Hauppauge HD-PVR support

[bbogie1]

Sage is nice software I'm glad you find it more reliable. Personally I can use either with equal reliablity. There are plenty of posts over at Sage regarding HDPVR stablity, even with v7. What made the HDPVR stable for me was locking the resolution. Anecdotally it seems that Direct Tv Stb's may cause fewer lockups than some of the other cable boxes.

I own and have used SageTV/Client alot. I did upgrade my license to v7 - did someone forget their flatscreen on the beach?

Personally I'm happiest with Beyond TV and JRiver Media Center for everything else (I love, love, love JRiver for music)..Sage's music capablities are sucky, except for supporting flac. I really hate that lame visualization of jagged lines of color across the screen (ive never owned an extender I think those are supposed to have a better visualization).

Things about Sage that annoy me:

I find the watched/unwatched flag too rigid. I prefer being able to set the # of days in the recording history. I might want to re-record old sitcoms 300 days in the future without having to go in and manually clear watched flags.

overlap/smart conflict detection, I only got 2 tuners.

Just being able to cancel a favorite recording that is in progress easily, note I said favorite not manual.

The distinction Sage makes between manual and favorites is unnecessary to me. The way it treats archived and manuals the same when it comes to auto deletion is strange to me.

Beyond TV still has far more advanced and specific search capablitites.

I still prefer the ease of use of Beyond Tv over Sage and Windows Media Center.

extending recording time takes 3 button presses in BTV in Sage it feels like it takes a dozen.


** I think it is a testament to how great Beyond TV is and was that it is still almost a contender despite being abandoned. **

the plugin manager in sagetv 7 is really good and your right the channel setup is really nice. The interface may be better, it may not, its debatable. The onscreen display while watching video is much better in v7.

[NickHark]

UPDATE

Here’s my working hypothesis: My hanging HD-PVR problems were all related to the USB.

Since my last update I have had at least service hang per day. It usually occurred during a back-to-back recording and usually with a channel change thrown in, but not always.

In my many reboots, I was incurring a strange behavior from my graphics card, which I thought was a failure of the card itself. On random reboots, my system would fail to display the VGA part of the boot process and so there was no visible screen.

I assumed that it was a graphics card failure and so I replaced it. But the random failures continued.

And, I was still experiencing the BTV system hangs about once per day.

On further thought, I realized that the BTV hangs were all related to either starting or stopping the HD-PVR. I also noted that the ASP.NET problems I was experiencing was after the BTV hang, so the ASP.NET errors were caused by the HD-PVR hang.

I also thought that I may have a power supply problem; I had assumed that the 600 watt PS had to be adequate, but being at the end of the road and ready to throw in the towel, I ordered an 850 w PS (Corsair CMPSU-850TX) and installed it.

I had previously installed a separate USB card (BYTECC PCIe NEC Chipset USB 3.0 2 PORTS Card BT-PEU310) and I noted that it had a power receptacle, so I plugged it into the new PS. The instructions with the card said that the power supply was to enable USB 3.0 devices, but I figured it may also power the 2.0 devices. My HD-PVR is the only device plugged into it.

I then removed my HP all-in one printer and Zoom USB modem. The only things USB on my server are the USB mouse and the USB-UIRT.

Bottom line: no hangs or burps in over two days.

I think the HD-PVR, although powered by a wall transformer needs more than typical power from the USB port.

So I think I solved two problems in one fell swoop: the underpowered motherboard and the underpowered HD-PVR.

So far, so good.

[NickHark]

Alas, a hang when BTV tried to stop a recording.

The recording is playable.

My log:

[2010/12/20 16:00:00] Final length of E:\Misc\Mad Money-2010-12-20-0.tp is 3896508416 bytes.
[2010/12/20 16:00:00] CPVSRecorder:etachFromBaseEngine - Unprepare finished.
[2010/12/20 16:00:00] CPVSRecorder:etachFromBaseEngine - StopBaseEngine begins.
[2010/12/20 16:01:05] Detected a hang when trying to stop a recording!
[2010/12/20 16:01:10] Adding error: '41' with message: '<PropertyCollection><Property><Name>Recorder</Name><Value>External Cable Box - Hauppauge HD PVR Capture Device</Value></Property></PropertyCollection>' to the warning system
[2010/12/20 16:01:32] Successfully sent email "SnapStream Warning Alert" from . . . .

Not sure what to do now.

[NickHark]

I feel like I’m doing an episode of Mythbusters, the myth being: the HD-PVR actually works!

I still get the hang on trying to stop a completed recording, which screws up the subsequent recordings on all tuners. It locks windows and I sometimes need to force a shut off of the server without Novocain.

I am still convinced that my hanging when BTV tries to stop a completed recording is USB related.

I made these changes to my system and noticed immediately that when I started a recording the bling didn’t blink. I had seen this from the very beginning and I assumed that this was normal. The effect on my recordings is that the first few seconds stuttered and skipped before it begin to run smoothly, <3 seconds. I thought my problems were solved. Nope.

I then used a shorter USB cable (5ft) without success.

