HD-PVR 2

[briankeys]

It's such a minor issue for me that I don't want to risk introducing other problems in the pursuit of fixing this one. Normally I'm a gluten for that kind of punishment but I don't have a lot of time for futzing right now.

I have almost two weeks on these capture devices now and they have not made a single bad recording, zero. Server hasn't been rebooted either since they were installed, nor has the Sage service been stopped and restarted.

They are simply fantastic and I can't thank SHS enough for making these work.

I'm using the 'good' quality level for my recordings because while 'great' works fine with my HD200, the video falters occasionally on my mini PC extender. On the HD200 and a 72" screen, 'good' is still very crisp at 720P and a huge improvement from the SD recordings on my HVR1600 cards that I replaced.

Best h264 codec i've found so far is the Divx version. The Microsoft codec isn't bad but CoreAVC is terrible which surprised me. Really jerky with lots of color abnormalities though I haven't spent a lot of time on it as yet.

Thanks!

[Evil_Attorney]

Brian, so you decided that you could live with no live tv on your HD200?

[vipul19]

i have a motorola stb for cogeco here in Canada. I have the output for both component and hdmi set to 720p. I have disabled 1080p passthrough on the hdmi additional settings. This is all in the stb settings

I can only get the hd pvr 2 to get a signal with component output from the stb. hdmi output from the stb (and hdmi input in sage) results in no signal/recording.

Does anyone know what to do? I could live with the component setup, but thought if there was a way to get the hdmi to work, it would make things cleaner and neater with respect to all the wires.

Thanks!

[vipul19]

So now my problem is that with component video and optical audio, the audio is playing ahead of the video and also the video is really jittery.....

I hope someone can help get this set up properly.

Any help is appreciated!

[vipul19]

I think I have the component with optical audio working:

1. EVR Renderer
2. divx h.264 decoder
3. amd hdmi audio renderer
4. default audio decoder filter
5. hd audio audio output disabled.

If I could get hdmi to work, that would be great, but I'm leaving as is for now.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by vipul19

i have a motorola stb for cogeco here in Canada. I have the output for both component and hdmi set to 720p. I have disabled 1080p passthrough on the hdmi additional settings. This is all in the stb settings

I can only get the hd pvr 2 to get a signal with component output from the stb. hdmi output from the stb (and hdmi input in sage) results in no signal/recording.

Does anyone know what to do? I could live with the component setup, but thought if there was a way to get the hdmi to work, it would make things cleaner and neater with respect to all the wires.

Thanks!

You should read this page and you find what you looking for
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60396

[vipul19]

Thanks! I get it now. HDCP prevents the HD PVR2 from recording the hdmi signal...

[wayner]

If I want to get some backups for my existing HD-PVRs should I get more original HD-PVrs or go with the HD-PVR2? From this thread it looks like there are still bugs with the HD-PVR2 in Sage.

I have run a system with two HD-PVRs from shortly after the device was produced and I haven't had persistent issues, other than power supplies and one of my devices died.

[briankeys]

I've been running 2ea HD-PVR2 for months now and have had zero bad recordings. I used to have the HVR1600s and they would occasionally have bad audio in a recording.

I'm a big fan of the PVR2, they've been completely reliable with no messing around by me to reset or keep them going.

Their only issue for me is no audio when watching live TV on an HD200. The easy work around is to just hit record on what you want to watch and then watch it as it records.

My STBs are Dish VIP211K and I'm using HDMI cables between the STB and PVR2.

Again, zero issues other than the live TV thing.

[sacrament055]

So are you saying the audio is fine for live TV on HD300?

I notice you also said hit record them you can watch it but I wonder if that means you really just have to be delayed by a certain amount of time and it will play fine.

[Evil_Attorney]

Originally Posted by briankeys

Their only issue for me is no audio when watching live TV on an HD200. The easy work around is to just hit record on what you want to watch and then watch it as it records.

That's interesting. I wonder if someone could create a plugin mod that would circumvent "live" TV in this way. In other words, when you click on the guide, it record/plays instead of going into "live TV" mode.

Brian, if you hit record, then start watching a show from the recordings directory, what happens when the show ends? Does it record and play the next show on the channel without audio problems? I still have two of the HDPVR 2 that are literally collecting dust on my shelf. Would love to use them someday.

