Older driver finally fixed my issues...

[rdblatch]

hmmm......any chance your STB is a DirecTV H21?

[fredx21]

Nope, it's a Bell TV (Canadian) receiver, which is the same types of receiver that Dish Network users have.

[jup]

Just wanted to post an update - using this driver and new hdpvr 2.1 everything is working solid so far(knock on wood). Live TV, recording, etc all just works. Thanks DVBLogic for the trials - off to go buy a license!

[skingery]

I'm just getting started with using my HDPVR and dvblink and the dreaded need for manual reboot of the HDPVR lead me to this forum entry.
I'm going to give the back rev a try and see how it goes.

I don't know if these settings were in previous versions of DVBLINK but on the General tab in 2.1 there are options for:
"When Media Center ceases using the tuner, enter idle mode"
default = 5 minutes

"When stream is missing, how long before Manual Power Cycling is triggered"
default - 30000

Has anyone tried changing those with the current drivers?

[philibert]

I'm just getting started with using my HDPVR and dvblink and the dreaded need for manual reboot of the HDPVR lead me to this forum entry.
I'm going to give the back rev a try and see how it goes.

I don't know if these settings were in previous versions of DVBLINK but on the General tab in 2.1 there are options for:
"When Media Center ceases using the tuner, enter idle mode"
default = 5 minutes

"When stream is missing, how long before Manual Power Cycling is triggered"
default - 30000

Has anyone tried changing those with the current drivers?

Changing these settings won't cause less issues.

[philibert]

I am using this "older driver" since March 1st (when I reinstalled my main system - moved from RC1 to RTM).

Fortunately, my Bell 6131 set-top-box digital audio seems to be compatible with the HDPVR so I do have digital audio. This is on my MAIN system, where wife & kids (and me) view the TV. I have about 10-15 hours of recordings set-up per week, about 2-3h per day (morning, afternoon and evening). My HDPVR IR window is not hidded (even though I recommend people doing it, I am still trying to ascertain a real correlation with the HDPVR IR window receiving stuff).


Here are my notes so far:

1) The system looks to me about as stable as before, not necessarily less nor more. I can typically go more than a full week without resetting the HDPVR (I don't have an automatic power cycle setup)

2) I noticed that I am loosing the sound for about 2 seconds, about 3-4 times per hour. This is pretty consistent.

3) With the latest HDPVR drivers I had "Video glitches" which I don't have anymore with this version, but that was with my old setup (RC1) and I haven't tried the latest drivers on the new setup.

4) This HTPC is also used for downloading Torrent files. When I have a somewhat heavy Torrent download rate, the systems is a bit less stable. HDPVR is more prone to dying on me.

5) Most of the time, the HDPVR hangs when I am moving forward/rewind in the Recorded TV programs, OR changing the volume on my Audio Amplifier (completely unrelated, I know)


In fact, my biggest problem so far with the setup is having the damn IR Blaster glued properly on the set-top-box. It always ends-up pealing off partially or shifting position, which cause the channel changing to miss. I have tried about 5th different approach. I just changed that during the weekend. It is currently taped using silver DUCT TAPE on top of the blaster AND also on the wire, strain on the wire seemed to worsen the situation. So I taped the damn wire as well over about 2 inches.

[fredx21]

my biggest problem so far with the setup is having the damn IR Blaster glued properly on the set-top-box

Phil, we've been talking about this problem of yours for months! Just pay yourself a treat and get it over with!

[Braumin]

Well I have been using the older driver for about 10 days and have yet to need to do a power cycle. That could also be because I upgraded my HTPC, but regardless I am happy with this driver (no SPDIF issues for me) and see no need to update.

I took the plunge tonight and added my second HDPVR back to the system. Previous I would have about 10 power cycles per day with 2 HDPVRs so this is the test for me! I am pretty confident though with the stability I have seen as of late.

[mbrumm]

Just an update of working with the old driver:
I have only had to power reset my HD-PVR once since installing the old driver. This was when I was over taxing the USB ports by plugging an external hard disk into a usb port to unload some files at the same time as recording a program. (I should have known better.) Other than that I can find no issue with the HD-PVR's drivers.

I do have problems with fast forwarding a recording occasionally will hang the system that requires a hard reset of the computer. However I believe this has little to do with the HD-PVR since it is not in use on at the time. (I realize that it could be some corruption in the recorded file but do not think it is likely to be linked to the driver). If anyone can point me to a solution for that I would say that this set up is as stable as my Vista MC and Silicon Dust configuration was.

[Braumin]

What kind of video card do you have? My ATI would do that all the time. Intel graphics do not suffer from that problem (at least for me). I would not get a hard lock usually though - just a black screen for 5 seconds or so while the video card figured out what it was doing.

[mbrumm]

Yes I do gave an ATI based video card. I saw the latest driver update mention that it solved a problem with lockups. However I still have this problem after the update. The system will lock up for all user input. The screen does not blank or go black it just freezes. It generaly happens when I load a new recorded program or when I use the skip ahead feature several times in quick susession.

[superdeef]

An update from my part:
The thing works! It has been stable since I reinstalled with the old driver (eight weeks ago). It used to crash about every two days. I must say that I have been carefull with my HTPC. I make sure it doesn't have to do anything else but the Media Center stuff. so no downloading, extracting, ...

