HVR-1600 setup for QAM?

[spotter]

So I've been playing with GBPVR w/ my HVR-1600. And am getting an error when I try to play TV (in the config screen, i.e. "digitial channel mapping" window, I can watch the little window). The error it gives is "Error: Failure playing back file" when I try to go to live TV.

Any ideas?

[spotter]

ok, I change something unsure what. And now I get video fine in GBPVR "live TV" mode. However, I don't have any sound, while I do have sound in the digitial channel mapping screen.

any ideas?

fixed this too. switched from intervideo non css to "system default".

[Anthony]

I emailed Hauppauge about the jumpy video and asked them what kind of signal strength I should have for reliable operation. They didn't comment on the signal strength, but sent me this message:

"We are working on issues on jumpiness with QAM, as of right now the QAM
support is still in its Beta stages. More releases updates are coming."

So, for now, I guess I'll stick with analog and put the QAM stuff on the back burner till the next driver update.

However, I'm still curious how ATSC with an antenna would work. Would it be subject to the same issues as QAM?

Anthony

[PixelatedFooL]

However, I'm still curious how ATSC with an antenna would work. Would it be subject to the same issues as QAM?

Well if we know for sure the QAM issues arent caused by your computer being underpowered, then ATSC should be no problem. Although I'm not sure how well your old Riva card would handle HD. I'm sure it'd be pushing it.

Even so, the ATSC on this card is great with GBPVR. As long as you have the right antenna for a good signal, you can't go wrong. http://www.antennaweb.org is a good place to start looking, and if your channels are mostly in 1 direction and show as yellow or green in strength, and have a nice window in that direction, you can try the Silver Sensor indoor antenna (the non amplified one). You can get it at Circuit City for about $25. I used that setup before I switched to QAM. I'm 17 miles from the Empire State Building, where most of my channels are broadcast from, and it didnt skip a beat.

[joe531]

I emailed Hauppauge about the jumpy video and asked them what kind of signal strength I should have for reliable operation. They didn't comment on the signal strength, but sent me this message:

"We are working on issues on jumpiness with QAM, as of right now the QAM
support is still in its Beta stages. More releases updates are coming."

Ahh, so there is confirmed jumpiness. Good, good... I thought I was going to have to take off my cable box, and put my modem and wifi router downstairs. lol

[congenictv]

My board has a 74041 tuner. The drivers are the 3.4D1 beta download from Hauppauge, version 1.62.25129.0.

Just out of curiosity, could you tell it was a 74041 tuner from the box when you bought it? There seems to be only 74021 in the picture of all the boxes at my local best buy.

Also, is the only difference between 1600 and 1800 is pci-e on 1800?

thanks

haven't tried 1.08 yet sub, but i am looking forward to it! thanks!

[Anthony]

> I'm not sure how well your old Riva card would handle HD.

Yep, it's a dinosaur. I haven't noticed any problems playing back any kind of video, but I rarely watch shows on the PC. I have (had) a DSM-520 media player that I use to watch shows on. For me, GBPVR is just a glorified VCR.

My DSM-520 died a few weeks ago, thanks to a failed firmware upgrade. After lots of mails back and forth I convinced them to RMA it, but I have no idea when, or if, I'll ever get it back. So, I have a Netgear EVA8000 on order that should be here Thursday. Assuming all goes well, TV life should be back to normal by the end of the week. If by some miracle D-link sends the DSM-520 back, I'll set it up in our bedroom.

> the ATSC on this card is great with GBPVR.

Good to know.

> if your channels are mostly in 1 direction and show as yellow

Mine are all yellow, about 20 miles from here, all at 222 or 223 degrees.

> try the Silver Sensor indoor antenna (the non amplified one)
> You can get it at Circuit City for about $25.

I may give it a try while I wait for the QAM stuff to be ironed out. All I really want is the local broadcast stations anyway, other than Discover, Hallmark for my wife, and another PBS station.

Anthony

[sub]

Well, that was it. I pulled out a couple of frequencies from WINTV and added them to qam.ini and it worked. I will do as Martin suggested and work to pull them all from WINTV. Sub, you may want to add some kind of all frequency scan as I wonder if this is the root cause for alot of people's issues with the HVR-1600 not pulling in QAM channels.

Its not that straight forward. Scanning the existing 139 channels takes 10 minutes or so. Scanning all frequencies might only take a year or two. We'd need to narrow things down a bit. There is probably some less frequently used frequencies, but still somewhat standard, so anyone finds a list of these - let me know and I'll add them.

That said, I think with that last patch most people are finding their channels.

[spotter]

I've noticed 2 things.

1) I don't seem to be finding all my channels, but that could be just be me missing them (when I say "can't find" I mean in reference to what I can find w/ WinTV)

and

2) the UI for lining up detected channels and guide channels is horrible. Namely, in Clear QAM mode you are going to find a LOT of channels. Instead of figuring out which guide entry (small # relative) goes to which detected channel, it should be reversed.

Namely, currently the UI has 2 areas, the large "left hand portion" where one does the real work and the small right hand portion which has a list of all detected channels and a small preview window.

In my view, it should all be condensed into one view, namely, instead of today's UI where one has a list of guide entries and a drop down for each with detected channels, one should have a list of detected channels and a drop down list for guide entries. One can select a detected channel to preview it and "enable" it. One can then also select which "guide" entry gets mapped to it.

The problem with this approach is that its conceivably that a user can mess up GBPVR by selecting the same guide entry twice, that can be solved I think either by notifying the user "you have already selected this guide entry" or somehow preventing him from selecting it (greying it out?).

Why do I think this way? Under the current system, GBPVR requires the user do a lot of work in one sitting (if the channel isn't linked to a guide entry, its unusable). While in my view, a user should be able to do it slowly (especially as a boat load of clear qam channels are detected, most of them useless).

With all this said, GBPVR works better than WinTV (mostly because it lets me select the mpeg video decoder, so I can use ATI's as opposed to hauppuage's broken one).

[sub]

2) the UI for lining up detected channels and guide channels is horrible. Namely, in Clear QAM mode you are going to find a LOT of channels. Instead of figuring out which guide entry (small # relative) goes to which detected channel, it should be reversed.

Keep in mind though, that the vast majority of users have a much better experience with this screen. This screen has existed for a long time, having previously been used by DVB and OTA ATSC users. For these users the real channel names are shown, along with "Major.Minor" numbers for OTA ATSC users etc.

Normally at the end of the scan it'll also have a go at automatically doing the mapping for the user based on the channel names or channel numbers.

It only looks ugly for you because unfortunately whoever defined the US Digital Cable standards decided to make 'channel names' and 'channel numbers' tables optional rather mandatory. As a result digital cable operators usually dont transmit these, and instead opt for their own proprietary extensions for carrying this info.