Older driver finally fixed my issues...

[woodchuck]

Can you post the exchanged mails here?

Yep, see attached. I never heard back from them after telling them the older driver seemed to be helping.

[kemist1117]

I think everyone on here should send a reply to hauppauge asking them to work on a specific driver for dvblink, or work with dvblink etc. I'm guessing a lot of their sales are from people wanting to use this with WMC. We need to reiterate this and reiterate that we will NOT buy another hauppauge product in the future if they do not start supporting their $200+ hardware.

[kemist1117]

Hello,

I am an owner of 2 HD-PVR's. I find it troubling that Hauppauge will unofficially promote DVBLINK, but will not work with the developers on creating a stable user experience. Many people have bought the HD-PVR for use with WMC/DVBLINK and they are frustrated with the constant problems with the current drivers. If Hauppauge were to create a driver that guaranteed a stable user experience withe WMC/DVBLINK I am sure it would really help to drive sales of the product, as WMC is the largest HTPC platform on the market. As it stands users can not recommend the HD-PVR as it is just too unstable. Please consider creating a driver tailored to the DVBLINK software or please work with the DVBLINK developers to solve these issues. It is very frustrating spending hundreds of dollars on hardware and not receiving proper support from the company producing it. We know that this is possible as many users have found increased stability from the hdpvr1.0.5.301 driver, however this “fix” has brought back other issues such as A/V sync and SPDIF problems. I know that I personally, along with many others, will reconsider doing business with Hauppauge again in the future if proper support for the HD-PVR is not provided. Please forward this to management or anyone else who may be in a position to properly address this issue.



Sent this to support, seriously, everyone send something similar. If they get enough people bugging them maybe they will actually do something about it.

[fredx21]

Yep, see attached.

You are getting BSOD??? I never heard of that happening before! All I heard was that the HDPVR hangs for some unknown reason.

Does anybody else get frequent BSOD because of the HDPVR driver?

Fred

[Braumin]

I've never had a BSOD on my Media Center that I can recall.

[AFinch]

I've never had a BSOD attributable to DVBLink and HD-PVR, just hundreds of power cycle messages and failed recordings. I can live without optical audio, but I shouldn't have to.

[woodchuck]

Yep, see attached.

You are getting BSOD???

Fred

Yeah, I know... Weird. My setup has always been very stable without the need to power cycle the HDPVRs, but occasionally the computer would reboot (~2x per week). Never in front of me, but always during a resume/standby event. There were no associated error events in the log, just a memory.dmp file that pointed to the Hauppauge driver. The earlier driver has completely fixed the problem. (3+ weeks now)

[woodchuck]

I pinged Hauppauge support on my issue again and did get this response:

"We passed the information to the developers, but ultimately the issue is with DVBlink and how it grabs our driver. Did you also contact DVBlink for suggestions? "

[mbrumm]

I pinged Hauppauge support on my issue again and did get this response:

"We passed the information to the developers, but ultimately the issue is with DVBlink and how it grabs our driver. Did you also contact DVBlink for suggestions? "

This is a silly statement by a support guy who is just trying to sound like he actually talked to someone who knows something. You have to look at this thing from a corporate business point of view to have it make sense.

I think:
Hauppauge developed a product with all the costs associated with it. However developing the software drivers that would support Windows Media Center was very difficult. Hauppauge most likely developed a driver suit and to work with MCE but could not get it to a supportable point at "time to market". So they cobbled together a number of utilities that could be used instead of MCE and came to market to try to get the investment money back. Then pulled the plug on further development on MCE.

The support people are protecting Hauppauge's "pride" by pointing the blame elsewhere. The blame game is played when they want you to go away and not bother them.

I have worked with hardware and software vendors for a fortune 100 companies IT department for 14 years. My job was to evaluate new technologies for use. The pattern of response is so familiar.

I think Hauppauge thinks of HD PVR as a failed product and will not put any more resources into making it work with it's intended platform which I think always was MCE.

[jup]

I have worked with hardware and software vendors for a fortune 100 companies IT department for 14 years. My job was to evaluate new technologies for use. The pattern of response is so familiar.

I think Hauppauge thinks of HD PVR as a failed product and will not put any more resources into making it work with it's intended platform which I think always was MCE.

I would hardly say the HDPVR is a failed product - there really is nothing that competes with it and it works fine with other software. To be fair, we're the ones using it with unsupported software (MCE) and thanks to DVBLink it will soon be supported software.

[AFinch]

I would say that the HD-PVR is a failed product. It launched with a high price point and has underperformed without a direct competitor. With that said, for its main purpose of recording component HD video (e.g. video games) the device works well enough. The fact that Hauppauge has not raced to correct what are clear driver performance issues with WMC seems based on their need to walk a fine line while "exploiting the analog hole" with litigious MPAA, Cable Co.s, Television networks, etc. watching closely. That scenario also explains the lack of competition. I am convinced that Hauppauge could make a WMC driver that worked "out of the box" but the testing/approval process would expose them to serious liability and DMCA claims. Releasing a device that does what it says it does, but leaves us maddeningly short of our goal of HD recording in WMC, allows them to avoid legal challenges while relying on a third party (DVBLink) to create software that fools Media Center into configuring a faux satellite tuner. What irritates me to no end is that Hauppauge's website links to DVBLink as a WMC solution, then assigns blame when the newest released Hauppauge driver makes the recommended software malfunction. Rolling back to the older driver has resolved 99% of my issues but I can't use digital audio. That is a hardware failure based on a bad driver.

[woodchuck]

I am convinced that Hauppauge could make a WMC driver that worked "out of the box" but the testing/approval process would expose them to serious liability and DMCA claims.

Agreed!

[meob]

I have been running the for weeks now, not once have I got the dreaded "no TV signal....."

however, what I have noticed, is that there is a very slight pixilation / picture shudder in areas on the screen randomly.
I am mainly using a x360 extender atm, but I have seen this on my main screens as well.

I do not recall having this issue when I was using the newer driver.

well, I suppose, I also now have 2 * 1080p screens hooked up to the graphic card (42" & 52" mirrored) , this is only in place since I rolled back the driver.
I dont think having the 2 screens would cause this tho...

Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT 1 GB

[rdblatch]

I haven't tried this yet (building a new machine), but I'm curious as to why some of you can get the optical audio to work and others can't? It would be nice to reduce the recycles but my IP Power solution recycles everything reasonably quickly when it does occur. I don't think I could do without the 5.1 sound......and I'm hoping that my new quad core machine will have better luck (seems like I read in another post that greater CPU seems to be solving/reducing recycles).

So what's with these drivers that optical works for some but not others?

[fredx21]

I use the old driver too and while I was working on DVBLink for HDPVR 2.1 last week-end, I had to connect my HDPVR to an old DVD player. Well, for some reason, the HDPVR would not work when using the DVD player as its SPDIF source. However, my HDPVR is perfectly happy if I use my STB's SPDIF output, and it has been plugged back since. Go figure... the HDPVR behavior seems to depends on the hardware it gets its signal from.