Hauppauge HD-PVR support

[stalky14]

Tosses in 2 pennies...

I have 4.9 and a HDPVR and here is my experience.

Just got Comcast because I moved. I had Cox before and it was FAR superior in channel count, picture quality, hardware (can't believe I'm saying that about SA hardware), and internet speed. I thought the Motorola box would be better but what a letdown. The cable guy left it here with the component output set to 480i. Apparently it only does fixed output on the component lines and the menu to change it is hidden and only accessible at powerup with a Power->Menu press. I changed it to 1080i. I only need 720P for my TV, but for some reason 1080i is the only resolution where the audio doesn't drift out of sync for me. 720P and 480 will drift out of sync several seconds within minutes of tuning in regardless of codec or
bitrate.

I'm using analog audio. The digital from the Comcast box into the HDPVR acts like it has a bit stuck. (If you've ever heard digitized audio with a stuck bit, you know what I mean.) No big deal, though.

I'm using the commercial ($15) CoreAVC h.264 codec. Seems to be the best balance of CPU use and stability for me. I have no hardware acceleration and am in fact just using Intel GMA950 motherboard graphics. My CPU is a 2.53Ghz Core2 E7200. Memory=2GB. OS=XP-Pro.

I'm using a separate USB2 PCI card for just the HDPVR to avoid bus contention with my other USB devices, including a hard drive. I had stuttery input prior to this, although that was on a slower CPU as well.

I'm tuning with a UIRT. Not using the Hauppauge remote or IR blaster.
My remote control is a Harmony-880 via the UIRT and EventGhost.

My only major reproducable bug is when watching live... or paused-live, going directly to the program guide with live audio in the background and selecting another channel will often hang the ViewScape, necessitating a force-quit and restart from the Task Manager. If you escape back to the main menu and select the guide from there (buffering stops) and then choose a channel, it always works fine.

Also, skipping forward/back too rapidly (skipping again before video/audio have resumed from the previous skip) can cause playback to glitch out for a few seconds or bomb completely to the point where you have to escape out and resume to get things going again. During live buffering this can crash the HDPVR driver and necessitate an unplug/replug to fix. I don't consider this a major issue since I appreciate how much work the machine has to do under these circumstances and it really isn't a big deal to wait half a second longer between button presses when skipping. It might be nice to have it ignore or queue "overflow" skip presses though.

The funny thing is, my wife discovered both of these. I never ran into them myself because I don't use the system that way.

..Sean.

[CWarren410]

A question please and I apologize if it has been answered before.

Is there anyway to get Beyond TV to change the channel thru the HDPVR?

Thanks,

Charles Warren III

Disregard it appears that Hauppauge's tool does not work with the 64-bit version of Vista.

[tscales]

Sure. The HD PVR comes with a blaster you stick to the front of your cable box. Or you can use another blaster like the USB-UIRT.

[bbogie1]

Originally Posted by bbogie1

I'm disappointed with 4.9. I tried using it for a week and had my HD-Pvr's lockup once or twice a day every day. I've gone back to 4.8.2 and not a single lockup since. Prior to 4.9 it had been months since I had missed a recording due to the Hd-pvr locking up.

I just wanted to report back that I seem to have resolved the issue I was having with the Hd-Pvr's locking up in 4.9. I had both Direct Tv boxes set to output the native resolution of the video. Switching them to only output 720p (and to pillarbox 480) seems to have solved the problem. It's been 3 days and no lockups so far. Knock on wood.

Video playback is much better in 4.9 so I'm pretty happy.

[cat6man]

interesting.........but it should work fine with your original box setting.......the fact that you restricted the output resolution and solved the problem implies
the hdpvr was having problems with something about the resolution........a good clue to some problem in the driver.....perhaps it has a problem switching/detecting some aspect of the resolution

[ZetaVu]

I think I have my btv box set at 1080i, I got sick of the resolution flickering when I change channels as it adjusts. Btv/HD PVR still seem to select the correct resolution.

[cat6man]

but a simple solution is to have btv wait a few seconds before starting video capture, as i've noted in a bug report....it's clear that the red light bouncing on the hdpvr (i've seen up to 3 bounces before steady recording, normally only once, sometimes none......red light bounce/synch problems seem to be more common when a recording is at the same resolution as the previous one, so perhaps the hdpvr is using old values at the beginning of recording?)

[bbogie1]

Originally Posted by bbogie1

I just wanted to report back that I seem to have resolved the issue I was having with the Hd-Pvr's locking up in 4.9. I had both Direct Tv boxes set to output the native resolution of the video. Switching them to only output 720p (and to pillarbox 480) seems to have solved the problem. It's been 3 days and no lockups so far. Knock on wood.

