Hauppauge Colossus HD-PVR

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

My first thought would be to uninstall the 1600's and see if you can get the Colossus working by itself first. Hauppauge is notorious for hardware/drivers not working with their own mixed hardware.

Yeah, that is what I was thinking. An all day project now. Ok, a few hours. Perhaps Sunday. I just hope the 1600's will work with the Colosus as well when I'm done.

Does anyone with the colosus have other capture cardsd in with the it?

Thanks.

[sumrtym]

So, no problems running Sage on Windows 8? I was getting ready to buy a Win 7 copy in a hurry as I figured 8 may cause problems, either with capture card drivers (also have an HDHR for OTA, and will either do Colossus or HD-PVR). I also have to use component (Time Warner) and prefer optical for 5.1.

This is starting to sound pretty hopeful for Win 8 and Colossus though....

16 GB seems like extreme overkill on RAM to me. I can't see that amount being a main cause for lack of problems....at least I hope not.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

Yeah, that is what I was thinking. An all day project now. Ok, a few hours. Perhaps Sunday. I just hope the 1600's will work with the Colosus as well when I'm done.

Does anyone with the colosus have other capture cardsd in with the it?

Thanks.

I have a 1600, 2500 and two colossus' in my system. Never ran HW clear before installing the colossus.

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I have a 1600, 2500 and two colossus' in my system. Never ran HW clear before installing the colossus.

Thanks, that's promising. I have played with it since I installed it. I might try again tonight.

Have you seen the Slow Motion video no sound thing that I did, or am I in new teritory?

[sacrament055]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

Thanks, that's promising. I have played with it since I installed it. I might try again tonight.

Have you seen the Slow Motion video no sound thing that I did, or am I in new teritory?

I've seen something like that after changing the channel a few times (something around maybe less than 10) without restarting the SageTV service.

If you're seeing that on your first recording that's not the same thing.

[Hunter69]

So I am wondering if people are monitoring the amount of memory being used by sagetv. I recently was successfully virtualized my sagetv server and switched from whs v1 to win 7 64 bit w 4 gig ram. The colossus have seemed to perform much better on my current setup. The memory usage seems to continually grow. Is this the same for everyone? I am hoping it will top off. I am using drive 30151. What are your experiences? DO you think that the memory leak is what causes you to reboot/restart the sage service?

I just checked the current memory usage and it has grown to 831,000 Kb. With whs v1 I used to have issues once it got above 500,000 kb. Things are still running smoothly. I only use extenders with my server. 1 hd300 and 1 hd200.
Thanks for sharing the info

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

Thanks, that's promising. I have played with it since I installed it. I might try again tonight.

Have you seen the Slow Motion video no sound thing that I did, or am I in new teritory?

Does anything from this post sound like what you were getting? Still using the driver listed in the post I may try a newer version when I have time between recordings that I can roll back if I have problems.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Skybolt

Thanks, that's promising. I have played with it since I installed it. I might try again tonight.

Have you seen the Slow Motion video no sound thing that I did, or am I in new teritory?

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

Does anything from this post sound like what you were getting? Still using the driver listed in the post I may try a newer version when I have time between recordings that I can roll back if I have problems.

The new driver works well, but I still have to restart the server every few days. The recordings will do the slow motion thing. Sound is there, but it is unwatchable. I had the same issue if I went too long without restarting with the 292 version (or whatever it is).

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

Does anything from this post sound like what you were getting? Still using the driver listed in the post I may try a newer version when I have time between recordings that I can roll back if I have problems.

Yes, exactly like that.

I think I am just going to return the Colosus. I just don't haveit in me to trouble shoot this stuff anylonger. Besides it doesn't ge me to where I want to be, and that is cable card only tunners.

Thanks to al for trying to help me out. This board is truly the best around.

[plnewton]

Hi everyone

I Installed Colossus about 2 weeks ago and it pretty much worked perfectly out of the box and has been rock solid but this morning the display on the extenders shutters quite baddly and there is no audio at all.

If I play one of the recorder files it plays like it is constantly in fast foward, I have been through the settings but can't seem to find anything out of the ordinary

Can any one make suggestions??

[SHS]

Originally Posted by plnewton

Hi everyone

I Installed Colossus about 2 weeks ago and it pretty much worked perfectly out of the box and has been rock solid but this morning the display on the extenders shutters quite baddly and there is no audio at all.

If I play one of the recorder files it plays like it is constantly in fast foward, I have been through the settings but can't seem to find anything out of the ordinary

Can any one make suggestions??

That why we have to do reboots for some of us it everday sound like you maybe able get way with week reboots

[panteragstk]

I do a reboot every sunday and have had very few problems sticking to this schedule. If I forget I'll get some jerky recordings.

[plnewton]

If the reboot fixed it then that would be fine but after the reboot it is still the same..

If I record something from wintv then it is fine so the problem is within sage

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by plnewton

If the reboot fixed it then that would be fine but after the reboot it is still the same..

