HVR 1600 QAM won't record

[sub]

I have eliminated the HCW codecs and I am still having the QAM issue, when I exit PVRX2 after the drop back to the main menu I see the Nvidia or FFDshow decoder icon in the dock for a second so it must be contacting them--but it still will not pause or record. I am so ready to give up on GB-PVR!

Reproduce the problem, then zip and attach the logs and I'll take a look.

[dawnview]

Thanks, will do!

[skylinegtr]

I have searched through the forum looking for an answer to my following question to no avail so I thought I would pigggyback onto this thread.


Here is what I have that works:

I have Two VISTA PC's with a single Hauppauge HVR-1600 model # 74021 Tuner in each.
Each of these PC’s has the QAM driver that Hauppage released this summer.

I have split my Verizon FIOS TV cable signal and connected each feed to the center antenna connector on each HVR-1600.

The disks are set as sharable and I use my Media Center Cable Card PC that is connected to my TV to play the files.

With this configuration, I have been successfully recording the Baltimore and Washington Network stations via Cable for well over a month.


Now here is the point of my post: Can you run TWO HVR-1600’s in the same PC with GBPVR?

I see many posts about dual tuner setups but none with dual HVR-1600’s so I decided to give it a try.
I configured a single PC with both of these cards.
Everything installed and setup without a hitch and GBPVR even knows about having 2 tuners because I can schedule a ‘record’ on two stations at the same time slot but it does not work.

I put record in quotes because the files that are produced are empty and GBPVR says that it has NO signal from the tuner.

It is very repeatable. GBPVR records if I only have one board in the PC but as soon as I put the second board in, it says ‘no signal’
I have verified the configuration to show board #1 and #2

Ideas?

Thank You

[sub]

I'm not aware of any limitation that would stop you from using two of these boards at the same time.

Try to do two recordings at the same time, then zip and attach the logs and I'll take a look.

[Anthony]

> Can you run TWO HVR-1600’s in the same PC with GBPVR?

I have two HVR-1600's installed in my machine and working fine with GBPVR. I have the digital tuners connected to an over the air antenna, and the analog tuners connected to my cable line. I can record two digital shows and two analog shows at the same time.

The analog side is basically a no brainer. Hook it up, configure the tuners in GBPVR, and start recording.

The digital side is very finicky about signal strength and quality. I recommend the Signal Monitor utility you can download from the Hauppauge support page for the 1600. I spent a couple of months trying to get the QAM stuff working with my cable. Despite a signal strength over 30, and perfect picture on our TV's, the HVR-1600's wouldn't tune the signal correctly. I had lots of crashes, unwatchable recordings, etc. I tried adding an RF amplifier to the cable line, but it didn't help much. So, I switched the digital tuners to an antenna and moved the RF the amp to that signal. My signal strength now averages around 22-26 for most stations (varies during the day?), but I haven't had a failed recording in quite some time. So far, so good...

I'm currently using a small tabletop antenna for my digital stations, but am in the process of hooking up a larger antenna in the attic. Both to improve my signal and to get the antenna off the desk.

I've also found the ATI MUX to work best with the HVR-1600. Perfect sync and regular MPEG2 files. The Cyberlink MUX caused audio/video sync problems, and the DVR-MS MUX produced files that couldn't be viewed with most players.

I can't say any of this was easy though. I took me almost three months to work the kinks out and get the system working the way I envisioned it working.

Anthony

[skylinegtr]

I don't get it.

I put one HVR-1600 in the system,set it up and it records or does live TV fine. The signal strength utility shows a nice SNR of ~34

Then I put the second card in and it kills both cards.
The mini tuner window is blank for for the card that was working as well as the new one I stuck in.
The SNR meter is showing ~13 and is red on all the lock fields.

Take the second card out and bingo It all works fine.

I will post the log files after I munch through them myself because I had not thought of that.

Few questions and 1 commment.
1) Which tuner does WinTV use?

2) HOW do I know which card the signal strength utility is looking at?

I have split the cable signal (it is amplified right after the ONT) and I swapped the cables between the 2 cards to see if a weak signal strength on the second card was my problem. NOPE

[skylinegtr]

This is wierd.:confused:

I have rebooted several times with both cards installed and always was unable to watch live and/or record.

On a whim, I disabled the second card in Device Manager and of course I had to reboot.

Upon reboot, I AM able to tune and record/watch from the single card.

I then re-enabled the second card (reboot is not required by Windows) in Device Manager and both tuners are now working.

I am recording the 6 O'clock news on my my local FOX station and am watching the 6 O'clock news on my local ABC station so obviously both tuners are cooking.

The proof is in the attachment and by the time I finished typing this, a scheduled recording kicked in as you can see.
No cracks about Judge Judy


I have not rebooted to see if it still works but I will sometime before the evening is over and post the final results.

[skylinegtr]

My plan has been to use a dual tuner PC to record the Digital Network Programming in the .dvr-ms format and either play them back over the network on my Media Center PC OR plug that USB disk into the Media Center system and have an integrated playback solution.

That allows me to use the 2 available ATI tuners on my Cable Card PC to record the Verizon FIOS premium content. eg. History Channel,SciFi Channel ,HBOHD,SHOHD,etc.


This is really great because my plan is going to work!

Weeks ago, I bought 2 Identical 500 Gbyte USB disks in anticipation of getting this plan to work.


An extra bonus is that the Network recordings are NOT encrypted becuase they are done on a non cable card PC.
Many people do not know that once a cable card is put into a Cable Card Tuner PC, EVERYTHING that gets recorded has the DRM 'treatment' done to the recordings.


Time to make a second donation to the GBPVR project.
Thanks for a great piece of SW!!

[sub]

Good to hear you got it working!

[Anthony]

> The signal strength utility shows a nice SNR of ~34

Your situation appears to mimic my experience. The signal strength is strong, but if you look at the status list, most of the sync and lock signals are not locked on. I could record like that, but most of the time it was unwatchable and/or GBPVR would crash during recording.

In contrast, my over the air signal is only around 25 in strength, but all the status symbols are green.

All I can figure is the cable company isn't sending some signal they should be. Although, my TV can view the stations without difficulty, so I still think the HVR-1600's have a weakness somewhere.

> I put the second card in and it kills both cards.

It sounds like an interupt sharing problem. Try moving the cards to different slots in your computer and see if that fixes it.

> Which tuner does WinTV use?

Uh, the "other" one? When you do a QAM station scan, I think it builds the list using both tuners. So you'll end up with the same stations duplicated twice in WinTV. The tuner in use depends on the channel you select.

> HOW do I know which card the signal strength utility is looking at?

The signal monitor doesn't appear to be aware of multiple cards. I figured out by trial and error which one it monitors. Of course, that's not the one WinTV uses, or the one "Live TV" in GBPVR uses. If I want to test signal strengths on different channels, I have to use the preview function in the channel mapping section of the GBPVR config app.

> My plan has been to use a dual tuner PC to record the Digital Network
> Programming in the .dvr-ms format and either play them back over the
> network on my Media Center PC OR plug that USB disk into the Media
> Center system and have an integrated playback solution.

I record my shows to a hard drive in my PC, then watch them on my TV, using a network media player (TViX M-4000) to stream them over my home network. It works great! (I have a brand new warranty return DSM-520 for sale if you're interested!). MPEG2 works best with the media players, so that's the format I prefer to record in.

Anthony