Adding an HVR-1600

[SLR_65]

Hi Guys,

I currently have an PVR-150 MCE and a PVR-500 MCE in my system.

I just ordered an HVR-1600 so I can pick up a few clear qam channels on our system.

I only have two pci slots so I plan on pulling the PVR-150 and installing the HVR-1600 in it's place.

What will I need to do? Just install the HVR-1600 and install the driver, then setup the new tuners in GBPVR config?

Can't wait till it gets here!

Steve

[TonyXL]

I'm planning on doing something similar (adding an HVR-1800 alongside my existing PVR-150). I seem to remember seeing posts detailing driver conflict issues between older and new Hauppauge cards.

Please post your experiences once you get the new card.

Thanks,
Tony

[SLR_65]

Well that's kinda concerning!

It'll be mid week before it gets here - I'll keep ya posted on what develops . . . and would welcome any comments or tips from anyone who's done this and either had or had not had problems.

Steve

[dennit]

would welcome any comments or tips from anyone who's done this and either had or had not had problems.
Steve

I set up clear QAM with an HVR 1600 (from scratch, not from another card), and the most important tip I can give you is to try to get the strongest possible signal, with the fewest splitters and amps, shortest cable runs and best quality cable you can get. Signal strength is critically important with the 1600/QAM combo. Amplifiers often made things worse (I tried a half dozen in all sorts of configurations). Now that it's all working, I love it.

[SLR_65]

Hmmm, I may have to do some arm bending at the cable co then!

We have low signal level here, but it's enough to meet their legal requirements (I don't recall the numbers, but basically they are only required to give enough signal for two hookups if I recall correctly). I have a four way splitter where the cable comes in - one feeds the cable modem, one feeds a digital cable box upstairs, and one feeds a digital cable box downstairs (they need to talk back to the cable co and even with a bi-directional amplifier they had problems doing that). The final output goes to an amplifier. The amplifier feeds the HTPC downstairs (which is split now to feed the PVR-150 and PVR-500), the DVR upstairs, a tv and vcr in the master bedroom, a tv and vcr in the spare room, a tv and vcr in my son's room, and a tv and vcr in my daughter's room. The output from the amplifier is fed down one trunk line and the drops for the rooms are split off using taps instead of splitters. The cable from the cable co drop and ran throughout the house is RG-6 quad shield. So far it's worked well - the digital cable box pictures on a couple weaker analog channels isn't great, but it's livable. The stuff running off the amplifier and tapped off looks great (I replaced the tap that fed the htpc to compensate for the loss with the splitter for the pvr-150/50o feeds and the 500's internal splitter).

The whole neighborhood is this way. We lived across town though and the picture was gangbusters, just looked terrific so it must be something to do with aging equipment or something (this is an older neighborhood).

We'll cross this bridge when we get to it I guess . . .

TTYL,

Steve

[kayak4ever]

I'm planning on doing something similar (adding an HVR-1800 alongside my existing PVR-150). I seem to remember seeing posts detailing driver conflict issues between older and new Hauppauge cards.

Please post your experiences once you get the new card.

Thanks,
Tony

I haven't got the qam side of the 1600 working yet but that seems to be a function of the lack of clear qam and the lack of an antenna. Each tuner will be a separate source and shows will be recorded from top down and watched from bottom up. It was a bit tricky in fixing the remote control. The sensor has to be plugged into the last card added - the hvr 1600 in my case.

[SLR_65]

OK, the HVR-1600 arrived today and I've had a fun night of playing!

*) I only have two PCI slots, one has a PVR-150 in it and the other has a PVR-500 in it. Originally the PVR-150 was device #1 and the PVR-500 was 2 & 3.

*) I pulled the PVR-150 and installed the HVR-1600 in it's place.

*) Driver install - fairly uneventful and got WinTV up and running.

*) Several of the clear qam channels it found stuttered.

*) I installed the signal level monitor from Hauppauge and the SNR is running 28.5 to 30.5 and it seems that 30 is the sweet spot, anything below 30 and it starts giving unrecoverable errors and the picture stutters.

*) I have low signal level here and I've been round and round with the cable company (Charter) but I can't get them to increase the signal level. Basically they have a level they have to meet legally and they don't want to give a db over it!

