #7  
Old 04-03-2009, 07:13 AM
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Djc208 Djc208 is offline
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I was lucky enough to not really have any problems setting up the device on my server. Most of my issues have been self inflicted. I accidentaly knocked the SPDIF cable out of the cable box and the unit wouldn't work until I plugged it back in.

Otherwise the only problem I've had is every once in a great while the IR blaster will stop working and all the recordings will be whatever channel the cable box is on. A reboot fixes it but those recordings are useless. Luckily it's been a rare occurence.
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  #8  
Old 04-03-2009, 07:55 AM
Fluffdaddy Fluffdaddy is offline
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Once I read about covering up the IR ports with tape to stop the errors I was having, my 3 units have been rock solid ever since

It was hell there for a while though.
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  #9  
Old 04-03-2009, 08:49 AM
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TallMomof2 TallMomof2 is offline
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I'm still amazed at how trouble free my HD-PVR has been. It took a bit of work to get it up and running but that was more because Sage didn't fully support it. Moving it to a WHS has meant zero problems, the only time I have to reboot my server is when I do the occasional OS update.
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  #10  
Old 04-03-2009, 09:30 AM
71_Cuda 71_Cuda is offline
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I have 2 D2s that I got back in January. I tried to get one working first before setting up the second one, and I had lots of problems. I tried everything I could find on these boards to fix it. Ultimately, covering the IR receiver on the HD-PVR was the biggest improvement for me. I went from several lock-ups per day to one every 2-3 days.

The second HD-PVR has been pretty flawless since I integrated it over a month ago.

I just recently swapped the 2 HD-PVRs (boxes only) to see if the problem is with the HD-PVR (likely) or with something else in the set-up (e.g. STB, wiring, USB port on PC, serial changing wiring or COM port). If the problem moves with the HD-PVR box, then I'll RMA the one that always locks up. If it stays with the rest of the set-up, then I'll have to try to figure out what else is causing it.

So my response to the survey would be different for the 2 HD-PVRs. But my consolidated response is "Works for me, most of the time that is".
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  #11  
Old 04-03-2009, 12:08 PM
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mikejaner mikejaner is offline
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Mine have been great. I got the ones which Hauppauge shipped on day one with no fans, and they replaced them with B versions. I am still using them to this day. I had a few lockups a week until the latest WHQL drivers came out. Now they are rock solid. I didn't know about the tape over the IR port thing. I think I will do that just for good measure.
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  #12  
Old 04-03-2009, 12:12 PM
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mikejaner mikejaner is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Graygeek View Post
My long term plan is I'm waiting for the rumored cable capture device from Silicon Dust. If it is as good as the HDHomerun then the HD-PVR will be toast for cable captures!
Where are these rumors being talked about?
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  #13  
Old 04-03-2009, 12:16 PM
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Skirge01 Skirge01 is offline
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Overall, I like them. Would I like another option? Hell, yeah! But, my Tivos had similar growing pains, as did my DirecTV DVR. I simply think it's an extremely sensitive piece of equipment and the slightest glitch in your system tends to break it somehow: random IR codes, long USB cables, shared USB channels, drive activity, short channel changes, cheap component or SPDIF cables. Did I forget anything? While it can certainly be frustrating, it's worth the effort. Control (i.e. DRM-free) is an amazing feeling and it is worth every drop of blood, sweat, and tears... and there were many!

That said, when something else comes out, I will certainly be willing to give it a try. I sure as hell hope it has an ethernet port on it!
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  #14  
Old 04-03-2009, 01:02 PM
sic0048 sic0048 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mikejaner View Post
Where are these rumors being talked about?
Here is a Greenbutton post that speculates as to what silcondust might be working on. I don't think anyone has a clue yet (or if it is really true), but it looks like creating another analog capture device of HD signals (like the HD-PVR does) isn't high on their list.
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Using CQC to control it all
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  #15  
Old 04-03-2009, 02:25 PM
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Apap Apap is offline
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I have a rev. C1 unit that has worked fine from day one.
The only time I had problems with it was with new drivers and has been solid since they were rolled back. I locked the output on my Directv box to 720p when I was having problems with playback on one of my client PCs and that was the last time I messed with it.
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  #16  
Old 04-07-2009, 03:58 PM
71_Cuda 71_Cuda is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 71_Cuda View Post
I have 2 D2s that I got back in January. I tried to get one working first before setting up the second one, and I had lots of problems. I tried everything I could find on these boards to fix it. Ultimately, covering the IR receiver on the HD-PVR was the biggest improvement for me. I went from several lock-ups per day to one every 2-3 days.

The second HD-PVR has been pretty flawless since I integrated it over a month ago.

I just recently swapped the 2 HD-PVRs (boxes only) to see if the problem is with the HD-PVR (likely) or with something else in the set-up (e.g. STB, wiring, USB port on PC, serial changing wiring or COM port). If the problem moves with the HD-PVR box, then I'll RMA the one that always locks up. If it stays with the rest of the set-up, then I'll have to try to figure out what else is causing it.

So my response to the survey would be different for the 2 HD-PVRs. But my consolidated response is "Works for me, most of the time that is".
In case anyone is interested....

My HD-PVR issue stayed with the set-up, NOT the HD-PVR iteslf. I would have sworn it was the HD-PVR, and was ready to RMA it. I'm glad I tried the swap. Since the issue stayed with the STB/cable/connections, I have a good feeling I know what my issue is/was. One of my DTV STBs is a DVR. I had connected it to my TV via HDMI along with the Component output to the HD-PVR. I used this to be able to navigate the set-up menus on the STB when my Sage setup was too unstable to view it through Sage "live TV". Plus I figured I could use the DVR if I overflowed my HTPC tuners. I think after 2-3 days of no communication from the TV back to the STB (by setting the TV input source to HDMI), the STB output gets messed up. The other day the HD-PVR connected to that STB was not recording when it was supposed to. Instead of power cycling the HD-PVR as I have in the past, I decided to switch to HDMI input on the TV to see what the STB was outputing. As soon as I did, the HD-PVR's lights lit up and it started recording. So I've unplugged the HDMI cable from the TV. Hopefully that solves my problems. If not, I'll have to look for something else associated with that STB, it's cables, and connections.

If this fixes it, my status will move up to "Once you get it going, it's fine".
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