Hauppauge HD-PVR support

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by 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.

there is apparently an issue with the spdif audio, reported elsewhere.
some have RMAd their units to get this fixed.......exactly what the hdpvr h/w did wrong to cause the problem with the fios stb (and some sat boxes) is not known (at least to me) but there is something that caused problems with some versions of the hdpvr and some stb

[Asmordean]

I've been lucky, no issues with my unit yet (1219 C2) but I noticed that after an hour that the unit was incredibly hot. Hot enough that you could smell that 'hot electronics' smell. Hrm, the fan is turning, I can hear it.

Looking at the unit I start wondering where the heck the fan is exhausting or intaking air.... Um... Holy crap, there are no vents. The only holes into the unit are through the RCA plugs!

So I decide to risk voiding my warrantee to look inside. Wow Hauppauge...wow. They mounted a 40mm 5v fan flush against the side of the unit far away from the encoder chip held down with doublesided tape. My god no wonder some people crash after 3 consecutive hours.

I grabbed a 120mm spare fan and plugged it into the 5v fan lead on the board. It doesn't turn very fast but fast enough to move air across the heatsink and keeps it fairly cool. I'll fashion my own lid for the unit to hold the 120mm and just store the factory lid somewhere safe.

[ZetaVu]

That explains why they discontinued fans in the D and E models. You might want to hook your fan up to an alternate power source, that should let it run full speed and not affect internal voltage. I was meaning to do that as a cabinet fan for my equipment, my Yamaha generates a lot of heat and the wife insists on keeping the doors closed.

[TomXP411]

Holy Carp! Talk about a major engineering malfunction!

I hope the rest of their hardware design isn't so poorly executed.

[Asmordean]

The 120mm fan turned too slowly to really be of benefit but I found a 60mm hanging around in my junk drawer and plugged it in. It is running slow enough that it is inaudible from about 1ft thanks to it running at 5v. It's also a much nicer fit than the giant.

Internal voltage seems fine, it's actually pulling less power than the pointless internal 40mm. I let it record for 6 hours in a row last night and didn't experience any hiccups. From what I've read on various forums, it's something short of amazing to exceed about 3 hours. Now to see if I get the dreaded 3-5 day lock-up.

At the end of 6 hours my cheap thermometer informed me that the encoder chip was 34° (about mid 90s in F) in a 19°C room. To put that in perspective. When I opened it up initially as it was in the middle of a 2 hour recording, the heat sink was close to 70°C. It was like opening the door of an oven.

If I wasn't worried about totally destroying the chance of a warranty if I ever need it, I would slap on an old Pentium heat sink and install a 60mm fan grill right into the lid with vents on the sides of the unit. I'm willing to bet that heat sink is held down with double sided tape instead of thermal paste though even a slight breeze easy keeps it cool.

I'll post a picture of my lid once I finish making it out of something more permanent than the cardboard it has right now. To give you an idea, I positioned the 60mm fan dead center with two slot vents located on the left and right edges.
---
TomXP411

Heh, well the IR transmitter is truly pathetic. It can't get a signal through the front face of my STB even though it was positioned directly over the IR receiver. I'm lucky though, my STB has an external IR pickup that I taped to the transmitter. Anything more than about 3mm and it won't change the channel but I've fashioned a small tube to stick the receiver and transmitter together which looks like it will work great.

[ddennerline]

I have a D1 unit, and based on feedback from SnapStream Technical Support, I should RMA the unit back to Hauppage.
Can anybody else that is experiencing random hangs that require rebooting the HD-PVR examine their log files (http://snapstream.helpserve.com/inde...eid=1080&nav=0). What kinds of messages related to the HD-PVR errors are shown? I am curious if there is a pattern?
Do you need to stress test the HD-PVR in manner similar to how a new computer is evaluated (i.e., using Prime95 and memtest86 )? Would recording for N (where N=some long duration of time) number of hours continuously using TME qualify as good arbiter of whether appliance is stable?
The Hauppage technical support indicated they have D2 and C3 models as replacement. I really don’t want to get one with a fan if possible.

[TomXP411]

The problem I get only happens when I schedule back to back recordings, and even then, it only happens once in a while. Basically, the device just locks up, and I have to restart it to get BTV to record.

