Anyone tried the AVerMedia AVerTVHD Duet yet?

[EBTV]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

I use two of these cards in my Vista 32 server and XP server machines (one in each server). I get all of my OTA HiDef locals and the video/audio is just as good as my Hauppauge HVR-2250.

Thanks, HW! That's pretty close to all I need to know...

[stlbearboy]

I run into a interesting issue when I have both tuners on this card enabled. Currently I have
2 Avermedia M780 OTA analog unused
2 hauppauge 1250 OTA
1 hauppauge 1600 OTA analog unused
1 Avermedia Deut QAM
3 HD-PVRs Directv

When I enable both tuners on the Duet, Sage gets confused on which tuner numbers correspond with which tuner. It will schedule a directv show on an OTA tuner. The show will record on the HD-PVR but the channel change won't happen, so I get a bad recording.

[zetronboy]

Recordings on the first tuner 0 on this card are studdering and showing blocky artifacts. Using 1.3.0.74 driver.

Had to delete my old sage.properties file and run the setup wizard to get both tuners to show up. Sage was putting it in the ignore list.

[hingepin]

I've recently started to encounter the disappearing act on one of my cards that others have listed over on TGB site. Haven't had the time to read up on any solutions or what not. I've done the shutdown and unplug trick and that seems to work. I already had my Vista machine power setting set up to run all the time. I'll try to play with it later.

[simonen]

I just installed the avermedia duet card for OTA and its signal strength is far better than my HD homerun, which I have now mothballed. And it is only $60 to boot.

[hingepin]

I think it is a excellent card. Just wished WHS could see the QAM channels. I'd love to set up a box but I'm leary about spending the $90 on the software only to have it not work.

[simonen]

Well, my duet caused a BSOD last night while recording on both tuners. It turns out that others have noticed this problem as well, where after 30 minutes into a recording, using both tuners, that the card can get unstable.

I had to physically remove the card, reboot without it, shut down, reinstall the card and reboot again. This was the only way I could get the card to show up again.

It seems to be working fine now, but I wonder how long it will be before it happens again. I am currently using driver version: 1.3.0.74

I hope it is just a driver issue that can be fixed.

[wrems]

That's great I just ordered one and should be here today...

[HelenWeathers]

I've been using mine for 6 months now for lots of OTA recordings. No problems so far. Using the drivers that came on the disk with the card when I got it.

Never used QAM though so that may be different.

[simonen]

Originally Posted by wrems

That's great I just ordered one and should be here today...

I wouldn't get worked up just yet. Like Helen said, hers is just fine although I am strictly OTA as well. It could be something with my setup even though I did perform a clean install of the OS 1 week prior to installing the avermedia duet card.

It certainly would be worth trying the drivers that came with the disk in the first place. I just went to their site and grabbed the most recent ones when I installed it.

Aside from this, the card is really nice. OTA signal reception is really good compared to my HDHR.

[wrems]

I just dropped my new duet card into my server. Sage can see the card just fine, both tuners. However, when I go to do a channel scan it does not come up with any tunable stations for QAM. Any ideas? I am going to try OTA and see if that works… My HDHR has SCN and FRQ files, should I have those files for this card?

[simonen]

Have you tried using the packaged software to see if it can pick QAM? I haven't tried it for QAM, so I can offer little help.

[wrems]

Originally Posted by simonen

Have you tried using the packaged software to see if it can pick QAM? I haven't tried it for QAM, so I can offer little help.

I tried to use their proprietary media center software only to find out that since I bought a white box version of the card I can't have access...

I can pull OTA channels with the Duet just fine. QAM does not seem to work or I am doing something wrong.

Does anyone have the Avermedia Duet working with clearqam?

[hingepin]

I never was able to get the clear QAM to work in WHS. Too bad. I'd love to set up a WHS box. Comcast (my appologies Opus) didn't scramble the QAM channels in my area.

[soulrider4ever]

I had this card and am RMA'ing it, would freeze about 10 minutes into live TV. Tech support said they are getting a new batch of cards with a hardware update. Something about a resistor that causes the card not to show up properly...

[hingepin]

I'm guessing that if/when MS officially supports a tuner farm for WHS, Avermedia will be one of the first to jump at it since they were one of the first, if not the first, to support Win7. Until then, clear QAM in WHS seems to be limited to the 2250 or HDHR for the most part.

How about experimenting w/the M780 QAM tool for XP or the Sage properties mod for that card? Anyone tried that? I'd love to but the WAF is high so I'm afraid to screw with it right now.

[SprDtyF350]

I tried using one of these cards in my WHS server with no success. Sage sees the card but it finds no QAM channels. I now have the card in a Windows 7 machine at my desk and it is working fine. I e-mailed Avermedia asking about the WHS part of it and wasn't too encouraged with the response.

Mine is a white box version which in my opinion should not make the hardware any different from the retail version but with this card it apparently does.

Here is the first answer I got:

Ticket Subject : HD Duet WHS QAM

Reply:

--
Dear Customer,
Thank you for contacting AVerMedia Technologies, Inc. USA Office.

Do you have the retail version or white box version of AVerTVHD Duet?

We have not tested AVerTVHD Duet with Windows Home Server so there is no
guarantee that it will work.

The OS that has been tested and fully supported are Windows® XP, XP Media
Center Edition 2005 or Windows Vista and Windows 7 (32 and 64 Bit)


Here is the second answer I got from them:

Ticket Subject : HD Duet WHS QAM

Reply:

--
Dear Customer,
Thank you for contacting AVerMedia Technologies, Inc. USA Office.

The white box version requires Windows Media Center. The retail version
includes our application AVer MediaCenter that fully supports Clear QAM. You
may want to test with other third party applications like Beyond TV, or
Cyberlink PowerCinema.

So basically they never answered my question about when they might support WHS. And the answer was pretty much it is not going to do what you want it to so too bad...

[zetronboy]

If your having trouble making QAM channels show up in the scan, try this post
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30431

The 2nd tuner seems about 3dB down from the other so I had to remove my splitter.

[SprDtyF350]

Originally Posted by zetronboy

If your having trouble making QAM channels show up in the scan, try this post
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30431

The 2nd tuner seems about 3dB down from the other so I had to remove my splitter.

That property was already set because I also use a HDHR. It just does not seem to want to play using Windows Home Server.. And Avermedia does not seem to eager to want to fix the driver.

[rwc]

SIlly question (but I couldn't find the answer via google) does the duet do hardware encoding? (Does it do it for both mpeg2 and h.264? Or just one of the formats?)