Hauppauge HD PVR does not start live tv

[btc]

Hi,

I'm new on NPVR community, I own a Hauppauge HD PVR and I have the newest drivers installed and I heard good things about NPVR and decided to try it. It is said to support HD PVR and it seems to support, I installed NPVR and it detected the HD PVR device, I configured it but I cannot start the Live TV preview, it says that it is unable to communicate with the device. Pretty weird, because it is connected and powered on, and it works on Beyond TV and Total Media Extreme.
I searched lots of places trying to find the answer including NPVR documentation but I could not find any details about it. If someone could give me a tip of what this problem might be... :confused:

[sub]

Reproduce the problem, then zip and attach the npvr.log and nrecord.log and I'll take a look.

[btc]

I spent a lot of time trying to find these log files and I gave up and tried uninstalling the application once again, but this time, I think I tried something a little bit new. In the past I have added some channels on the list but I have never clicked on them to watch, I was just clicking on Live TV on the main menu. Before I do this, sometimes the earlier mentioned error appear and sometimes when Live TV was clicked, it only appeared very quickly "Please wait..." and didn't do anything.
Well, somehow when I clicked on the channel list, the Live TV button seem to work now, but I am still not able to view the image properly (btw, at the end of this saga, I finally found the log files). I have read about some "Decoders" that I must have installed to play properly or something like that. I have tried changing between decoders but none of them showed image except the default decoder that is Microsoft DTV decoder, but its image seems to drop too many frames. I don't know if it is because the source image is interlaced, but, do you know any better decoder I can use? And if the problem is really related to this?

[sub]

I spent a lot of time trying to find these log files and I gave up

The sticky 'survival guide' thread gives info on where to find the logs etc.

Well, somehow when I clicked on the channel list, the Live TV button seem to work now, but I am still not able to view the image properly (btw, at the end of this saga, I finally found the log files). I have read about some "Decoders" that I must have installed to play properly or something like that. I have tried changing between decoders but none of them showed image except the default decoder that is Microsoft DTV decoder, but its image seems to drop too many frames. I don't know if it is because the source image is interlaced, but, do you know any better decoder I can use? And if the problem is really related to this?

This will just come down to decoders and/or video renderer and maybe your video card. There isnt any other NPVR settings which would have an effect on this. The Microsoft DTV-DVD Decoder usually works well for most people though - so if its dropping frames, your PC might not be keeping up. Decoding H.264 video is pretty hard on PCs.

[smajor]

If you've installed the Arcsoft Total Media Extreme software that came with the HD-PVR, you should see the Arcsoft decoders listed as options, those are what I'm using and have pretty decent results.

[ToughRowToHoe]

Possibly the firewall is blocking communications between NPVR and NRecord?

[btc]

The sticky 'survival guide' thread gives info on where to find the logs etc.

This will just come down to decoders and/or video renderer and maybe your video card. There isnt any other NPVR settings which would have an effect on this. The Microsoft DTV-DVD Decoder usually works well for most people though - so if its dropping frames, your PC might not be keeping up. Decoding H.264 video is pretty hard on PCs.

At the end of my tests, I finally found the log files:

...(btw, at the end of this saga, I finally found the log files)...

Anyway, the program shows the video but it is loosing frames. My PC is a Core i7 950, 4GB RAM, 1,5TB + 1TB HD and an ATI Radeon HD 4850 1GB (Windows 7 x64). I think that either the decoder that I am using is not good or it doesn't really work right with this program, or perhaps the fact that the captured image is interlaced (480i).

If you've installed the Arcsoft Total Media Extreme software that came with the HD-PVR, you should see the Arcsoft decoders listed as options, those are what I'm using and have pretty decent results.

I have all Hauppauge HD PVR original software installed, incluing Arcsoft Total Media Extreme that works perfectly and smooth, even with interlaced (480i) images and producing the same stunning 60fps effect that the LCD TVs do. But these decoders/filters doesn't really show on NPVR's list.

Possibly the firewall is blocking communications between NPVR and NRecord?

Why would Windows Firewall mess with that? That has nothing to do with network communications, at least, I think not.

[sub]

I have all Hauppauge HD PVR original software installed, incluing Arcsoft Total Media Extreme that works perfectly and smooth, even with interlaced (480i) images and producing the same stunning 60fps effect that the LCD TVs do. But these decoders/filters doesn't really show on NPVR's list.

Some versions of TME dont register the directshow filters on the machine. You can register them manually though, from a command prompt started with Run As Administrator, and running:

regsvr32 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\ArcSoft\MPEG Engine\ASVid.ax"

(or whatever path ASVid.ax is in on your machine)

[btc]

Yes, at least now the filter shows on NPVR's list as "ArcSoft Video Decoder" and in fact, maybe due to different program versions, my filter list is located at "C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcSoft\TotalMedia Extreme\MediaConverter\MPEG_Engine" and there are a lot of other filters there. But that didn't solve the problem, the filter did appear on list but started complaining about MagCore.dll and many others dll's, I tried registering them using the same method you told me but it didn't work, so I tried copying all files that started in the "MediaConverter" folder with the pattern "mag*.dll" and it did work at last. But I have to be honest, I don't know why but the image quality on TotalMedia Extreme is much better than on NPVR, including the fact that on NPVR I don't get the "60fps deinterlacing effect" that I get on TotalMedia Extreme. Have you noticed this issue? Do you know any configuration I can use to get a quality close to TotalMedia Extreme?

Thanks for all help given until now

[sub]

But I have to be honest, I don't know why but the image quality on TotalMedia Extreme is much better than on NPVR, including the fact that on NPVR I don't get the "60fps deinterlacing effect" that I get on TotalMedia Extreme. Have you noticed this issue? Do you know any configuration I can use to get a quality close to TotalMedia Extreme?

If you use the same video renderer and video decoder as TME, then you should get exactly the same results as TME. On Win7, this would probably be EVR + ArcSoft Video Decoder.

At the end of the day, NPVR doesnt play any active roll in decoding the pictures or displaying them, so can in itself produce a picture of less quality - this will just come down to the decoders and renderers.