*) I have a good amplifier and using it I can get a couple more channels to hold in and the SNR comes up about a 1db using it. (I originally hooked in direct to the feed from the pole just to make sure I had the maximum signal available. I'm running RG-6 Quadshield and snap and seal compression fittings)

*) It appears that the HVR-1600 is VERY picky on it's signal!

*) To continue on I decided to setup GBPVR to use the qam channels that did work. I found the PVR-500 was now devices 1&2 and that when you setup the HVR-1600 the analog portion is set to device #1 (even though the PVR-500 is too) and when you setup the qam portion it should also be set to device #1.

*) OK, got that sorted out. Next had to download my epg with the digital channels in it. Got that done.

*) Next was to map the digital channels to the epg. I can't get them all done as the GB-PVR config program crashes about 3/4 of the way through the scan.

*) The channels it did map I could assign though and they worked fine in GBPVR.

All in all I'm unimpressed. The analog side looks as good as the PVR-150, but the digital side is simply far too picky. My cable comes in and I split it four ways - one for the cable modem, one for an upstairs digital cable box, one for a downstairs cable box, and one feeds a distribution amp that feeds the rest of the house. The cable modem runs fine and the two cable company boxes run fine. I even split the downstairs feed and fed the digital cable box and a small tv with a clear qam tuner in it I borrowed from a friend. The analog channels on the cable company box and the tv were suffering a bit from the low signal level but the digitals still snapped right in on both of them and neither missed a lick. If the cable modem, two set top boxes, and a tv can all run fine on the signal level coming in then I'd say the HVR-1600 needs a little better qam tuner in it! (and others posting here are noting that too)

Personally I'm pulling the HVR-1600 and will install my PVR-150 back into the system. Hopefully by the time they drop analog on our cable system there will be cards with better tuners on them available.

An interesting thing I found . . . Around digital channel 77 I found several interesting channels - a few color bars that occasionally went to video for a bit, the Outdoors Channel, and the World Fishing Network. None of them showed up on the digital cable box but that's probably because it's not mapped to them. The TV with the qam tuner would also pick them up, so it looks like we'll have a few more channels joining the line up soon!

All in all it was an interesting evening but I'm unimpressed with the card. I didn't try the over the air portion as the HTPC is in the basement and the OTA channels are all 40 to 60 miles away and I didn't want to diddle with an antenna.

I wouldn't mind picking up the few clear qams though, so if anyone has tried other cards and found them to be more tolerant of low signal level please let me know!

TTYL,

Steve

[SLR_65]

A quick update - I updated the drivers to the most recent ones on the Hauppauge web site and it's helped! Running straight cable in I can hold all the channels now! I can also hold them all through the amplifier! Once I split down after the amp though I lose them so it looks like I need to play with the amp or something.

It made about a 1.5 change when switching to the new driver though!

[SLR_65]

OK, today I played with a BIG amplifier I have on hand (a channel vision CVT-38bid). Running the amp I get about nothing for signal strength, if I turn the input attenuator down it comes up a bit, but not much. I added a couple 10db attentuators (for a total of 20) on the output and then I got some adjustability (I was most likely over driving the card). I got it up to a SNR of 30-32 for all channels and even picked up some I didn't get before - including the digital music channels (even get the logo graphic for the individual music channel). (this particular amplifier also has a "slope" adjustment that lets you adjust the amplification for the upper frequencies and adjusting it helped too)

Most of the channels come in rock solid, but I have a couple that still like to stutter occasionally.

Once I got some signal level to the thing then I could scan the channels in the config program - prior to the amp it would crash at around channel 85 while scanning.

All in all it's been a fun experiment, but I'm not impressed with the qam tuner in the HVR-1600 card. In my opinion it's WAY too picky. It does work well on over the air as I also played with an OTA antenna today and was pleasantly suprised - a make shift home built UHF antenna and a long cable up the stairs and it worked fine!

My cable co is still sending everything in clear analog so for now I'll be content to work with it. Later if I need to use clear qam I hope there's better cards out there! (in fact from what I've read the HVR-1800 works better than the 1600)

[TonyXL]

Thanks for posting all the info. Have you read anything regarding the QAM quality of the HVR-1250 or the HVR-2250? I wonder if they pick up QAM channels better than the 1600 or 1800...

Tony