Problems with a Home Server using HD-PVRs

[jesseiscanadian]

Hi Everyone

I am currently working for a company that has taken over IT support for a new client of ours. We are also taking over support of some users home networks, in particular, a network containing a SageTV deployment. Below are the basics before i lay it out...

The user has a Whitebox tower with a quad core cpu and plenty of ram. It has 4 1.5TB HDDs installed and is running Windows Home Server SP2. The drives are setup to be "redundant" within windows, so there is some software mirroring going on. As far as connected capture devices, there are two Hauppauge HD-PVR units linked to ShawHD boxes. Also there is a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 connected for low def capture, this is linked to a standard def digital box.

Drivers are as follows
HD-PVRs running 1.5.7.0 (23/06/2010)
WinTV running 7.9.1.28162 (11/06/2010)

SageTV version 7.0.23.246 installed
Java 1.6.0

There are two SageTV boxes with TVs in a bedroom and livingroom, connected with gigabit.



So the system had just seemed to start working ok when the previous tech who set everything up had "moved on". I was onsite with the customer looking at a weird issue where sometimes when vieweing or recording TV the picture would lock up and the live tv or captured show would be completely unusable.
Please see a sample here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJOM0...er_profilepage

Now i have confirmed that this only applies to the SageTV as watching the Shaw boxes directly works just fine.

I have restarted all services and the server, as well as power cycled the local Sage box, and the HD-PVR boxes with no luck.

Please see the next video, i essentially show how if i go to one channel (watching sopranos) and click record, it causes all the rest of the channels to be un watchable. The recorded video is a solid single image, but the audio is absolutely fine. I'm thinking something to do with the PVR units and how they are capturing video into the system. Nothing settings wise has been changed since it was working ok. They have over 350GB of space available on the server as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1ojS-Uc32Y

Unfortunately i have Zero experience with Home Server and any Sage software, as we deal with Microsoft Servers almost exclusively as a company.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[Beefcake550]

It sounds like the HD-PVRs have gone out to lunch. Check all the cabling to make sure nothing as come loose. You can check the channel lineup for each HD-PVR as well by looking at the video source setup. Make sure both are what you expect.

Aside from this, it would be helpful to mention which version of the HD-PVR you have. Flip them over and read t he "stepping". It should be a letter, then a number, like C1, D2, F1, etc.

There are older versions of the HD-PVR drivers that work better for some if they are using the older steppings of the HD-PVR.

[DMT]

Are you using optical (audio) from the HD PVRs to the STBs?

Also, what are you using to change channels on the STBs -- firewire or USB-UIRT with ir blasters?

[jesseiscanadian]

Thanks guys, i'll arrange to go onsite to take a look, hopefully tomorrow to get this information. Ill post when i have it.

Cheers!

Edit: Oh! What i do know is that the setup has USB-UIRT with blasters, and i have checked the channel lineups and they are correct for what he has.

[Beefcake550]

When you are onsite, you may want to consider going with the older drivers in hand. I believe 1.5.301 is the preferred version by users of older HD-PVRs. It can't hurt to try it out....

[jesseiscanadian]

Thanks guys, i'm going to try out the old drivers tomorrow as i didn't have the time while onsite today.

So there are two revisions, the first is Revision E1, the second is Revision C2

The connections are component with RCA for audio from both. I'll see how it goes with the drivers tomorrow and let you know.

Cheers!

[jesseiscanadian]

Hi guys, so the package i had downloaded had the latest drivers not the legacy ones. Is there a resource on the sage site i'm missing that has the drivers? Or maybe someone can PM me and email them over?

Cheers!

[kevine]

I would also be interested in these drivers if it is possible to solve my constant lockup problems on 2 HDPVRs. Thanks.

[DMT]

Originally Posted by kevine

I would also be interested in these drivers if it is possible to solve my constant lockup problems on 2 HDPVRs. Thanks.

I'm convinced it was optical audio causing my problems. My system has been stable for month and months now. I watch a lot of live TV and I don't like slow channel changes so my delay_to_wait_after_tuning=0 which could cause problems, potentially.

I have a C2 and E1 using 1.5.7.0 drivers. What I noticed using optical audio was that this driver/firmware added delay time, presumably a fix to sync optical audio which looked ugly on short channel changes but worked. When I switched to analog audio no such problems. I don't care about 5.1 audio so this is fine for me. Analog audio brought back an old problem I used to have - ground loop hum. No doubt inadequate cable TV grounding however this was easily solved first by tying the cable splitter to a cold water pipe, then later with one of those kind-of-expensive-for-what-it-is isolation filters which worked 100%.

[jesseiscanadian]

Does anyone have the old drivers to try?

Cheers!

[gplasky]

Provided by shspvr forums.

1.0.5.301

Gerry