Using PVR 350 TV out, GBPVR freezes

[gvram]

Please help me with the final step of my PVR setup :

I have PVR 350, Very good new machine, Win XP Pro, latest drivers for PVR, Win2k installed.

1. When I had the GBPVR sending out to Software Decoder, it all works fine. But the moment I change it to PVR 350 and click on LiveTV, GB PVR freezes. I can see the menu and do other things, but cannot play video alone - not even the archive. Is this because of the nVedia chipset issue someone mentioned in the prev posts ? But I have the latest Motherboard and pretty confident that there is no chipset issue. I change it to Software decoder, it all works fine. But WinTV2k works fine with TV-out on PVR 350. Any idea ?

2. When I use TV out from my AGP graphics card ( instead of PVR350 TV OUT ), the image looks very bad because of low resolution of TV and I can see all ugly the WinXP desktop there. If I choose Sofware Decoder, how do I get the same quality as PVR 350 TV out while looking at GBPVR screen ?

3. unrelated but, How did you guys resolve GBPVR startup problem ? I put in GBPVR.exe as part of startup items ( after ir.exe ), but looks like it doesn't recognize pvr 350 Remote anymore. If I restart GBPVR, then it does. So help on startup sequence is appreciated.

For me, PVR350 TV out problem is more important as it freezes. I had to kill the process in TaskMgr. Please help.

thanks in advance
gvram

[sub]

1/  It could be the motherboard chipset problem that affects the quite a few users with PVR350s. There is basically nothing I can do about this. It would require help from Hauppauge or more likely Conexant, which I dont have. It works reliably (ignoring a few less fatal bugs) on a lot of motherboards. For the people that have this problem, the decoder in the PVR350 is essentially useless. The problem is not seen in WinTV2000 because it does not use the PVR350 OSD. It does also affect SageTV, which is the only other windows application that uses the OSD.

That said, this might not be your problem. Users with this problem are usually able to view at least some video. It quite often freezes at the end of showing a video and the system is trying to display the menu. Are you seeing any video? You could try zipping and emailing your log files to support@devnz.com for me to take a look.

2/ I've not seen a TV out on a video card that can produce a picture anywhere near the quality of the PVR350 or XCard. Some video cards are better than others. Some TVs have VGA support, which produces a much better picture than using SVideo/Composite. You could also try different MPEG2 decoders. Some produce a better picture than others.

3/ You can configure GB-PVR to use direct access to the Hauppauge remote, and stop using ir.exe altogether. This may resolve your problem. (I personally dont reboot my HTPC box very often, once every few weeks, so I generally just login then manually start GB-PVR.)

[sub]

Just to answer another point from your first post. I would put money on there not being anything wrong with any of these chipsets, including whatever is driving your motherboard.

Its more likely the drivers originally developed by Conexant (and later "re-badged" by Hauppauge), have some bugs on some chipsets in the code which handles DMA transfers of OSD information from the Driver to the PVR350 hardware. Only recently the first software (GB-PVR/SageTV) that uses the OSD has appeared, and bugs are only now being noticed.

I suspect it was also a couple of years since Conexant wrote these sections of the drivers, and they probably no longer get maintenance. I believe that this problem could probably be resolved reasonably easily by Hauppauge or Conexant if either party had the desire.

[Quattro]

When I use the TV-out of the PVR 350 GBPVR freezes just like your problem.

Config: Dell 8300 (P4/3.06) /w PVR350 and ATI Radeon 9800PRO

[sub]

I dont really know what to say. Basically there is nothing I can do about it. On some machines the PVR350 works fine, on other machines the driver locks up. This something that is out of my control.

[Quattro]

Perhaps it has something to do with combination Radeon/PVR350. This ATI videocard has also a TV-out, which displays liveTV fullscreen. Is it possible to display the GBPVR-menu full screen on the TVout of the Radeon card?

Sub, is there a good technical resource (URL?) you could recommend about 'overlay' and the way MS handles this in XP?

[sub]

Quote[/b] ]Is it possible to display the GBPVR-menu full screen on the TVout of the Radeon card?

Just go into the config app, set the hard decoder to 'none - use software' and uncheck the show in window mode.

[Guest]

I have the same problems with the PVR-350 locking up after pressing Live TV. I have FSC Scenic pc with Windows XP Pro Sp1 installed. I solved the problem when I installed the new MPEG-4 decoder from Hauppage. Try it http://hauppauge.lightpath.net/software/..._21154.exe

[glassvial]

That decoder isn't exactly new (June 03) but the driver version 1.8A is fairly new (June 04) has anyone tried the June 04 1.8A driver yet to see if it fixes any problems?

[dookie454]

I HAD this problem (soft and hard lockups when showing video through PVR-350 on TV only with non-WinTV apps - WinTV would still work OK). It would usually last a few seconds, and channel changes would make it freeze up. It also seemed laggy with the TV out enabled, and with Sage or whatever others would also lock up.
I remembered the first time I installed GB-PVR it worked good with no lockups. I then something changed, I dont know what.
I HWCLEAR.exe the PVR350 and re-installed with 9-10-04 driver release (the same driver only updated didnt help) and removed GB-PVR and re-installed and now everything is working again. Hope this helps!