nPVR brings in great pictures, but...

[sylva]

Hi all.

I got an Avermedia Duet white box version. This card, when it works, has exceptionally clean HD sound and gorgeous picture. That is, in WinXP. Now that I am running 7 Pro, some strange things are happening whether I use gb or nPVR.

As an antenna, I use the roof-installed HD of the apartment complex which is the tallest building in the immediate area. With it, gb as well as n work great as far as picture is concerned. NO SOUND though. I installed every codec available on the Internet, to no avail.

Now, when running Win Media Center, I get NOTHING with the roof antenna, so I'm using a $10 indoor antenna. With it, I am getting 17 channels, with sound at quality that we had with analog vintage 1950-late 70s. As codecs I am using the ones built into Win7, audio and video.

As a side, when using gb or n, I am getting 30 stations. When I am using Win Media Center I am getting 17 stations, but 14 are not among the ones that I am getting with gb or n.

So, anyone can shed any light on this?

Thanks, S.

[sub]

As an antenna, I use the roof-installed HD of the apartment complex which is the tallest building in the immediate area. With it, gb as well as n work great as far as picture is concerned. NO SOUND though. I installed every codec available on the Internet, to no avail.

Install AC3Filter from http://ac3filter.net/ and set it as the AC3 decoder in the Settings -> Decoders screen.

[johnsonx42]

For sound on most US OTA stations you need an AC3 decoder. The Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder will NOT decode AC3 for third party programs due to a licensing limitation, yet it still reports itself as an AC3 decoder; so you can select it for AC3, but it won't do anything. I use AC3Filter (http://www.ac3filter.net) for AC3 audio.

I'm not sure what to make of your antenna situation - you get none from the big rooftop antenna using W7MC, yet GB-PVR and NPVR get 30 channels from the same antenna? Then at the same time you can use a little indoor antenna and get 17 channels with W7MC, yet only 3 of the 17 are common to the set you got from the rooftop antenna? That hardly seems sensible.

You can try http://www.antennaweb.org and http://www.silicondust.com/support/channels/ to see what channels you should be getting and where they are located relative to your location.

[sylva]

Thank you BOTH! Let me try it. John.

[sylva]

Thank you for your tip. It worked. HOWEVER, I can't get HD sound. I use AC3Filter. The sound still is of the old NTSC quality. When in Win XP SP3, sound and picture were superb. Is there anything that precludes HD sound in Win7-64? On the Internet I see constant complaints about this. But user knowledge and errors also abound, so I am kind of in the dark. I am quite savvy technologically, but I must be missing something. The drivers for my tuner, Duet A188, are the latest.

Thanks for your advice. S.

[johnsonx42]

the sound is the sound... NPVR has nothing to do with the sound; it just sets up a playback path in windows which delivers the audio bitstream provided by the broadcaster to the audio decoder (ac3filter); from there the decoded audio stream goes to the audio renderer (the soundcard) and then out to your speakers. you should check the settings of the AC3filter to make sure it's settings match your system.

[sylva]

Ah, OK. I did this to an extent but it looks as though it needs more. I trust I have a good audio system: M-audio's Delta44 and Sony's 7509 headphones, which I use in conjunction with sophisticated sequencers. Anyway, thanks again. S.