2007-10-11, 07:57 PM
In case other's haven't discovered it yet, Hauppauge recently released a signal strength meter utility for the HVR-1600 (and some others) tuner cards. It works with both QAM cable and over-the-air ATSC.
http://www.hauppage.com/pages/support/su...nitor.html
This simple utility has helped me a lot tracking down problems with my setup. I first used it with my QAM digital cable. The SNR was fairly high (30 and higher), but I received lots of unrecoverable errors. To make matters worse, the SNR would drop below 15 for an hour or two, and then jump back up again. I'm not sure why I was receiving so many errors with such a strong signal, but I wouldn't have known about it without the signal monitor.
I already have an RF amplifier, but it wasn't helping with my SNR values. I even tried connecting the incoming cable directly to the amp, with the single output to my HVR-1600. There was no real change in the SNR or the number of unrecoverable errors. So, I assume there's some issue with my cable service itself.
So, I moved the digital side of my HVR-1600 tuner cards to an antenna, and moved the RF amplifier to that side as well. Thanks to the new signal monitor utility, I was able to experiment with the best aiming of the antenna to achieve the strongest signal. It's a very handy tool.
Anyway, my initial tests today have been quite good. SNR from over-the-air ATSC generally runs around 21 or higher. I get an occasional error, but haven't noticed any unrecoverable errors except when a station is first tuned in.
The only issue I have with the antenna is one of the stations is in a different direction than the others. If I aim the antenna to get that channel, all the rest get messed up. So, I decided just to give up on that channel. Thankfully, I looked through the EPG for the week, and it doesn't appear I record anything on that station anyway, other than an occasional movie. For now, I can always revert to the analog side if I want to record it.
The only issue I have with the signal monitor is it doesn't provide a way to select the tuner card. I have two HVR-1600 tuner cards, and it took some experimentation to figure out which card it was monitoring. Ironically, WinTV appears to use the OTHER card... Figures.![Smile Smile](https://forums.nextpvr.com/images/smilies/smile.png)
Finally making some progress again...
Anthony
http://www.hauppage.com/pages/support/su...nitor.html
This simple utility has helped me a lot tracking down problems with my setup. I first used it with my QAM digital cable. The SNR was fairly high (30 and higher), but I received lots of unrecoverable errors. To make matters worse, the SNR would drop below 15 for an hour or two, and then jump back up again. I'm not sure why I was receiving so many errors with such a strong signal, but I wouldn't have known about it without the signal monitor.
I already have an RF amplifier, but it wasn't helping with my SNR values. I even tried connecting the incoming cable directly to the amp, with the single output to my HVR-1600. There was no real change in the SNR or the number of unrecoverable errors. So, I assume there's some issue with my cable service itself.
So, I moved the digital side of my HVR-1600 tuner cards to an antenna, and moved the RF amplifier to that side as well. Thanks to the new signal monitor utility, I was able to experiment with the best aiming of the antenna to achieve the strongest signal. It's a very handy tool.
Anyway, my initial tests today have been quite good. SNR from over-the-air ATSC generally runs around 21 or higher. I get an occasional error, but haven't noticed any unrecoverable errors except when a station is first tuned in.
The only issue I have with the antenna is one of the stations is in a different direction than the others. If I aim the antenna to get that channel, all the rest get messed up. So, I decided just to give up on that channel. Thankfully, I looked through the EPG for the week, and it doesn't appear I record anything on that station anyway, other than an occasional movie. For now, I can always revert to the analog side if I want to record it.
The only issue I have with the signal monitor is it doesn't provide a way to select the tuner card. I have two HVR-1600 tuner cards, and it took some experimentation to figure out which card it was monitoring. Ironically, WinTV appears to use the OTHER card... Figures.
![Smile Smile](https://forums.nextpvr.com/images/smilies/smile.png)
Finally making some progress again...
Anthony