Weird recording when recording 2 at once on the same channel

[dazz]

If I record all shows on a channel, and two are back to back in the schedule and I have 2 cards, it will record one on one card, then near the end of the first show it will start recording the other show on the other card (the 2 shows overlap because I record a few minutes pre and post). Whenever this happens, the 2nd show comes out all weird, very bad quality. Any ideas how to solve this?

[ydekmekji]

i would imagine your 2nd card is probably not as good quality as the first card. OR because your cable is split, you are getting poorer quality going to the second card (check your cable)

[dazz]

I would imagine your 2nd card is probably not as good quality as the first card. OR because your cable is split, you are getting poorer quality going to the second card (check your cable)

No, that's not it. If I record 2 shows simultaneously, on different channels, both look equally great. It's only when they are recording the same channel that the first looks great (as usual) and the 2nd looks bad.

Note that this is something that may be very common, but unheard of because most people never run into this situation.

My 2 cards are essentially the same and produce near identical results (AverMedia M150, Hauppauge 150MCE)

[Networker]

I wonder if the cards being close together and some kind of EMI coming off the cards as they are on the same channel, the freq. But that's a WILD guess. I know my quality right now in test mode is crappy b/c of my splitter, but soon I'll have the 1x8 ampped splitter in the house, that'll make things better.

John

[bgowland]

I wonder if the cards being close together and some kind of EMI coming off the cards as they are on the same channel, the freq. But that's a WILD guess.

Interesting point.

Faced with the same situation, I'd certainly try spacing the two cards as far apart as possible based on that suggestion - it wouldn't hurt to try.

I have to admit, though, I gave up the majority of analogue electronics 20+ years ago and RF was never a strong point of mine but I can see your thinking.

Cheers,
Brian

[dazz]

As a result of troubleshooting I learned today that it is simply the 2nd card. It has nothing to do with both recording at once. It's just that when that Hauppauge 150MCE card records that channel, it looks pretty messed up compared to when the AverMedia M150 records that channel.

(I changed it so that the Hauppauge was card #1, and recorded that particular channel, and it doesn't record well. Here's one plug for AverMedia over Hauppauge)

[stefan]

Is it just that channel? You could search try fine tuning that particular channel for that particular card, can't you? (I don't have to cards, so I'm not sure how that works; but I would imagine that you setup channels for both capture sources...). The wild guess I'm aming at is that the drivers for avermedia might be better at doing some automatic fine tuning, or "locking" on to that channel... hope I'm making sense :-)