Get a PVR card for $44 - Refurbed M150s at Newegg.com

[justme]

EDIT:They're out of stock already. Sorry to those who missed it.

The title says it all. Here's the link. I know the last time Newegg has a similiar deal($77) on refurbed PVR250s they went within a day. So if you want one get it fast or it may be gone.

This is a Blackbird style card like the Hauppauge Roslyns sold by Frey. These are just made made AverMedia. SHS's site has drivers for them so don't worry about that part. I've had an M150 for monthes and it works fine with SageTV2. It even works fine with my Retail PVR250(type 15), so no need to worry about issues of mixing 15/16 cards like some have had.

One warning...I can't say if having more than one M150 in the same machine would work or not since I only have one M150 myself. I know the first version of the Hauppauge Roslyn drivers would only allow one Roslyn card per machine. Hauppauge and Frey have since fixed this with new drivers. But AverMedia's drivers may only allow one of their cards per machine.

The only other thing I can think of is that some feel the tuner of the M150 is not as good as the retail PVR250. I've found it to be fine once I adjusted it's capture settings to mirror my PVR250's behavior. I don't think I could tell you which card made a recording just by playing the show in SageTV2. I'm happy with mine and I paid over $70s, so I consider this a good buy.

PS:I have no connection to NewEgg.com. Other than being a customer. I just thought people here at the Frey board should know, since these deals aren't advertised. BTW, if the link fails it means their already gone.

/justme

[jglev]

Thanks. I just couldn't resist at that price, so I just ordered one.

[Worf]

All gone

[justme]

All gone

You should've seen how fast the refurbed PVR250's went. I doubt they were up for more than 3 hours after their posting.

Thanks. I just couldn't resist at that price, so I just ordered one.

Well, at least one of our guys benefited. I'm just trying to help pay back for all the good deals others have posted, that I took advantage of.

[belden]

Just a note. I did a search on newegg.com this evening (June 07) and the refurbished M150 came up as being in stock and so I ordered one. Cut to a few hours later, I'm searching for more information on the card and I come upon this page and after reading it I went back to newegg and checked and sure enough, it said they were out of them. However, they have already charged me for the order and say they will be preparing it tomorrow. I'm 99% sure it said they were available when I ordered one, however I'm not experienced enough with newegg to know their policies. Would they charge a person for an item they don't have in stock? So for those of you looking for the $44 M150, keep checking back at newegg to see if anything changes and if it turns out that I'm not actually getting one, I'll let you know.

[kny3twalker]

look like the link works for me as well even though I did not order one
the card has no RCA video port starnge???

[justme]

Would they charge a person for an item they don't have in stock?

Nope, you shouldn't even find an "Add to Cart" link unless they're in stock. You should have no problem getting your card, since they were in stock when you ordered. I've ordered a lot(more than I should perhaps) of stuff from NewEgg and I've always had good experiences.

So for those of you looking for the $44 M150, keep checking back at newegg to see if anything changes

Yes, you should always check regularly if you're in the market for one of these cards. The M150 refurbs come in and out of stock alot. The PVR250 refurbs come in much less frequently. I got tired of waiting and got a good(relatively speaking) deal on a used Retail PVR250 on fleabay.

the card has no RCA video port starnge???

Correct, no RCA video input jack just SVHS. Also even the normal M150 packages ship without a RCA to SVHS adapter. I figured if I need(unlikely since I love SVHS) it I'll just use the adapter that came with my PVR250. Or make one using the directions at SHS's site. I haven't tested this out but... Sage does show a composite source for the M150 in the source setup menu.

[Grasshopper]

Got my refurb M150 today, downloaded the drivers from Avermedia. Seemed to install okay, but ominously, WDM TV Tuner is listed twice in the device manager (only have one card), and WDM Video Capture isn't listed at all. Sage doesn't recognize the card, neither does the app that comes bundled in the download. Suggestions? I'm running XP Pro.

[mdmint]

No suggestion, except maybe return it and get a PVR250. Sure they cost more, but my first time ever Sage installation of a Server and Client with 5 tuners, one of them network mode in Client, went flawlessly. I suspect partly because I made the decision to go for the tried and proven PVR250s over cheaper models... Quite often it's true you get what you pay for.

[justme]

Grasshopper,

I never used the drivers directly from AverMedia. I suspect that package isn't really meant for your type of setup. Aver only officailly supports them for Windows MCE 2004. I got my drivers from SHS's site. I'd suggest only using these drivers. They're listed under the MCE section of his site. I'm using version 1.0.3.31. They work fine and I've gone thru 2 installs on different machines.

Many people have gotten these to work, but they only work with SageTV 2.0. But your issue sounds driver related. I'd remove all the drivers and delete the dir they're currently in(so windows can't automatically re-install them). Then download the drivers from SHS's site and extract them to a dir. Then when windows finds the new hardware, install it manually by pointing Windows to the dir where you extracted SHS's drivers to. All of the stuff starts out "AverMedia AVerTV" under "sound,video and game controllers" in system hardware of device manager. You can see my attached jpg for my system.

As for returning it feel free to, NewEgg has a great return policy. With all respect to mdmint, the PVR250 was not a very good choice when it first came out. The drivers were VERY flacky. If not for SHS and his site, Hauppauge would probably stopped selling them a while back. I've had my card(PVR250) for 2 years and it went thru at least 10 driver versions(in the first 6 monthes or so) before it was finally working properly. Credit to Hauppauge for hanging in there and getting the drivers up to spec.

But like I said you're issue is most likely driver package related. After you get the drivers installed correctly make sure that the aver or conxexant isn't listed on this line in your sage.properties file:
mmc/ignore_encoders=

[kny3twalker]

Yeah did you test the driver alpha 1.7 A first release with liveTV no record quality switching unless recording
same format as winTV 2000 currently uses
damn those sucked
ended up formatting cause I was have trouble going back to 1.6 B
Been through every driver that SHS has posted since 1.6 A
over a year and nearly a half ago

[justme]

kny3twalker,

Yep, I pretty much went thru just about them all. Especially back when they were trying to get CC to work. Each new driver would say it was added, but it didn't work. I can't remember exactly how long that went on. I also had a very severe issue with corrupted segments of my recordings, even in WinTV2000 or KevinKiller's WinTVcap. I was to the point of building custom graphs(in Graphedit) to record shows to see if that helped. I even made several Frankenstein installs, using certian files from different driver versions. I finally got a stable setup somewhere in the middle of the 1.7 series. I've got those drivers burnt off to CD. I can't really see myself changing them again soon. Stability is far too important now that the wife uses the system.

God bless SHS, his site, and all the great users there. Without them I would have returned the PVR250 within the first month and probably never even have found SageTV. My wife came very close to convincing me to return the card , but now she's a loyal SageTV user and she's the reason I've added the recent tuners.

/justme

[mdmint]

Sounds like I actually did get lucky in my Sage system building timing. Sage and haupauge drivers bugs mostly worked out before I discovered ya'll. I may haved missed some of the early "fun" of discovery and debugging and but I'm definitely reaping the rewards of lots of all your previous labors! Many thanks one and all.