Hangs when changing channel (PVR-350)

[larsie]

Hi,

There may be an answer for this on the Forum, but I cannot find it and I've been trying really hard to solve it so I'll ask anyway. Hope that's ok.

I live in Norway and I've bought a Hauppage PVR-350 card to make a TV-PC. GB-PVR seems like a really nice programme and I'd really like to use the TV-out on the card.

I've tried two different motherboards and graphics cards and installed various versions of XP (with Service Pack 1a and with Service Pack 2, with ActiveX9c and ActiveX9b).

The whole PC hangs when changing channels. If I do it slowly (long delay between each change) I can typically change 10 channels before it happens, but it always happens. Sometimes only after changing one channel. I have to restart the PC.

I currently have the following configuration:
- ASUS CUWE-RM ACPI with the latest BIOS (not VIA chipset)
- Intel Celeron 634MHz (Yes, this is slow, but have tried with Athlon 1.3GHz also and same problem)
- Intel graphics card (Have also tried with NVidia card)
- Windows XP version 2002 with Service Pack 1 (Have also tried service pack 2)
- DirextX 9b (have also tried c)
- 512 MB Ram
- Hauppage PVR-350 with the pvr_1.18.21.22301_inf but the other software that's on Hauppage's main site (have also tried the files that came with the card and also the Hauppage support site files).

I have really looked into the IRQ issue and tried disabling ACPI so that I can set IRQ myself. With the current configuration the system says that the TV card shares the IRQ with a USB adapter and a network card, but the freeze has also happened when it doesn't. It doesn't say that there are conflicts, and the card works from the WinTV2000 application.

I've seen various comments that one can for example tweak the registry, but I haven't found with exactly what. Does anybody have some further clues for me?

And yes, I will donate, but need to get it working first.

Best regards,
Lars

[Huw]

in my initial testing when building a htpc, I found that the pvr350 exhibited this locking behaviour on any machine that was < 1.5Ghz, but other people have had different results.

[larsie]

OK!

That's very useful. Thank you!

Have someone else seen this also?

Best regards,
Lars

[Huw]

the pvr350 are well known for this sort of behaviour I'm afraid, the may have probably the best tv out of any pvr card, but the drivers are pretty flaky on many systems

[Huw]

one thing to try is different video codecs.

[larsie]

Yes, the TV out is really great quality.

I guess if I change the codecs to software ones I need a faster PC anyway? I've tried so many things that it feels a bit frustrating, but upgrading to a faster cpu is probably the 'next thing to try'

One reason why I have a slow cpu is because I want it to be super-silent which it is, but I guess I just have to upgrade the cooling a lot also.

Do you know if pentium, celeron or amd have the best performance to heat relation?

Lars

[Huw]

You don't need a slow CPU to make it quiet, I have a sempron 2600+ with standard fan, yes it makes some noise, but my case is lined with acoustic foam, so you don't notice it at all.

If you have enough room in your case, check out Zalmans site, and fit a larger fan to cool your cpu, the larger the fan the quieter it will be.

[larsie]

It's really annoying, cause otherwise this programme works really great and has sooo many nice functions. It really impresses me. And it really works at an ok speed even with this superslow CPU. It's just when changing channels that it's unstable. Annoying that I need to buy a new motherboard etc... :-(

Regards,
Lars

[stefan]

I have the same problem, but I *do* have the VIA chipset. I've given up on live tv until I've bought a new computer (which can be a while...).

I use gbpvr for recording and watching recordings. Work very well. Do you know that you can almost simulate live tv and timeshifting (that is nice to have :-)) by starting a recording and then watching it (from the "pending" menu) while it's still recording? That's what I do. Not quite as convenient as it would be if I could use live tv feature, but *almost* ;-)

[xsherlock]

After a week of driver trial and error.

I gave up watching live tv with PVR350; I just watch normal tv and use recording and start watching the the recording in progress, which is close to live tv as it comes to stoping tv and skiping the commercials.

This is usable on my setup.

Live TV would still ocacionaly lock up on chanell change or on exiting the LiveTV and that require a reboot.

I use Shuttle barebone 2.8 Ghz P4 ATI chipset and drivers 22301.