Sage TV & Hauppauge HD-PVR

[Savage1701]

is the HD-PVR truly compatible with SageTV? I am seriously considering making the switch. The other brand of recorder software just ain't cutting it. Daily resets of HD-PVR are required.

Thanks for any info.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Savage1701

is the HD-PVR truly compatible with SageTV? I am seriously considering making the switch. The other brand of recorder software just ain't cutting it. Daily resets of HD-PVR are required.

Thanks for any info.

To word it a slightly different way, the HD PVR works great with Sage, the issues appear to be with the HD PVR itself, not the software using it. My HD PVR has been near flawless, other users have problems like you and Motofreak.

I'd guess if you're having problems, Sage won't fix them, that it's your HD PVR's fault. But the only way to know is to try, Sage has a free trial.

[mr_lore]

I've had my setup a little over a month now, I have had to reset my box twice, and I think at least one of those times was due to me messing around with the initial setup. But I am loving the HD PVR, using the then beta, now release drivers with DD 5.1, I think mine is a d2 revision.

[kevdod]

I have found that cycling the HDPVR on/off every time I want to view another channel helps. And if that doesn't work, I hard cycle it (unplug) before every channel change.

In order to do this effectively, I have positioned my couch to the right of the TV so that I can easily reach behind it to get to the plug. Unfortunately, I can't actually see the TV in this position, but it beats getting up and walking the 15 feet to the TV for every channel change. I just have my girlfriend describe what is going on on the TV. The GAF is actually not as low as you might think in this situation, as she likes to talk.

And honestly, the above only works about 10% of the time. The rest of the time I just stare at the black screen and send happy thoughts to the box. I have not run actual stats, but this seems to work about as well as the above.

I did see one of these recently: https://dreamcatcher.com/Dream-Catcher-Legend.php . Does anyone have any experience with them? Maybe it can "catch" my dream of the HDPVR actually working.

My suggestion to anyone considering the purchase of the Happauge HDPVR: make sure you fully consider the actual costs involved - it might retail for around $200, but you need to add in the cost of hiring a full time attendant to cycle the thing on and off for each channel change. So the cost then goes up to around $40,200 (not including benefits). (If you have kids, then I suppose you can just use them for the task).

The HDPVR has made me not want to watch TV ever again. Don't buy one, you will be sorry. (and yes, it is an E1 with all updates, patches, and cables connected correctly...)

[ghostlobster]

I'm running an HD-PVR and it's been pretty good. I generally have to recycle it maybe once per month, but that's pretty liveable.

[dadof4]

Originally Posted by kevdod

I have found that cycling the HDPVR on/off every time I want to view another channel helps. And if that doesn't work, I hard cycle it (unplug) before every channel change.

In order to do this effectively, I have positioned my couch to the right of the TV so that I can easily reach behind it to get to the plug. Unfortunately, I can't actually see the TV in this position, but it beats getting up and walking the 15 feet to the TV for every channel change. I just have my girlfriend describe what is going on on the TV. The GAF is actually not as low as you might think in this situation, as she likes to talk.

And honestly, the above only works about 10% of the time. The rest of the time I just stare at the black screen and send happy thoughts to the box. I have not run actual stats, but this seems to work about as well as the above.

I did see one of these recently: https://dreamcatcher.com/Dream-Catcher-Legend.php . Does anyone have any experience with them? Maybe it can "catch" my dream of the HDPVR actually working.

My suggestion to anyone considering the purchase of the Happauge HDPVR: make sure you fully consider the actual costs involved - it might retail for around $200, but you need to add in the cost of hiring a full time attendant to cycle the thing on and off for each channel change. So the cost then goes up to around $40,200 (not including benefits). (If you have kids, then I suppose you can just use them for the task).

The HDPVR has made me not want to watch TV ever again. Don't buy one, you will be sorry. (and yes, it is an E1 with all updates, patches, and cables connected correctly...)

So on a scale of 1 to 10 how would you rate the HDPVR? Great post...It made me laugh.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by kevdod

I have found that cycling the HDPVR on/off every time I want to view another channel helps. And if that doesn't work, I hard cycle it (unplug) before every channel change.

In order to do this effectively, I have positioned my couch to the right of the TV so that I can easily reach behind it to get to the plug. Unfortunately, I can't actually see the TV in this position, but it beats getting up and walking the 15 feet to the TV for every channel change. I just have my girlfriend describe what is going on on the TV. The GAF is actually not as low as you might think in this situation, as she likes to talk.

And honestly, the above only works about 10% of the time. The rest of the time I just stare at the black screen and send happy thoughts to the box. I have not run actual stats, but this seems to work about as well as the above.

I'm curious, are you using native resolution output from your STB or a fixed output? If native, did you set the 4000ms recording delay? It SOUNDS like the issue you are having is the problem with the HDPVR where it takes a few seconds to lock into the new resolution after a channel change. I could be wrong, but it just seems like if you are having this problem after every channel change then you have a setup issue. Most of those who complain about issues with the HDPVR, have never complained that their units have issues after channel changes (sure it might coincidentally lock up from time to time after a channel change, but it isn't a repeatable issue).

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Most of those who complain about issues with the HDPVR, have never complained that their units have issues after channel changes (sure it might coincidentally lock up from time to time after a channel change, but it isn't a repeatable issue).

As a frequent complainer, I must emphasize that lock-ups seem to be always related to a channel change (at least in my case). I could definitely get the thing to lock-up with a lot of live TV channel changes. Obviously when not sitting there watching I can't 100% say the lock-up happened at the time of a channel change, it seems a safe bet that it was. I never once saw it lock up with watching Live TV with no channel change.

