US QAM tuners that work

[whurlston]

The reason I posted was to give some insight into how I got it working, not to disagree with SLR_65.

My post was actually meant to expand on yours technically

[vmq]

Hi Steve,

I just dug up my 1600 driver disc - it's 3.4d. I loaded that originally and it didn't work as well as the 4.6a that I loaded later.

I take it the 3.4d1 is different that 3.4d, so I should give it a shot?

Yes, why don't you give it a try? Use hcwclear.exe to remove the old drivers before installing the (other?) 3.4d1 driver. There is no guarantee that it will help, I haven't heard from anyone else yet that has the same problem. The Haupauge support is still puzzled what is going on here, but it is reproducible here - whenever I change to a newer driver version my clear QAM stops working.

Volker

[SLR_65]

Hi Steve,
Yes, why don't you give it a try? Use hcwclear.exe to remove the old drivers before installing the (other?) 3.4d1 driver. There is no guarantee that it will help, I haven't heard from anyone else yet that has the same problem. The Haupauge support is still puzzled what is going on here, but it is reproducible here - whenever I change to a newer driver version my clear QAM stops working.

Volker

Hi Volker,

Why not give it a shot? Laziness mostly! :o

I pulled the 1600 and reinstalled my 150 - the 1600 seems to work fine on OTA digital and my son lives out in the country and doesn't have a dish, he just gets by on the OTAs he picks up out there (which is actually quite a few!), so I thought I'd give it to him along with an old machine I have kicking around and let him play with GBPVR too.

He's been busy lately though so I still have the card so I'll try to give it a shot in the next day or so - I got a few programs I want recorded (King of the Hill is doing another "Order of the Straight Arrow" episode! Wematanya, get me a beer!!!!) so I don't want to mess with it today as I'm sure using the hwclear will probably clear out my PVR-500 driver too . . . whenever I think something on the computers is not going to take long it ends up taking forever, so I've learned to wait until I have PLENTY of time to work on it!

I'll let ya know how it goes.

Thanks, take care,

Steve

[SLR_65]

OK, Just scanning through this thread and thought I'd post a summary.

I'm kinda surprised we haven't had more comments, do I take it that not many are running QAM yet?

So far:

The good:

HDHomerun - Dark_half and Whurlston are running them with no complaints.

HVR-1800 - Soccerdad is running one with no complaints, unlike it's hvr-1600 cousing, they seem to deal well with less than excellent signals.

HVR-2500 - Highflyer875 is using one with no problems.

Vistview SAber - Whurlston is using one, it seems to work as well as the hdhomerun but is slower to change channels.

Pinnacle PCTV HD Ultimate Stick - Whurlston is running one for development research. No real comment on performance, but no negatives stated either.

The not so good:

HVR-1600 - Dennit and myself are running these and they seem very picky on their signal level. In researching this on the net I've found others have the exact same problems. Different drivers may help, I'm still playing with mine and will post back when I know more.

HVR-2250 - Mmatheny is not having good luck with his card.

I think that's it so far . . . you have experience with any of these cards, or any so far unlisted please speak up!!!

[pcostanza]

Count me in with having problems with the 2250 and 1600 in GBPVR. Plus some problems with the ATI 650. It's a work in progress.

[mvallevand]

My HVR 1600 runs well with QAM, for the few channels I get. When I first got it I had problems that were related to the feed to my house that I talked about here http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=33614 but since then things have been quite stable.

Martin

[mmatheny]

OK, Just scanning through this thread and thought I'd post a summary.

I'm kinda surprised we haven't had more comments, do I take it that not many are running QAM yet?

So far:

The good:

HDHomerun - Dark_half and Whurlston are running them with no complaints.

HVR-1800 - Soccerdad is running one with no complaints, unlike it's hvr-1600 cousing, they seem to deal well with less than excellent signals.

HVR-2500 - Highflyer875 is using one with no problems.

Vistview SAber - Whurlston is using one, it seems to work as well as the hdhomerun but is slower to change channels.

Pinnacle PCTV HD Ultimate Stick - Whurlston is running one for development research. No real comment on performance, but no negatives stated either.

The not so good:

HVR-1600 - Dennit and myself are running these and they seem very picky on their signal level. In researching this on the net I've found others have the exact same problems. Different drivers may help, I'm still playing with mine and will post back when I know more.

HVR-2250 - Mmatheny is not having good luck with his card.

I think that's it so far . . . you have experience with any of these cards, or any so far unlisted please speak up!!!

Well, if I use WinTV (YUCCK!) I can find plenty of clearQAM - GBPVR is not having good luck with this card!

[pcostanza]

Mike and other 2250 users.....what's your opinions on the quality of mpeg recordings? For me, it's not as good as my pvr500 though it is not too bad. It's better in Vista MC and I don't know why.
Also, I recorded back to back shows so that it would use the 2250 on both and the first show went fine but the second show which did switch to the 2nd 2250 analog tuner lit green as if recording and a directory for the show was made but nothing recorded. It stayed green throughout. Tried it again and the same thing happened. Works fine when doing back to back with the 500.
My HDHomerun just showed up! $129 with free shipping I think is a bargain. Don't know when I'll have time to set it up but you know I'll be asking lots of questions so don't forget, patience is a virtue.

[dennit]

Well, if I use WinTV (YUCCK!) I can find plenty of clearQAM - GBPVR is not having good luck with this card!

This seems odd to me. I've had problems with my 1600, but the problems always related to signal strength. If signal was low, both GBPVR and WinTV had identical problems. The signal strength meter from Hauppauge was always a pretty good indicator of whether I was going to have problems (29.5 was the lowest I could go without problems.)

Did you ever figure out how to manually construct a tuning line in the cache file from WinTV info and tell GBPVR to tune a channel that WinTV was tuning correctly?

IOW, is this a problem with scanning to find a channel (where GBPVR has to be able to recognize that a channel has been successfully tuned and is sending valid data), or a problem with tuning once the correct tuning info is known? I've always thought that for the latter case GBPVR just hands off the tuning data to the card and waits for the data stream. What the card does with the tuning data should be the same for WinTV and GBPVR - shouldn't it? Or am I missing something?

[whurlston]

My HDHomerun just showed up! $129 with free shipping I think is a bargain. Don't know when I'll have time to set it up but you know I'll be asking lots of questions so don't forget, patience is a virtue.

A couple quick things to get you started. Use the latest beta software located at http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2484

Then when following the GBPVR instructions that I wrote at http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5449 set the application to "GBPVR" in step 5 and ignore step 6. The beta software sets the registry keys correctly for the PID filtering introduced in 1.3.7