[blaze818]

i dont think that anyone has answered the question about being able to successfully ShowSqueeze a recording from the HD-PVR. when i try to bring the recording down to a divx file (any type hd or sd) it will hang and need to restart. i have also tried to showsqueeze them into the windows media format it just shrinks the file down from about 7gb to 120mb and when i go to watch it there is no audio or video, but i can scroll though the show like it was there.

i am at a complete loss here and this threw a screw into my system, because i only use my hd pvr to record on my movie channels and then i showsqueeze them and save them to my file server. so any help or ideas on how to get my show squeeze working would rock.

[tscales]

I use mine heavily -- recording 20-22 hours a day.

It lasts about 3 days then locks. Power off, power on, reboot fixes it.

Happens with my C2. Happens with my E1.

Basic flaw.

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by tscales

I use mine heavily -- recording 20-22 hours a day.

It lasts about 3 days then locks. Power off, power on, reboot fixes it.

Happens with my C2. Happens with my E1.

Basic flaw.

i have a small usb-powered fan (plugged into mot STB) pointed at mine and have no lockups........very reliable and stable.
also have mine standing on its side for better air circulation.

are you sure you don't have thermal issues?

[TomXP411]

Originally Posted by blaze818

i dont think that anyone has answered the question about being able to successfully ShowSqueeze a recording from the HD-PVR. when i try to bring the recording down to a divx file (any type hd or sd) it will hang and need to restart. i have also tried to showsqueeze them into the windows media format it just shrinks the file down from about 7gb to 120mb and when i go to watch it there is no audio or video, but i can scroll though the show like it was there.

i am at a complete loss here and this threw a screw into my system, because i only use my hd pvr to record on my movie channels and then i showsqueeze them and save them to my file server. so any help or ideas on how to get my show squeeze working would rock.

There's an option in the settings.xml that chooses whether to use the Arcsoft codec for transcoding. You'll want to go find that and turn it off.

(BTW: Use XML Notepad for editing the XML docs. Much easier than doing it by hand.)

[ZetaVu]

I run mine for what seems weeks without a lockup, last lockup happened after a power failure (unit I think is on a battery backup, might just be a surge protector, need to check that) cycling power and all is well.

I've tested back to back recordings and running 8 recordings in a day, no lockups.

I had massive lockups when I got my new unit, until I upgraded to the 1.052 driver, then no lockups, check your driver, make sure it is one of the last three and try all three.

I can showsqueeze to divx without an issue, takes forever. Am using 4.9 (actually 4.9.1 beta) but both work.

[lsrracer]

The lock-ups drive me crazy. Sometimes it'll run for days without one, sometimes they come minutes apart. I've RMA'ed units twice. There hasn't been a dime's worth of difference in the behaviour of any of the the 3 boxes I've tried (the original and the two replacements).

There's definitely a correlation between lock-ups and what else the computer is doing. If all it's doing is recording and/or playing through the Viewscape, a lock-up is unlikely, although they do happen. I've left it running for days like this without a lock-up. If, on the other hand, I'm simultaneously surfing the web, or reading e-mail or whatever, a lock-up is much more likely.

I've also done enough viewing with the TME "Record Video" application to believe that it happens less when using it than when using BTV. Also, at least 50% of the time, I can free it from it's locked-up state by temporarily selecting a different input in the TME app and then switching back to my component inputs. The other 50% of the time, I have to get up go turn off the HD-PVR with the power button, and turn it back on.

The whole thing is frustrating. I sure want it to work, and I've tried every setting in each app that I can imagine might affect it without even a glimmer of success. Latest drivers and software versions of course. Nothing matters. It's just flaky hardware. But it's not like I have a choice. It's the only HD capture solution on the market. At this point, I've more or less resigned myself to putting up with it, figuring that's better than the alternative, which is to do without the box at all. But count me as a dissatisfied customer. Hauppauge ships a defective product.

[tscales]

For me it isn't the use of the computer. The machine is dedicated to the HD PVR.

I look at it a little different. I'd rather be bleeding edge and getting almost all my recordings than not having the HD PVR. Recording HBO, etc. is COOL!

[mayhem70]

Personally I haven't had many issue with my E1. I do have that flicker thing when it starts to record with the blue light flashing. And I would say that 1 out of 50 recordings have failed which isn't that bad. Like tscales, I have it recording nearly non-stop (lol, movie collection).