Calling all Hauppauge 350 users for satisfaction poll?

[Bathel]

Originally posted by carlgar
Bathel what speed system are you running on? Since I did encounter 1 lockup with hyper-threading disabled. I really think this is a speed related issue.

Is there anyone who is satisfied with the 350 and think they have a fast system? Please post your speed. It would also be useful to know if you are using the Hauppauge remote with their software. Most of these problems do seem to be centered around the use of the skip buttons.

I was running it on an P4 3.0 800mhz hypertreaded processor with an intel chipset with no issues with the new drivers. I have since switch it to a PIII 600 Celeron with a via chipset and have no issues.

As for the remote ... i have updated a few .dll's from some other threads. I don't remember if it was on this forum of SHS's .... you can do a search. I know there was some issues that I had with the remote and the skip feature ... but once I replaced the .dll it went away also ... I a few hours I'll try to find the thread that had them and post here. Right now I have to run to the airport.

[Bathel]

Originally posted by Catman
By the way Bathel, I did download a 1.8 driver, the latest on the Hauppauge website when I installed the board 3 weeks ago. What is the difference between that driver and the one in the link?

They were beta drivers that were put out to help fix issues with multiple cards in one machine. I don't know that they are offical yet. You would have to read the thread to find out more ... my experience is that I have no issues for the last week with these drivers and my 350 where before I could not go 30 minutes without a soft lock or hard lock.

[Catman]

Thanks Bathel for the info. I tried installing the new betea drivers by using the Hauppaugh removal tool and reinstalling but Sage crashed. I reinstalled the previous Hauppaugh system and reinstalled Sage and got it all working agaig. I plan just uninstall the PVR 350 driver and reinstall it from the beta release - when I get the guts!!!

[RobSpangler]

Originally posted by GrayGh0st
I have the 350 and have problems w/ the tv-out. Same as everyone else. During fast forwards and rewinds, sometimes, the tv-out freezes. It's fixed by disabling/re-enabling the device w/o reboot. This is kind of a pain b/c I'm using the 350's tv out as the sole output from my pvr. So if I want to disable/re-enable the output, I have to switch the s-video cable from the 350 to my video card. Not that this is a lenghty process (15 seconds), it's just annoying, and happens more often than I'd like.

My setup in case anyone wanted to know:

Biostar mobo - NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra chipset
80 gig WD HD
512 DDR 3200 (I think) RAM
On-board sound
Cheap PNY GeForce4 MX 440 64MB
1.3 ghz AMD Athlon
Hauppauge PVR350

I find this post to be particularly disenchanting!!!

I've been having the same issues (frequent lockups during playback and/or while FF/RW, TVOut UI lockups) I have arrived at the same solution...toggle the UI, toggle the card...however, my wife doesn't have the same patience or desire to screw with it, so the reset button has been the solution of choice (besides, she wants the monitor OUT of the living room!!

From what I've been reading (for about 2 months now...) the Nvidia NForce chipset is supposed to be the "solve all" solution to the playback/lockup issue...a Hauppauge hardware/driver incompatability issue from what I gather! And this solution doesn't even address the TVOut UI issue...a Sage problem from what I've picked up. Nonetheless, I have been poking around for a mobo with this chipset (conning the wife into spending another $60 or $100) so that it will fix the major lockup problem, and in the mean time convinced her that the UI issue is livable since it happens less frequently...perhaps not!

In my opinion, the PVR-350 is a big POS! I mean the picture quality is GREAT as far as I'm concerned, but the lockup/reliability issue makes it worthless.

To make things worse, it appears to me that the only people concerned about it are those of us that have been dumb enough to have purchased one!

I'm so frustrated at this point that I am trying to figure out which video card is going to provide a decent picture so I can switch to it. I'll probably replace the 350 with a 250; however, I'm actually concerned about the reliability/functionality of the 250 since I've had such a bad experience up to this point, which means I am also looking into other hardware encoder options as well.

This turns my little $150 PVR project (I had a couple of spare PC's laying around...) into a complete waste of money and now have to toss it, buy MORE and different hardware only to accomplish what should have happened in the first place!

My vote: PVR350 = 100% failure!

