Installing 1600 and QAM woes

[zehd]

I feel like such a newbie again. But this time, I writing a wiki page to get 'er done...

I bought a HVR-1600, and not surprisingly I'm having trouble. I'm hopimng to identify what I'm doing wrong and fix it, or identify if I'm having hardware troubles and replace the card within my 7 day return period...

First off, I had a hell of a time installing the card and its drivers. I read about conflicts and so I ulled out all my other cards, and sure enough the card installed and seemed working properly.

During this process, I installed and unistalled the drivers and wintv suite many times. When the little yellow exclamation mark went away, I was so excited that I started right into GB-PVR.

I created a digital capture source, setup and connected the digital EPG, populated the channels. So far, just like normal.

Then it's time to map channels. I already knew the few channel numbers I should be expecting hits on (after scanning with my TV)

In my area I have one HD and 4 SD clear QAM channels. On the one HD (PBS) channel, I was shocked when I actually got a picture and sound in the little preview window.

Question: Is it expected to be jerky, stuttery video in the preview?

And then on the 4 SD channels, I get a brief less than second flash of a screen, and then what seems like a combing interlacing of green mush (I forgot if the audio dropped out)

Anyway, I recognized that I could come and go in the config, adding and mapping channels, so I left with just the one HD channel.

I should point out that several times during the maping and previewing, My computer either hard locked up, or config locked up...

OK, so now, what would a newbie do to start watching liveTV? Or record?

A quick record gave me two zero byte dvr_ms files. I switched to the TS mux and then a quick record gave me two zero byte .ts files...

I have not installed any muxes or anything yet.

I installed the ts mux patch from the survival thread and reregistered filters.

Not sure where to go next.

After I get this, I want to play with tweaking (including using whurlston's utility - but I wanted to gho with defaults for now...

As said, I'm a little concerned I have hardware issues too, as the hard locks usually mean that, but then it could be drivers right?

[zehd]

Should also add that I then installed the wintv apps. The scan found channels, but I was not able to see video, though I could hear something...

[zehd]

More searching on the net and it seems like some of the trouble is decoder hell

It seems that it needs the hauppauge decoder. But shouldn't I be able to also use other decoders?

[sub]

Not working in WinTV is not a good sign. It should include all the decoders you need, so should be giving your audio and video.

Maybe try removing temporarily removing some splitters to see if better signal strength helps.

[zehd]

Not working in WinTV is not a good sign. It should include all the decoders you need, so should be giving your audio and video.

Maybe try removing temporarily removing some splitters to see if better signal strength helps.

During the scan I'm getting tonnes of signal, and it is the first item, direct no splitters.

I will be uninstalling everything including all codecs (PERIOD) and then installing Hauppauge stuff. I think that there's a conflict somewhere.

I certainly want to be sure the default wintv is working

[pcostanza]

Frank, FWIW, I have a 1600 in one system and a 2250 in another and at times, get a number of channels after scanning but then either no channels lock (no picture or audio) to map with and usually, I get a crash or lock up. Only 1 time was WinTV able to get 2 QAM channels but as soon as I shut it down and turn it back on, it's a no go.
On these same 2 systems, both Vista MC using the 2250 and 1600 and HDHomerun pickup the QAM channels so for me, it's not a signal issue (or so it seems.)

[zehd]

Frank, FWIW, I have a 1600 in one system and a 2250 in another and at times, get a number of channels after scanning but then either no channels lock (no picture or audio) to map with and usually, I get a crash or lock up. Only 1 time was WinTV able to get 2 QAM channels but as soon as I shut it down and turn it back on, it's a no go.
On these same 2 systems, both Vista MC using the 2250 and 1600 and HDHomerun pickup the QAM channels so for me, it's not a signal issue (or so it seems.)

Hey are you using an ASUS motherboard? I'm seeing some posts of asus and 1600 troubles...

[mvallevand]

I'd suggest downloading TSReader and entering the channels you expect based on the silicon dust website and yor postal code. You will get a good reading of any ts errors.

Martin

[zehd]

OK, later I'm installing the card into my production machine, which actually a lesser machine. There's no doubt that it will ever play HD files...

But really I want the 1600 working so I can play with on-the fly transcoding for MVP...

I'm not in the clear yet, but while I wait for my shift to end so I can start playing...

Recording HD files doesn't take much grunt, just lots of drive space, right?
How much grunt is usually necessary to downsize a TS to mvp size mpg?

Does LiveTV passthough work in this case? (in other words would I get LiveTV from the HD channels even though I know that my CPU RAM and Video card can't decode HD TV...

[zehd]

I'd suggest downloading TSReader and entering the channels you expect based on the silicon dust website and yor postal code. You will get a good reading of any ts errors.

Martin

THanks... I've heard of that, but haven't paid attention to where I get it from...