Installing a PVR-250 W/out CD

[Hurin]

Howdy all,

I recently re-did my whole system and wanted to list the steps for those of us who are wondering exactly what is needed to get a pristine PVR-250 setup going with Beyond TV without using the CD included with the PVR-250 and/or installing anything that isn't totally necessary.

I posted these steps in another thread. . . but then thought maybe they might deserve their own thread. I hope someone finds this helpful.

Obviously, the links in this post may become defunct. Check the Hauppage website to make sure that there are not newer drivers available than those that are linked here.

Since the whole point of this procedure is to have as "clean" an installation as possible without gumming up your system with extraneous software and other junk, I recommend that you have a freshly installed Windows XP (or 2000) computer that has (of course) been patched up with all the necessary updates from WindowsUpdate. Make sure that you install the .Net framework since BTV requires this. And, of course, your motherboard/system, video card, and sound card should have their newest drivers installed.

And off we go. . .

1. Install the PVR-250 card. When Windows asks for drivers, use the base drivers downloaded from Hauppage (pvr250_18_inf.zip).

2. Install the update to the base drivers (PVR250_18_22037.exe).

3. Install the updated Intervideo Codec (hcwsmd04_21154.exe).

4. Install the newest WinTV2000 Application (this may not actually be necessary for BeyondTV to be fully functional. . . but I did it to have some type of back-up software on there in case I needed to test with something besides BTV).

5. Install the newest Remote Control drivers.

6. Install Beyond TV.

7. Change the default Codec to the Itervideo ones and set your recording quality settings to the preferred ones.

8. Go into the registry and change both of the following values to "1" rather than "0":

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\IviSDK4Hauppauge\Commo n\VideoDec\Dxva

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\IviSDK4Hauppauge\Commo n\VideoDec\Hwmc

What is Dxva? Here is a bit from MSDN:

Microsoft DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA). DXVA is a specification for hardware acceleration of digital video decoding processing, with support of alpha blending for such purposes as DVD subpicture support.

What is Hwmc? It stands for "Hardware Motion Compensation." It offloads some of the load to your video card rather than your CPU. On my setup, turning this one lowered my CPU usage during playback to about 20% rather than the 50% I was seeing before making this registry switch. Others have seen a similar improvement.

These two registry settings together made moving images much better on my setup. However, I have my computer outputting to a digital television via VGA into my decoder box and then into my TV's digital (component) inputs. I think I may have read that these settings will have much less effect (if any) on setups using simple "TV-out" on their video cards. Though, I don't think the registry settings would hurt.

These two settings are the ones that finally made text crawls at the bottom of news stations finally look fluid and smooth on my setup.

9. Go back into BTV and set the de-interlace mode to "hardware" in Player preferences. (I did this via web Admin. The other way via the player interface may work as well). By the way, this setting may be moot and pointless after doing the registry settings above. But I do it just in case. I haven't yet confirmed that this setting has no effect after registry changes. Either way, it can't hurt (and will probably help) to have this set to "hardware."

From there, most settings are personal preferences. Though I recommend turning up the bitrates and creating some custom quality profiles similar to RobertH's recommendations:

Here is what I use for everday recording (thanks to RobertH):

"Bestest Ever"
Audio: 48000Hz / 224000bps
Video: 29.970fps / 720x480 / 6400000bps
2 bi-dir-fpg
4 predictive-fpg
Video Noise-Reduction Filter = Enable
Motion Precision = 1% (doesn't seem to matter on my setup)
Stream = DVD Stream
Variable Bitrate Enabled
5000000
9000000

That's about all I have. I hope this helps someone!

Thanks!

Hurin

[jmcclain]

This needs to be a sticky. Looks good to me and combines a lot of stuff that I had to comb through the message boards to finally come up with.

One caution though, on my video card (new ATI 9600SE) enabling the hardware registry accelleration does look great and help the CPU loading, but it causes decoding artifacts (red/white/green/blue bright flicker dots) in MPEG2 playback in both my BTV and in DVD players of comercial DVD content. Reencoding to DIVX shows no problems, but I assume that is because the video card is not doing any hardware accelleration of that. I am going to try to get a replacement card and see if it is just this one I have (I didn't see any problems on the nVidia GeForce4 440MX card I also tried, but the ATI has a better native support under powerstrip for 856x480 RGB out to my HDTV).

Regards,

-Jeff

[TomZ]

Good idea making this sticky.