Video playback is much better in 4.9 so I'm pretty happy.

Ok. I made it 4 1/2 days til the hdpvr's locked up again. Which is about 3 days longer than I was getting before. I'm using 2 of the Rev. C-2 hd-pvr's and the driver version 1.0.5.1. I've found the driver 1.0.5.3 to be less stable on my system. At this point I'm going to continue with 4.9 and see how it goes. It is frustrating that I get better recording reliablity in 4.8.2 though.

[Terminal]

I played around a little today with HD-PVR. I used the TME software and recorded over 4 hours of video with no lockups, that required a reboot.. Right now in BTV and can only get about one good recording before teh HD-PVR locks up. I did notice at one point, about 2 hours in, that the video stalled for about 5 seconds and then came back with some additional glitching for a few seconds, and then went back to normal. At first,I was only seeing the HD-PVR not start a recording, but the last couple of times it locked up in BTV it was in the middle of a recording. I am guessing this glitch that occurs is what is causing BTV to start popping out error messages. BTV does not seem to be able to recover the way the TME software did.

[dieseljwt]

Now my turn...here's my config...

Shuttle PC with AMD X64 2.4 GHz dual-core (Vista Ultimate 64-bit, NOT MCE), ASUS 4350 passive-cooled graphics card, HD-PVR D2, Beyond TV 4.9. Verizon FiOS cable, Motorola STB (7100, w/o DVR), output from STB to PVR is YPbPr; output from PC to TV is HDMI from the ASUS 4350.

Still using the Firefly remote, with its IR pickup. Will probably switch to the Hauppauge remote, since the pickup is built in to the PVR itself.

Overall, not too bad. I had some rare lockups, and suddenly they started happening just about every other time I picked a channel. Figured out it was because my default video folder was on an SMB share. When I went back to the C: drive, no more lockups. So I configured SmartSqueeze to copy nightly.

[ddennerline]

I received a response from Hauppage indicating what the differences are between the HD-PVR revisions.


About the models. D2, C3, and E1 are functionality equivalent. The C3 does have a fan while the D2 and E1 do not have a fan, that’s why the D1 is also the same except that the D2 added better AC3/SPDIF functionality.
…
Any rumors and talks online that E1 are better are untrue.

[ddennerline]

Can someone else confirm that if cable is unplugged the HD-PVR while recording is active, then HD-PVR must be rebooted? I accidentally unplugged coax input. The blue recording light stayed on. After I realized mistake, I tried to watch show that was being recording. I received an error message from BTV. I stopped the HD-PVR recording. Next, I tried to watch a different HD channel and BTV showed same message. I had to unplug the HD-PVR, wait for USB/Device Manager to reset, and then live TV started working again correctly.

Hopefully, BTV/Hauppage has a, “pull the plug test case.” I would think that BTV would temporarily stop recording show for a set number of seconds, and if signal resumed, then show recording would resume. This scenario is similar to case where Cable signal flip/flops for a few seconds. At least in my area, the digital signal does not seem to be as reliable as analog? As with anything digital, the picture is peachy keen or it goes blank.

[metzz71]

I have noticed that since I setup the script to keep the STB's alive, no more lockups during the night. Other than stuttering channel changes, I only see issues with LiveTV hanging for about 3 seconds and then continuing. This is random and doesnt' happen too often, maybe once an hour. Not a big deal, but it does miss the 3 seconds. I have a C2 and a D1.

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by ddennerline

I received a response from Hauppage indicating what the differences are between the HD-PVR revisions.


About the models. D2, C3, and E1 are functionality equivalent. The C3 does have a fan while the D2 and E1 do not have a fan, that’s why the D1 is also the same except that the D2 added better AC3/SPDIF functionality.
…
Any rumors and talks online that E1 are better are untrue.

thank you for the summary (also now in faq on hauppauge web site)

can anyone tell me which (if any) of these work with the verizon fios stb?
i have an early C version (not any of the ones listed above) and expect that i'll have to RMA my unit when i change from comcast to fios tv.


lastly, are these latest (d2, c3, e1) free from the startup synch problem at the beginning of recordings, where the red light bounces one or more times before settling down (and causing video/audio glitches)?

thanks and happy new year everyone
also, is there still a audio synch problem for spdif audio with some STB, or is this now fixed as well?

[TomXP411]

There's no reason to expect that your HD-PVR will work any differently with FIOS than with Comcast. They both put out the same signal: analog component video.