VistaView Saber 2020 ?

[bungle]

Well, I didn't get the tray icon like support said, so I'm waiting to hear back about that. But I did play with it a bit more. I have cable hooked up to RF1 and the FM antenna to RF2. I went into live TV, which should have used RF2 the way I had the tuners set up. I got the black signal-less picture. However, I went into GraphEdit and opened the lastgrph.grf file and started messing with it. I could change the properties for the tuner in the graph. If I changed the input to antenna, I got broadcast channels. Then I changed the signal type to FM and was able to tune FM. Both of these changes were apparent in the GB-PVR window, which I left running (on LiveTV) while doing this. So if you can figure out the graph I don't see why FM wouldn't work. I was unable to mess with things in such a way that I got the second tuner to receive cable via RF1, however.

[StupaFly]

I'm getting really annoyed with my card....I'm going to RMA if I can't get it going this weekend. Here's what I've found so far.

1) In their PVR application audio pops on LiveTV but not on recorded.

2) In GBPVR, video still briefly freezes every few seconds.

3) In SageTV, the card works fine....except for probelms described in #4.

4) When starting the PC up, tuners don't work right in ANY application until running their PVR software first. Once their software initializes the cards, it's fine until the next restart. So what if my PC gets an update and I can't start their program before a recording?

5) The stupid driver installer on their website STILL doesn't see my card. Tried uninstalling, updating drivers, moving to the other slot...Still doesn't see it.

I'm waiting for support to send drivers in a zip format or something. If this doesn't work, the card goes back and I revert to my trusty PVR 150's.

[StupaFly]

bungle, when you use this card in gbpvr does the video freeze like mine or does it work ok for you?

[bungle]

I haven't noticed it, but I haven't used it a ton yet. I can try more tonight.

One show my wife recorded didn't look good, so I looked at a few channels through the MVP. Several didn't look very good. I didn't have the signal amplifier on because of something else I was doing, so that could be part of the problem. I'll try again with it on later. However, I switched the cable back to the 150 and it had no problems with the channels without the amp - they look good. This is confusing because the reviews of this chipset were all very positive.

Another problem I've had is that my computer won't wake up from sleeping sometimes. I haven't gotten it all sorted out yet, but twice now we've gone to it and the power is on, but I can't get the screen to come up. I have to reboot. I seem to remember something like this once before, but it was a while ago, and now it has been twice in the several days since I installed the card.

Also, the first two times I emailed support I got a fast response, but I have not gotten a response from either of my last two queries - one from Wednesday and one just a couple of hours ago. The driver doesn't have the tray icon like indicated. Did you get the tray icon?

I really hope I can get this card working. I only have one PCI slot open and the PCIe x1 slot this card is in. The only PCI dual tuner card I can use (w2k) is the Hauppauge 500, but I don't trust the newer tuners. Then I'd have to ditch the 150 if I wanted an HDTV card, too. So I really want this sucker to work.

[bungle]

1) In their PVR application audio pops on LiveTV but not on recorded.

Did you notice anything bad about their software? Slowdowns, crashes, spyware? I hate installing things on my "production" box.

4) When starting the PC up, tuners don't work right in ANY application until running their PVR software first. Once their software initializes the cards, it's fine until the next restart. So what if my PC gets an update and I can't start their program before a recording?

Does it not work at all, or just one of the tuners? I wonder if this is related to my issue with the "mode" being set so each of the RF inputs is a tuner. Do you only have one cable plugged in? Maybe their software flips that switch for you. That's why I want the tray app - it is supposed to have a toggle for the mode so you can go between [RF1=tuner, RF2=tuner] and [RF1=2xtuner, RF2=FM]. The driver detail on the website says it has the tray app, but I can't find it anywhere (no run entry, no exes installed in the last couple of days, etc.)

[bungle]

You know, I got some skips, but I was getting that with my 150, too. I don't know what's up with that.

I played with it a bit more tonight. I hooked up my cable to the other RF input and was able to get channels. So it seems support was right about that mode being wrong. Interestingly, I can get FM on either RF, too, by fiddling with the tuner properties in GraphEdit. I thought I read somewhere that there was a dual FM tuner, but I don't know.

So my main problems right now are the fact that it doesn't seem to get as good a signal as my 150, and it doesn't let my computer come out of sleep. Some channels that look fine on my 150 via MVP look more like they're coming from something taped on my VCR with the Saber. Everything is there, but has a bit of a snowy or noisy look.
I'll have to take the card out to verify the other problem, but I haven't been able to wake from sleep since I put it in. I'd have tried already but I have some air ducts that make it a pain to get access. I don't care how good the picture is - I can't give up sleep mode. Apparently the PVR-500 has some issue like this with AMD dual-cores on XP, but they said it wasn't an issue with W2k. I don't know if this is at all the same or not.

Hopefully support will be good with these issues. I'd like this card to work.

[bungle]

Okay, I guess that's not the only issue. I tried to run comclean on something I recorded and got this:

Code:

Skipped -1 zeroes at start of file
mpgtx: AT EOF - please stop me!
mmm, this file does not start with a pack, offset: -1
use the desperate_mode switch as the first option -X to search for a header in the whole file!
if you want to force the operation. May yield to an endless loop if no valid header is found!
Does not even begin with a 00 00 01 xx sequence!

Also, I cannot seek arbitrarily in WMP like I can with 150-recorded shows. I had noticed previously that rewind didn't work on these files with the MVP (it fast forwarded instead, oddly).

[pastro]

The VistaView card should be based on the V2 drivers which sub used to get preliminary support for the cards going These drivers are for XP or XCE. The drivers should work for WIN2k as well with the latest service pack and direct show but there is no guarantee.
The picture quality that we got was very good. I wasn't using a dual card or PCIE though. Did you pull all of the other capture cards out to make sure there isn't something strange going on there? I know it shouldn't interfere on PCIE but you never know

[bungle]

Drivers work in W2k - they even say so on the site. (I have W2k.)

I heard back from them. They know about the S3 sleep issue and are working on it. They don't know about the comclean issue.

As for image quality, it was suggested that I try a better signal. My cable is split in two after coming into the house. The line going upstairs goes through an amplifier, then a 3-way splitter. The PVR-150 connected to one of these works great, as do the other two devices (cable modem and STB). I moved the cable from the 150 to the Saber and the picture isn't great. I don't think I can get the signal much better, and actually the cable company was out a month or so ago and fixed some signal issues after a storm. So I think the signal should be good enough. Has anyone else tried analog cable feed with this card and gotten good results? I'd like to know if it really is a signal issue or something else. All reviews laud the picture quality of this card, but they usually test with s-video or RF-modulated pure sources, not analog cable. I could possibly buy a better amp, but if that's much more than the one I have I might as well get another 150, even though it isn't quite what I wanted.

[bungle]

Okay, FM works sort of. When I use the FM the lastgraph shows the tuner filter, and if I go into the properties it has the FM mode selected. So it seems like that's correct. There's just nothing connected after the capture filter. Sub, see anything useful?