Reading Savage1701’s post, again, I have now rerouted my USB cable away from all the spaghetti under my desk. I think my problem is that the HD-PVR is de-syncing from the USB, so BTV thinks its not there anymore.

I have made several tests with good results: no hanging on stopping a recording.

I am thinking that maybe a shielded USB cable might be the ticket, and reading about the new USB3.0 specs at wiki I note that the new cable specs require shielding.

I note that some people here have had good success with a server running only an HD-PVR or two, or more. I.e. no other tuners, cables, etc.

So, this may be the ultimate fall-back.

Any thoughts about the shielded USB cable?

[SVoyager]

Quick headsup for ya'll

hauppauge is at CES and has a new HD capture card. Does pretty much the same as the HD-PVR but is in a 1x PCI-E slot with also an HDMI port for _unencrypted_ recordings. Still at 1080i.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/07/h...card-internal/

Cheers
SV

[Kamakzie]

So I could hook this up to my Directv receiver and watch live TV on my PC in HD?

[ZetaVu]

You can with the HD PVR, but it can be buggy, mostly usb connection issues. We're not sure if the new card will be supported by SS, someone will have to dive in and test it out, or SS will have to make an update.

[NickHark]

Another UPDATE:

Thanks to TSCALES I realized I was assuming that the HD-PVR would "play nice" with my 4 other Hauppauge tuners.

Based on this assumption I went through the complete drill as I have stated earlier: NEC USB card, Fresh install of everything, shorter USB cable, highest quality USB cable; no other USB devices; Laptop cooler. I felt doomed to failure because HD-PVR wouldn't work properly.

After discussing this with TSCALES, and ready to throw in the towel and do all my STB recording in SD, (which I REALLY dread because Tiger's coming back today and golf in SD is the pits,) I grabbed one of my spare DELL USFF GX620s, which is a P4 3.2GHz, and did a fresh install of XP SP3 and ONLY the HD-PVR with its TME with HD-PVR 1.5.7.0.

I don't think it is too early to proclaim VICTORY because in a couple of months, not a day passed where I didn't get at least one error 41, "can't stop a recording" etc. causing my system to lock up and causing me to miss recordings from other tuners. I have rented two COMCAST DVRs just because I couldn't trust my BTV server. And the pressure was on because of the ever-present WAF!

Happily, the new configuration has been running since Tuesday, recording about ten hours per day with no errors.

Now I can get back to working on my golf game.

/RANT
And, by the way, I am very disappointed in HAUPPAUGE. To me, HAUPPAUGE is corrupt to learn that the HD-PVR isn't compatible with other HAUPPAUGE tuners and not get this info out to help us paying customers to get to the track to getting it working. When you contact HAUPPAUGE tech support, as soon as they learn you are trying to get it to work with BTV they blow you off. They have caused many, if not most HD-PVR owners, hundreds of lost hours trying to get this thing to work as it was designed. I believe this is corporate dishonesty.

IMO this is why COLOSSUS was born.

I don't fault SS, because they certainly couldn't slam HAUPPAUGE, but I'll bet SS knew and that's why they sidetracked the BTV consumer version of BTV.

I retain hope that SS will soon offer BTV5 with support for COLOSSUS.
/RANT

[HomieTheClown]

I have been following this thread for some time and just wasn't seeing what you folks had been seeing. I was on 4.9.0 with the HD-PVR (1.5.6 driver) and just didn't see the lock ups. I usually only had about 2-3 shows per day that recorded on it though. The rest of my shows record on the HDHR. An item to note was that I was also running on XP Pro SP2 without any patches. I remembered trying to upgrade to SP3 a couple of years back and it just made the system unstable.
Anyway, I recently started having some issues with the system being sluggish, so I decided it was time to reload. I made a backup of BTV, however didn't backup the server itself. Ooops! This time I loaded it with XP Pro, however decided to go to SP3 and latest updates. Upon trying to load 4.9.0 back, I was getting "Unable to build live tv graph" when trying to setup the QAM channels on the HDHR. After several hours of troubleshooting I decided to upgrade to 4.9.2 since folks had been complaining about 4.9.3. This immediately fixed that problem and I was able to get the system back up and running. First thing I noticed the next day was all of my HD-PVR recordings kept failing (either not starting or failing in the middle of the show). Tried the lamp timer trick, no go. This was causing issues with other recordings on other tuners as well. I was even noticing lockups while watching live tv on the HD-PVR about half way through a show. Of course, this was unacceptable when I had been running just fine before. So, I backed up the whole server this time and reloaded with XP Pro SP2 without patches and regressed to 4.9.0. I've been running this way for about a week and haven't seen any lockups. I think 4.9.0 and XP Pro SP2 is simply a more stable platform than 4.9.2 and XP Pro SP3 FWIW. I'll post back in a few weeks with an update.

[Zogg]

Originally Posted by HomieTheClown

I think 4.9.0 and XP Pro SP2 is simply a more stable platform than 4.9.2 and XP Pro SP3 FWIW.