If I record something from wintv then it is fine so the problem is within sage

What is the delay to tune setting set to? I have mine set a 4000 and it works.

[plnewton]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

What is the delay to tune setting set to? I have mine set a 4000 and it works.

Actually I sorted my issue out, it turned out that the optical Audio cable had dropped out of the set top box

I thought this was quite strange that this would cause the video to shutter like that, there was no audio of cause but I thought that was just due to the video shutter.

It would be interesting to know if anyone that is experiencing the shutter problem are using optical audio input on the card

[sumrtym]

I swear, this card makes one just tired.

My first card, no signal in SageTV. In their included software, jerky slideshow video and no sound. Returned the card for another, and with newest drivers connected composite / optical I have a couple faint horizontal lines running vertically up the screen but also a color shift between them more noticeable on some content than others. I have no sync or just a minor once in awhile problem, but I do get a freeze in picture, jump to another freeze in picture, then resume, that does not effect audio every so often (maybe 10-13 minutes, sometimes sooner). Since when I have a minor lip sync issue this jump corrects it, I thought Hauppauge might be doing it on purpose in the driver to correct sync issues (but who knows). Absolutely no problems with changing resolution or audio during commercials, so was feeling relatively lucky.

Anyway, swapping component cables does nothing to fix the color shift / lines issue, plugging STB box into another outlet, etc. Ground loops are so hard to troubleshoot. So I decide to go the Monoprice route with the box for HDMI to DVI with optical to HDMI output to Colossus since it protects me from possible down-res on component outputs at some time in the future. HDMI output is perfect from the monoprice box hooked directly to the TV. Into the Colossus with HDMI selected in SageTV properties for the card and I get slow motion video with static cutting in / out! I know it's not the monoprice box because a) others have it working on their system, and b) it looks great hooked directly to tv.

Hauppauge of course goes, gee, don't know, we'd have to have it here. I think I just have another flakey card, this one with a problem with the HDMI input and that skipping every so often on the Component inputs may have been another symptom. Seriously, how many cards do you have to go through to get a working one??? I'm really starting to feel / see the 1-3 star reviews now....

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by sumrtym

I swear, this card makes one just tired

Sorry you are having so much trouble.

It seems that this card is really hit or miss. Whether it's a manufacturing quality issue or a configuration problem, I can certainly empathize with you and the problems you're having as I went through many of them myself.

At first I was very critical of Hauppauge based on what I felt was a half baked product. But then I sat back and realized the complexity of the operating environment that we are throwing at them. It's easy to criticize cableco STB's for being simple and boring, but they've figured out that controlling the user experience and the hardware environment is critical for consistent uptime and user experience quality. The same could be said for Apple vs. the PC...

I tolerated some of the Colossus quirks for months before finally giving up and moving on to the HDHR Prime with cablecard. I realize this isn't an option for everyone and makes some assumptions based on arbitrary DRM copy-freely labels, but for me it's been a big upgrade. I still have occasional missed recordings, but in general it's been a better solution in almost every way.

I'm hanging on to my Colossus just in case the DRM police come along to ruin my fun, but I'd hate to have to go back.

Finally, since dropping the Colossus I've noticed that I'm a happier person, my neighbors seem friendlier, my kids are smarter, and my wife is more attractive. I can't confirm that these are all related to ditching the Colossus, but it's definitely possible.

-uberpixel

[sumrtym]

Originally Posted by uberpixel

Sorry you are having so much trouble.

Yes, doesn't seem to be ending. I returned the one I had and dropped a new Colossus into the system thinking it must be a bad HDMI input / capture part of that card. However, I'm getting the exact same thing...slow motion video and on/off repeating static. This is of course using the monoprice box which shows no problems with the HDMI out plugged directly into the TV. I don't think anyone else had this problem with the monoprice box, so it MUST be something about the system itself.

None of the settings for audio / video codecs should effect what I'm seeing as a cause, right? I mean, I was getting video / audio with component / toslink so I can't think why just changing to HDMI would show an issue? And yes, the input is HDMI in SageTV for the Colossus card (otherwise wouldn't show anything).

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by sumrtym

Yes, doesn't seem to be ending.

Maybe it's time to chuck it...

Not sure if it would be any better for your system, but you could maybe give one of the new HD-PVR's a try. Be careful though as that could just be another colossal pain in the butt.

-uberpixel

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by sumrtym

None of the settings for audio / video codecs should effect what I'm seeing as a cause, right? I mean, I was getting video / audio with component / toslink so I can't think why just changing to HDMI would show an issue? And yes, the input is HDMI in SageTV for the Colossus card (otherwise wouldn't show anything).

Video decoder will have lots to do with how things playback. On the foxconn box, no decoder but the TMT decoder will work properly. Even on my HT client with a much more powerful card the TMT decoder is still the best one. All the others have some sort of strange issue or another. Really irritating.