That said, I've only had one lock-up in the past month after swapping out my HD-PVR from the one I was using to the second (eventually I'll get around to adding both at once... the USB-UIRT config. seems daunting). Even this second one would lock up frequently when I used it in the past, but for some reason things have been very stable. I RMA'ed the first, more troublesome unit and I pray when I get them both running together the lock-up Gremlins stay away.

[gatorwes]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

... did you set the 4000ms recording delay?...

Can you elabortate on this for a fellow HD-PVR user?

[Beefcake550]

there is a setting in the sage.properties file that is soemthing like "delay_to_wait" under the HD-PVR tuenr section. Set it to 4000 (for 4 seconds). What happens is when changing a channel:
1) stop current recording (normal)
2) send change channel command (normal)
3) wait 4000ms (new delay)
4) start recording new channel (normal)

What you are doign is changing the amount of time in step 3. It allows the STB some time to send out a stable signal that the HD-PVR understands. You need to do this if you have your STB set to do native resolutions of shows. The alternative is to set the STB to a constant resolution output like 720p or 1080i. Even then, I have found that the optical output of the STB causes issues for the HD-PVR when switchingfrom something like stereo to Dolby Digital 5.1. So, you should probably throw in the delay if you are using the optical outputs as well.

Simple diagram:
1) Is your STB set to native resolution? If YES, add delay, if no, continue
2) Are you using the optical input on the HD-PVR for audio? If YES, add delay, else continue
3) you are set to a fixed resolution output and are using the analog audio inputs....no delay required.

Hope this helps.

-Brian

[Savage1701]

OK, this delay thing makes sense. I need to at least try to figure out how to do that with the "snappy" software first, if it even can.

I can't change the STB resolution. It is fixed to whatever the source is. This sucks, but I can't change it.

Thanks.

[HuMan321]

Originally Posted by Beefcake550

there is a setting in the sage.properties file that is soemthing like "delay_to_wait" under the HD-PVR tuenr section. Set it to 4000 (for 4 seconds). What happens is when changing a channel:
1) stop current recording (normal)
2) send change channel command (normal)
3) wait 4000ms (new delay)
4) start recording new channel (normal)

What you are doign is changing the amount of time in step 3. It allows the STB some time to send out a stable signal that the HD-PVR understands. You need to do this if you have your STB set to do native resolutions of shows. The alternative is to set the STB to a constant resolution output like 720p or 1080i. Even then, I have found that the optical output of the STB causes issues for the HD-PVR when switchingfrom something like stereo to Dolby Digital 5.1. So, you should probably throw in the delay if you are using the optical outputs as well.

Simple diagram:
1) Is your STB set to native resolution? If YES, add delay, if no, continue
2) Are you using the optical input on the HD-PVR for audio? If YES, add delay, else continue
3) you are set to a fixed resolution output and are using the analog audio inputs....no delay required.

Hope this helps.

-Brian

I did a search of my Sage properties file and found 3 instances of the "delay_to_wait"

They were all under the encoder section and 1 was already set to 4000 and the other 2 were set to 0. Are these the ones to set to 4000?
Thanks,

[stanger89]

The one for the HD PVR should be set to 4000 yes. It won't gain you anything for other tuners.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by kevdod

I have found that cycling the HDPVR on/off every time I want to view another channel helps. And if that doesn't work, I hard cycle it (unplug) before every channel change.

In order to do this effectively, I have positioned my couch to the right of the TV so that I can easily reach behind it to get to the plug. Unfortunately, I can't actually see the TV in this position, but it beats getting up and walking the 15 feet to the TV for every channel change. I just have my girlfriend describe what is going on on the TV. The GAF is actually not as low as you might think in this situation, as she likes to talk.

And honestly, the above only works about 10% of the time. The rest of the time I just stare at the black screen and send happy thoughts to the box. I have not run actual stats, but this seems to work about as well as the above.

I did see one of these recently: https://dreamcatcher.com/Dream-Catcher-Legend.php . Does anyone have any experience with them? Maybe it can "catch" my dream of the HDPVR actually working.

My suggestion to anyone considering the purchase of the Happauge HDPVR: make sure you fully consider the actual costs involved - it might retail for around $200, but you need to add in the cost of hiring a full time attendant to cycle the thing on and off for each channel change. So the cost then goes up to around $40,200 (not including benefits). (If you have kids, then I suppose you can just use them for the task).

The HDPVR has made me not want to watch TV ever again. Don't buy one, you will be sorry. (and yes, it is an E1 with all updates, patches, and cables connected correctly...)

thanks for the laugh, but you really need to RMA; there's no reason to struggle with the device.

[HuMan321]

Originally Posted by stanger89

The one for the HD PVR should be set to 4000 yes. It won't gain you anything for other tuners.

Of the 3 listings in the properties files I cannot see any reference to HDPVR. They all start with mmc encoder (sorry, going from memory and probably not accurate)

[stanger89]

One "group" of those should have a line that says the name is HD PVR.

[SWKerr]

I have several tuners and on of my HD-PVR entries is as below. (the number will be different but the rest should be the same)

mmc/encoders/-431556906/video_capture_device_name=Hauppauge HD PVR Capture Device
mmc/encoders/-431556906/delay_to_wait_after_tuning=4000

[lfilomeno]

I have been testing one for the past month or so. I am using LM remote/MCE blaster for channel changing duties. The STB is an old D**H 301. I had experienced no lock ups or any negative behaviour from the unit. It is a C1 and have been operating in an close to 90 degrees temp (this done on purpose to test the reliability of it). It is sitting in top of the STB. I am using the drivers listed on this forum. After a month of usage, and under such high temps (I am in Puerto Rico!) so far so good.