Fed up with HVR1600

[johnnysocko]

Thanks so much @mikeh49 for that suggestion. An ebay'd 650PRO for < $30 just arrived and I had it up and running in less than an hour. Only interesting parts were having to download all the support drivers from ATI's site (thankfully the seller gave me the full URL which was nice of him) and for some reason the only Audio decoder I could get to work in NPVR was the Hauppauge AC3 decoder I still thankfully have available. Guess I better hold onto this WinTV CD. It seems to be working just great, much better than I ever had that damn 1600 working. That's 3 years and many wasted hours of my life I wish I had back.

Thanks to @johnsonx42 as well.

[mikeh49]

I failed to mention that you'd have to get the drivers on your own, and they don't include decoders, etc like the Hauppauge CD does. As you discovered, you need a 3rd party AC3 decoder for US HDTV with NPVR since the one included in Win7/Vista does not work with 3rd party apps like NPVR. The Windows DTV/DVD video decoder that comes with Win7 does work with NPVR and is what I use. You could try AC3 Filter or the LAV audio decoder if you want cleanse your system of Hauppauge.

[sgilani]

Windows DTV/DVD Video Decoder, and ffdshow Audio Decoder FTW!

[johnnysocko]

Thanks, but the ffdshow doesn't make the cut (i.e. - it doesn't work)

Thankfully I do have more than one installed that do. (I've got more installed that actually don't work, go figure, and ffdshow is one that does not)

The ones that work (other than Hauppauge's) are (and I have no idea where each has come from):
AC3flilter
PP TV Audio Decoder

I thought I had a third, but can't find that now, and don't feel like looking any more

[johnnysocko]

Just had to check back in - doesn't it figure.

Now, background is I tend to be a hibernate person. But, I've been doing some system changes which require frequent recycles.

"All of a sudden" my Win7 desktop doesn't restart or shutdown. Just hangs at "shutting down <circle spinning>"

These are always a bugger to figure out, esp during a process of numerous new installs. After disabling all startup programs and non mister softee services, still with no luck...

Hey, wait!!! Sure enough - ripped out my beloved new tuner card and all is well.

[johnnysocko]

Okay, I'll post this out, of limited value for a $30 card off ebay.

I'm working around this using "devcon" program I found googling around.
It is surely not the best solution, since Windows7OS is so F'd up it doesn't allow one to cleanly capture a transition to a power saving or power down or recycle event and be able to take some action. Screw you mister softee. Capturing a I'm coming back to life event isn't a peach either.

So, I've basically had to ditch all Windows shutdown/powerdown/recycle events from the standard hooks and implement my own which then invokes the necessary window things to get the job done. My intermediary processes use devcon to disable the tuner card on the way down. I can capture the wake up/power up events and reenable the card on the flip side.

Isn't life with Mister Softee just grand? No wonder their stock price hasn't budged in 10 years.