Also perhaps others could add similar instructions for other popular H/W. What is the minimal set up for my AIW 9000. What if i only want to use it for video out, etc, etc.

Great idea, let's add more ....

[Hurin]

One caution though, on my video card (new ATI 9600SE) enabling the hardware registry accelleration does look great and help the CPU loading, but it causes decoding artifacts. . .

Hmmm, odd about the registry changes affecting playback on your ATI video card. My video card is an ATI Radeon 9200 and I don't have any similar problems. I'd try updating your catalyst (video card) drivers before returning it. But it does definitely sound like something is amiss there.

Let us know if you ever get it sorted out! But again, I don't think this is an ATI-wide problem since my 9200 (and my 9800XT on my main gaming machine) use this setting just fine.

Edit: Jmcclain's thread detailing his playback problem is located here

Best Regards,

Hurin

[Eric3a]

Hurin;

Thanks a lot;
Your timing couldn't be better. I just ordered a refurbished PVR 250 last night, so it will come bare with nothing else.
Eric

[SHS]

that why there base CD on SHSPVR Hurin

[Hurin]

Originally posted by SHS
that why there base CD on SHSPVR Hurin

I'm sorry, but I have no idea what this means. . .

Am I missing something?

H

[MonsterHTPC]

Good info

Will put a link here to a thread I started in the support section of the boards for this stuff. Mostly the post below deals with all the settings in BTV, and not the hardware stuff.

http://discuss2.snapstream.com/vb/sh...threadid=13226

[Hurin]

that why there base CD on SHSPVR Hurin

Okay, I think I figured out what you're saying. Yes, I now see that there is a "Base Driver CD" available at the link in your signature. However, I'm looking at the instructions provided on the site and I have to disagree with some of them.

The list of stuff I have above is intended to install the minimum amount of junk while still giving BeyondTV everything it needs to function properly. Whereas, the instructions at your site encourage the user to install quite a bit more from the CD. Something I personally like to avoid. CDs are notoriously out-of-date and it is nearly always a good idea to use drivers downloaded from the manufacturer whenever possible.

The instructions I provide above are intended to help people more interested in getting a pristine, simple BeyondTV box working using a PVR-250 while not installing anything unnecessary. They are directed more towards the "do-it-yourself" types who like to install things manually rather than trusting an automated installer (such as that found on the CD). One has more control that way.

I do believe that the drivers I list above are all newer than the ones on that CD. Though, doubtless, those links will become defunct unless I edit this post regularly.

I'm sorry if you think my post steps on your toes or duplicates your efforts. However, I don't believe that to be the case as the goals of each are quite different.

Thanks,

Hurin

[SHS]

See here
http://www.shspvr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4214

[Eric3a]

So now I am confused: Which driver should I use?
My bet is on SHS.

But I am sure both versions give good results.

Thanks to both for your efforts.
Eric

[Hurin]

So now I am confused: Which driver should I use?

Well, I'm still not sure what his point is other than that he is saying that I'm wasting my time. Though, having only said ten words here, I'm not even sure he's even saying that.

Obviously, I'd recommend what I have posted above. It works. It uses the latest drivers posted publicly by Hauppage, while installing absolutely nothing you don't need to get BTV working (with possible exception of WinTV2000). I'm not sure how you would improve upon that.

Plus, there is some added BTV tweaks there too.

Please note that the driver version on the "Beta" release of SHS's "unofficial CD" is 1.8.22035. The driver on Hauppage website is listed as 1.8.22037. So I would assume that the ones on the Hauppage website are newer. Which, again, is why I recommend always downloading the drivers from the manufacturer rather than using a CD (even one that is updated regularly by an enthusiast). That is what my instructions above hope to facilitate.

I really didn't intend to get into a p*ssing match here with SHS. And I may just be mis-interpreting SHS's terse replies. I was just trying to help. I really just don't see a need for a CD, I guess. Though that may just be me.

Thanks,

H

[MonsterHTPC]

I would tend to go like hurin said.

I download the 3 files for minimum installs. Hauppauge drivers, driver updates and then the Intervideo Decoders from hauppauge, and BTV runs great.

[SHS]

The point you have one down have setup to install all at one time with all ext step that point of it Hurin I give you and optoin way to do there nothing wrong with you way I just give you a way to save some time.

[Eric3a]

Installed in 30 minute per Hurin's instructions. All went well.
Playing with various qualities, but at this point I see plus and minuses compared to my 9800 AIW Pro.
Thanks again for the advice. It should become a sticky.

Eric