Thanks,
Rob

Here's my config in case it makes any difference:

Attempt #1:
Micron PC (some Intel chipset), PIII-700, Nvidia GEForce 256 - failed miserably!

Attempt #2:
ECS K7VTA3, AMD 1800, Diamond Stealth (S3) - works as described.

[Catman]

I totally agree with you Rob. I have the same problems. My Mobo uses a Nvidia chipset so that doesn't help.

I get soft and hard lockups every day. The system can't stay up with the hardware decode out for more than 12 hours, sometimes a lot less.

The purchased the board and software from Sage and I see no help coming from them.

[edgley]

I have just upgraded to the beta drivers, and I *seem* to be stable with UI enabled.

I shall leave it running overnight and see in the morning.

[Catman]

edgley,

Did you install over the drivers or did you "clean" them all off and install the beta. Is there a file missing from the beta drivers?

[kny3twalker]

RobSpangler

you can use the pvr 350 as a 250 just do enable the TV out
also for video cards a geforce FX 5200 I would go with
it does find for my notebook when I connect it to a TV through the svideo output
you can get them for under 60 dollars and will do VMR9 and overlay rendering with no stutters

Man I keep reading this topic and see that even those that have reported no problems many times state they have some problems of some kind

Sorry to hear all this

Seems like Hauppauge needs to release another set of drivers quickly
since the current beta are not helping

[edgley]

Hello, I installed them over the top.

Its been on since last night, thats 16 hours.

Its an Intel 865 running XP Pro with an Nvidia 5700 LE card

No file missing, this time.

When i did a clean install, yes there was a file missing.

[Catman]

Thanks edgley, I'll try it.

[dgoodwyne]

I have a 350 and it runs verywell as long as I keep the OSD turned off. I am hoping Haupaugge gets this issue resolved soon as I have read that it is not a Sage issue.

[edgley]

dgoodwyne,

What drivers are you using?
I had this very same problem until I put on the newest ones from SHS

[Catman]

I installed the new drivers. Lasted about 50 minutes. I was using the remote alot, looking at various recordings and live tv. Had a hard lockup. Heat is not the problem. When I use only the VGA out, never a lockup. There is still a major 350 TV out problem.

[edgley]

From looking at kit lists in sigs, can it be noted that more people with AMD are having problems than us Intel bods?

[carlgar]

Originally posted by carlgar
I don't think SageTV is the cause of the high usage, Sage seems to only be using about 30%. It seems to be some program "lsas" that causes the high usage. The high usage is not causing any problems it was just an observation by me. I do use this as a working computer and the only issue I encountered was the studdering which is now gone with SageTV running at the above normal priority. I believe when I was running with Hyper-threading SageTV only used about 10% of the CPU. At that time the only 100% usage I saw was when starting a new program such as quicken.

I have now discovered that the lsas.exe program is a virus, do not confuse with lsass.exe, a valid file. I would recommend that anyone with a lsas.exe running on their system check out thispost.

[RobSpangler]

OK, here's an update to *MY* situation:

I dumped the old m/b & video, went out and specifically purchased all new...
So far, aside from a couple of minor glitches, it's been working great for about two weeks now!

Let me qualify "GREAT!" My interpretation of "no problems" means: no lock ups, no freezes, no "quicky reboots", no "special procedures", no re-attaching the monitor to "check" something, none of the hinky stuff...the wife sits down, picks up the remote, it works, and she's happy.

Here's my setup:

ECS N2U400-A m/b w/AMD1800+ AthlonXP
512 mb of generic (a.k.a. CHEAP ram)
PowerColor (ATI Radeon 9200 based) video w/DVI output

Wiped the whole thing and re-installed everything from scratch using Sage build 20, the Hauppauge "beta drivers" that I found on one of the other threads here, and disabled the PVR350 TV output.

My TV is a Sony KF-50WE610 w/DVI inputs. Now, I've read a number of lengthy posts on other forums about why you can't connect a PC's DVI to a TV's DVI, analog-digital DVI cable incompatability, etc... At any rate, I just decided "what the hey!" and plugged it in...The video card picked it up right away as a "Sony TV", adjusted the resolution accordingly, and so far it seems to work OK. The picture quality is definately *NOT* what it was on the PVR's TV output, and the overscan for the PC output is way off, but Sage's video picture is fine and the functionality is ALL there! PC goes to "sleep" and I just hit the power button on the PVR's remote and it wakes up, FF/RW, Live, recorded, playback while recording something else, so far have not had any of the problems I was experiencing while using the PVR's TV output...that's GREAT!