I also run XP Pro SP2 but have upgraded to 4.9.2, although not the latest released rev since so many people had problems with it. I also turned off automatic updates and it hasn't been updated in several years.

In general my system has been pretty stable, although for stability my system reboots twice a week. I went a long time with no HDPVR errors at all, but now I do get an occasional hang which is usually cleared by just turning the HDPVR power off and back on using it's front panel button. For a long while it would go 2-3 months before an error occurred but now it seems to be about once per month.

Although in general XP SP3 is the one you want to use, for a dedicated BTV system SP2 might be better for whatever reason. It's been a while since I used 4.9.0 or even 4.9.1, but I don't remember having any problems with them, or even with the first 4.9.2. Might be worth a shot for those having problems.

[tjsynkral]

Here are some lessons learned from my rebuild after total failure (recordings and live TV not working) of my BTV 4.9.3.6535 setup.

Sorry if any of this is repeating a message posted elsewhere - I certainly could not find any of these solutions until I figured them out for myself. In a perfect world we would get updates to the original post with findings like these.

First the details of my setup:

Win7 x64 Ultimate
Core 2 Duo 2.5GHz
4GB DDR2
GeForce 7050

HD-PVR
HVR-1600 (Only using the QAM head)
Comcast/Motorola HD box/component

System performs pretty well in SD and HD mode. Most viewing is over Link (wired GBE).

1. The HD-PVR cannot be set up from the Setup Wizard - Audio Input screen will freeze every time. This is pretty unacceptable to be released by Snapstream as a known issue. I did find this solution on these forums. Link to answer

2. If you have two Hauppauge tuners, the IR blaster will pick just one card to operate from. I've long known about the problem but just figured out the exact way to control the behavior. Either unplug and replug the device (if external) or delete in Device Manager to make it the newest installed device, which takes control of all Hauppauge IR Blaster signals.

3. Don't use the IR blaster in the HD-PVR, because it seems to keep the box busy for a long several seconds after tuning the channel - causing failed graph issues trying to record since the box is unavailable. Making the QAM card (which has no use for the blaster) send the blasts seems to fix this and result in faster tuning.

I was concerned that it could screw up a recording taking place on the QAM card when the HD-PVR needs a blast, but when I tested it didn't seem to lock up the HVR-1600. The problem may be unique to the HD-PVR.

4. Anytime you uninstall a device driver (such as you would do in step 2) you must reboot before trying to use BTV. Otherwise you get problems viewing Live TV/recording. This issue does not affect WinTV or ArcSoft, those work fine with no reboot, which may fool you into thinking the reboot isn't the problem.

[NickHark]

Status: I have been running one HD-PVR on a Dell GX-620 for 12 days without a hitch.

I am now convinced that the HD-PVR just doesn't work happily with the other Hauppauge tuners. I suspect the real problem is the HVR-1600s.

I just ordered my second HD-PVR. I am hoping it will be happy with the other one and the GX-620

[LionRed]

Originally Posted by NickHark

Status: I have been running one HD-PVR on a Dell GX-620 for 12 days without a hitch.

I am now convinced that the HD-PVR just doesn't work happily with the other Hauppauge tuners. I suspect the real problem is the HVR-1600s.

I just ordered my second HD-PVR. I am hoping it will be happy with the other one and the GX-620

If that is the case...why when using SageTV with the HD-PVR, a HVR-1600 and a PVR-150, the system (I have) can work from 4-6 weeks without any issues.

Yet the same system running BTV...crashes in a matter of 2-4 days...sometime within 24hrs or even on the first recording.

But the HP-PVR in a system all alone, did seem to work a little better (with BTV, haven't tried SageTV with HD-PVR....alone).

It is very perplexing.....

[ZetaVu]

I have my HD PVR working nicely with my 1600, a 2250 and a 950, all in BTV and in Xp. I'll get a lockup every once in a while, usually related to a particular show. For example, I was having issues with Sons of Anarchy last season, only on the HD PVR, so I switched those recordings to SD in my 1600 (and honestly saw little in quality difference, more a reflection on Directv and their HD than the HD PVR). Sure, I could get up close to the tv and see artifact differences, but the overall experience was un-noteworthy.

As my 1600 is probably going to die soon (its getting old, I give these cards 5 years at most, already lost an Acer and ATI HD tuners, and my PVR-250), I'm either going to switch the s-video duties over to one of my 2250 tuners with attachment this is supposed to do hardware mpeg encoding, never tried it though) or get one of the new internal Hauppauge cards, assuming I can convince SS to support it.

[NickHark]

Originally Posted by LionRed

If that is the case...why when using SageTV with the HD-PVR, a HVR-1600 and a PVR-150, the system (I have) can work from 4-6 weeks without any issues.

Yet the same system running BTV...crashes in a matter of 2-4 days...sometime within 24hrs or even on the first recording.

But the HP-PVR in a system all alone, did seem to work a little better (with BTV, haven't tried SageTV with HD-PVR....alone).

It is very perplexing.....

If this problem was easily resolved it would have resolved two years ago.

Perhaps it has to do with the MB? That's about the orly thing left