Poor reception using PVR 150 and BTV4

[jstevans]

Video quality on many channels is very poor, noisy, snowy. Reception on some channels is so bad there is no audio present. I had this problem with BTV 3.X and eventually solved it by hand tuning receive frequencies in the Windows registry. Crazy to have to do that of course but it was the only solution.

I had read this problem was solved in BTV 4 so I am trying it in a completely different PC with a clean install of Win2000Pro. The Hauppauge WinTV2000 works perfectly, fine reception on every single channel. The problem is NOT in the card, my cable provider, my wiring, or my PC.

BTV 4.X is unusable because video quality so poor.

Does anyone know how to resolve this? I am not willing to go edit the registry again, it is absurd that I would need to do so.

Must I replace the PVR-150? If so, with what? Is it a driver problem? Is so, how to resolve?

The PC is running Win2000Pro with all service packs and updates. The Hauppauge driver is 2.0.30.23074. The drive has loads of empty space.

I loaded MediaPortal, an open source PVR, it works fine. It's not nearly as sophisticated as BTV of course but at least it receives all the channels without asking me to edit the registry.

Your help will be much appreciated.

Thank you.