The only "glitches" I've run into have been 1) Sage filled up all my hdd's even though I told it to leave 2GB on "C" and 2) Sage program kept loosing "focus" and the remote stopped working. I don't feel that these are related to the PVR issues and I have them mostly resolved. I know this is off the subject, but just exactly WHAT happens when Sage uses up all the hdd space you have available? I thought it would over-write shows that have been "watched" with new ones; however, mine just kept using up disk space until the OS essentially froze from lack of disk space. I even had it set to "leave 2GB free" on the "C:" drive; however, when the muchly anticipated Stargate Atlantis aired in our house, Sage wasn't on duty! Fortunately, I caught it and only missed the first 10-15 mins of the 11pm showing, but that little glitch could have been a devastating issue in the WAF dept, as I (and Sage) have regained full status (minus a few points for the Stargate 15 min issue). My focus problem appears to have been related to my wireless keyboard...I have an IR keyboard/mouse setup and apparently it gets confused by both the PVR and my TV's remotes so that when you hit a button on one of them, the KB receiver thinks it's a command and tries to do something which takes the "focus" off of Sage. I have "hidden" the kb IR receiver and the problem seems to have vanished (still watching this issue)

Sorry for the lengthy post here, but I did previously rant loudly about the "bad" and wanted to give the "good" some air time.

What I still feel is sad is that, as I previously stated, the only one entity out of the three involved (ME, Hauppauge, and Sage) that seems to give a hoot about the problems that all PVR-350 owners appear to have is ME! (actually, all of us PVR350 sucka's) and that's really really sad! I base this conclusion on the simple fact that you only need to take a look at this thread...who has posted here? Only the PVR350 sucka's...not a peep out of anyone else (of the three I stated). I suppose that it's not reasonable to expect a rep from Hauppauge to read this thread, but there is another company involved here, and honestly, from what I've seen on the other threads there is a SERIOUS lack of involvement on their behalf.

Rob Spangler

[carlgar]

RobSpangler, while I disagree that you are the only one that cares about the problems, I would state the the 350 owners are the most concerned. I have been fighting 350 related issues for over 7 months now. I now have a work around solution to most of the 350 issues but do not plan to let up until I think all of the issues I see have been corrected. For the latest information I got from Frey support see my post here .

[chrysek]

I had originally PVR-350 in my PC, then I did purchase PVR-250, my screen in PVR-250 started to get messed up a lot and the nly thing to get it fixed was to turn off my PC, turn off my cable box and even disconnect the cable. Sudenly all of that did stop working so I returned my PVR-250 back to circuit city. I did order a new one from online retailer and the same problem started to apear right away. I then did figure out that i could not have to have anything plugin to my cable box other than my svideo which went directly to my PVR-250. Ok, that was all fine, I finaly got my signal and was able to watch both dish network and cable on my HTPC. Problem started when the system and sagetv started to crash a lot, it would not bring sagetv down, it would hard reset my PC. it started to be so anoying. I removed sage, I removed java, and all. I finally got my system more stable but still crashing.

One thing to be noted, my PVR-350 came in last month with CD driver v1.8, my new PVR-250 came with CD drivers disk 1.8a. I think after I installed those drivers for my PVR-250 it started to crash like crazy. But also now since I do rewad a lot of the posts I think it might be an issue to have both PVR-250 and PVR-350 working next to each other.

I do notuse TV out on my PVR-350, I have ATI 9600 to send video back to my TV.

Does anyone have any suggestions what should I do? How can I get the latest drivers for my PVR cards which could corect this problem? Are there any newer drivers other than the ones I've seen in some message threads?

Thank you so much for your help and suggestions.

Chris

[carlgar]

You should be using the New Hauppauge Beta Drivers for IVAC15/16 Combination drivers when using a 350 and 250 in the same system.

[dgoodwyne]

Thank you Edgerly for the help - I was losing hope on it working properly

david goodwyne