2007-06-01, 02:13 AM
zaphod7501 Wrote:"shs" indicated that the Hauppauge software will not work for QAM under Win2000 because of drivers. I have not given up completely yet but testing will have to be with third party applications, like GB-PVR.
The hcw18bda.sys is usually the stumbling block with Win2k. If you install it, then Windows may bluescreen with a ROM error at startup and you will have to start in safe mode and copy the old version back into the system32 directory. I don't know the method of startup, but those .rom files sure look like firmware to me, with hcw18bda.sys loading them. (I could be wrong, very wrong) I plan on a mixed driver mode to begin with. The old hcw18bda.sys and the rest of the files new. That's what I do right now, anyway.
I didn't try too hard, but when I tried setting up my shiney new HVR-1600 in Win2k, I ended up with nothing, or a blue screen on boot, depending on which drivers I tried to load. I gave up and threw XP on that box and it worked better. WinTV is a really crappy application, so I'll be glad when the QAM support comes to GBPVR. After all, cheap HD is the reason I bought the card. Comcast sends over a fair bit in the clear.
Only reason I'm in Windows is b/c the HVR-1600 doesn't have much in the way of Linux support at the moment. I was really interrested in giving MythTV a go, despite my failed attempts in the past due to its complication. I've done the media center thing in Freevo and XBMC (latter much better than the former), but never with live TV. I don't care about all that "pause live tv" junk, but I would really like to have an on screen guide and be able to schedule recordings. My minimal experience with GBPVR has been very good. I'm a .NET programmer by day, so I have hopes I can even contribute something one of these days.
It's a pretty fresh, pretty bare box, so if anyone has any experiments they'd like me to run, I've got an HVR-1600 with QAM support on a WinXP-SP2 box to play with. Otherwise, it's got an AthlonXP 2600+ and 512MB ram with a GF6800 in there, too, which does a fair bit for decoding HD content. I mean like 80-90% CPU utilization down to more like 40-50%.