[phelme]

Are people here getting reliable DD 5.1 recordings with the "2" that all aspects of Sage can play? I finally gave up and went to 2 channel out of my DirecTV receiver, sigh. There were just too many that the HD300 simply can't play back. They would exhibit the play-pause, play-pause syndrome. I think the demuxer in the HD300 firmware is just too out of date at this point and has problems with MPEG header mapping.

[Evil_Attorney]

Originally Posted by phelme

Are people here getting reliable DD 5.1 recordings with the "2" that all aspects of Sage can play? I finally gave up and went to 2 channel out of my DirecTV receiver, sigh. There were just too many that the HD300 simply can't play back. They would exhibit the play-pause, play-pause syndrome. I think the demuxer in the HD300 firmware is just too out of date at this point and has problems with MPEG header mapping.

In my initial testing, I was able to get DD 5.1 on all my Directv recordings, as long as you were not watching it "live". I did get the play/pause bug on some channels when watching live TV and the latest beta firmware for my HD300. When using older firmware for the HD300, like the last non-beta, it didn't play/pause on some channels, but simply didn't play/see the audio on those channels.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by Evil_Attorney

In my initial testing, I was able to get DD 5.1 on all my Directv recordings, as long as you were not watching it "live". I did get the play/pause bug on some channels when watching live TV and the latest beta firmware for my HD300. When using older firmware for the HD300, like the last non-beta, it didn't play/pause on some channels, but simply didn't play/see the audio on those channels.

I haven't done heavy analysis to see what exactly is going on, if it's limited to certain channels, programing etc. I do know for instance that "Strike Back" on Cinemax has been consistently messed up for the HD300 for a while now. Since I switched to 2 channel output from the DirecTV this week the most current recording has been fine, though lacking in bad guys exploding in 5.1 of course.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Evil_Attorney

In my initial testing, I was able to get DD 5.1 on all my Directv recordings, as long as you were not watching it "live". I did get the play/pause bug on some channels when watching live TV and the latest beta firmware for my HD300. When using older firmware for the HD300, like the last non-beta, it didn't play/pause on some channels, but simply didn't play/see the audio on those channels.

with all the troubles you've had, would you do it all again, or just buy a used HD PVR 1212? I have the original and was thinking of the new model so I would have a backup machine, but after following this thread, my thoughts are leaning to just grabbing another 1212 for that reason. Thoughts?

[Evil_Attorney]

After three weeks playing with the 1512, it was clear to me that it wouldn't work for my current needs and I bought two new 1212 models (my old 1212 models were both having various issues). My two 1512 models are collecting dust on my shelf. I should probably sell, but I'm still holding out hope that they can be used in the future after a driver update or some other fix.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Evil_Attorney

After three weeks playing with the 1512, it was clear to me that it wouldn't work for my current needs and I bought two new 1212 models (my old 1212 models were both having various issues). My two 1512 models are collecting dust on my shelf. I should probably sell, but I'm still holding out hope that they can be used in the future after a driver update or some other fix.

brilliant - sorry for your loss, but thanks for the honesty

[sflamm]

From what I have read the new 1.7.1.30059 firmware works well on the HDPVR 1212 (with the color mapping adjustments to the properties file).

I am still on the 1.5.7.0....

Wondering if upgrading the firmware will make things better?

[phelme]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

with all the troubles you've had, would you do it all again, or just buy a used HD PVR 1212? I have the original and was thinking of the new model so I would have a backup machine, but after following this thread, my thoughts are leaning to just grabbing another 1212 for that reason. Thoughts?

My old 1212, that is being used with another DirecTV receiver has audio problems of it's own. That combo suffers from audio drops when recording 5.1, which through my Yamaha produces loud pops when the DD signal goes out, so it too is in 2 channel PCM mode to circumvent that. Though to be fair, that is more of an issue with the DirecTV receiver which the 1212 exposes. The HD-PVR 2 handles that issue much better however.

So between the old and new HD-PVR's it's a wash for me; surround audio simply is unfortunate on both for my particular sources and playback devices. I think it's safe to say that the 1212's have more heat issues than the newer models. I had one die on me from just that, but the other 1212, my first one in fact, is still chugging along with just a new power supply.

If pressed to choose between the two, I would get the HD-PVR 2 for reliability. It's problem for me is really the HD300 and it's dead-end firmware, which can't handle some MPEG headers correctly.

[tvmaster2]

still on 1.5.7.0 here as well with a 1212 - audio works fine