I use it with 2 HD PVR's, an XBOX 360 and a linksys extender.

I don't have the video glitches anymore.

the only thing that bothers me a bit is the AV sync issue. Sometimes it's not there, sometimes it's really annoying. Some people suggest updating the audio driver. My motherboard is'nt Win7 supported so no new drivers for me (ASUS M2N-DH)

I'm happy and (maybe more important) my wife stopped referring to it as "that expensive peace of crap"

[warpdrive]

Wow, I was getting ready to throw the whole system out the window. The biggest key element is reverting to the 1.0.5 drivers, but there were other things I had to do as well.

Here's my story for anybody who cares to listen:
I am on Rogers in Canada and I was on a free two year rental for their HDPVR cable box, and it's ending in a month so I decided to get serious about dumping their sucky box which costs $25 a month to rent or at least $300 to buy.

So I went with the following: It's a bit overkill but I decided to build my ideal system.

Antec Fusion Remote Case
Asus 7M55 Pro motherboard Micro ATX
4GB RAM (which turned out to be a waste since I ended up installing 32 bit windows)
Windows 7 Ultimate (got it on an friend's employee discount so why not Ultimate)
Intel i3-530 (supports HD playback with its built in GPU, very power efficient). Decided to stay with stock cooler for simplicity.
Hauppauge HDPVR of course, I had a C1 unit, but I decided to buy a new E unit. The C1's were known to overhead so I didn't want to risk it. I can use my C1 unit for spot recordings in a different system.
I had a firewire/USB card from Monoprice which I will use with as my channel changer and it gives me a second controller to isolate my USB for the HDPVR
Corsair VX450 power supply for reliable quietness.
Rogers Scientific Atlanta 4250 cable box.
Samsung F3 1TB drive (gives me about 100 hours of HD recording according to MCE)
Microsoft eHome receiver to handle remote signals (my case has a remote receiver as well, but I decided to go with an external receiver to allow better line of sight reception)
All connected to a Denon receiver with HDMI which is my hub for all sound.
UPS to keep everything running through shoft power losses

I have the HDPVR connected to the cable box through SPDIF optical.

Here's everything installed. The computer is on the bottom. The top thing is a APC H10 power conditioner for my TV


Anyhoo, I built and installed the system, downloaded the latest drivers from Asus for my motherboard. Running Windows update I picked up the latest Intel Videocard/HD Audio driver as well. I made sure I used WIndows System image to capture my system installation so I can easily revert back if I screw it up with bad drivers etc.

I tried to set up the channel changer. Had a glitch there, my 4250 box wasn't supported directly even though I had the modified drivers set. http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/stbfirewire/
I had to use the alternate commands for the FireSTB (-a4) for my Rogers/Scientific Atlanta box. Success.... it was working.

But it really didn't work once I deployed it onto full time duty. It somtimes won't record anything and I had to reboot/reset the HDPVR several times a day. I removed all other USB devides on the same controller and still it was very unstable. Then I decided to try this older Hauppauge driver. It actually went an entire day and recorded everything. I was getting worried that my $1000 worth of new hardware was an expensive experiment.

But all was still not well. I had set my Media Center to auto start when the system booted. For some reason MCE would lock up and I would have to kill the process. I turned off AutoStart. I trained my wife to press the start button if MCE isn't running

I also programmed my Harmony remote to send a Alt F4 command when the System Off button is pressed. That way, it would shot down MCE so that streaming can stop on idle automatically, so the HDPVR can take a break.

I took the opportunity to update my video/audio drivers to the latest on Intel's own site. It said there were newer drivers so I installed them. That was a disaster, it would lockup on playback when watching any prerecorded videos or live tv. I found the much older Intel drivers from my original install and installed those. Playback is much more stable know but still the video will freeze up for a couple seconds but it does recover now. I can live with this. Also, when skipping 30 seconds,the video is always garbled for the first second, which I can live with. Also, for some reason, when skipping, sometimes the sound goes very loud but it fixes itself if I skip again.

I also tried using sleep mode and see if it would resume properly. That doesn't work either for me....my eHome receiver on my USB card doesn't wake up properly. So now I leave my system on full time.

So there you have it, my system is actually usable but is still far from ideal. I wishthe sleep/resume capability works, and the video hiccups more than I like, but otherwise, MCE + HDPVR is a thing of beauty compared to my Rogers SA HDPVR.

thanks goodness that these older HDPVR drivers turned it from an useless heap of electronics to something usable. I just paid for dvblogic drivers and hopefully this system is here to stay.

[Ghostlobster]

Good to hear that you've got it to a usable state! Now, for the fine tuning. For sleep mode issues, make certain you are using s3 and not s1 power saving mode in your bios. Also, check the power options on your usb ir receiver in device manager and ensure that puppy is set to be able to wake up the system.
Video glitches are another issue completely. Generally you're looking at hours/days/weeks of tweaking with drivers and settings to hammer it out, but it'll be worth it, especially on the WAF front.
Question for ya...I'm considering doing a completely new build, moving to a small footprint, low power architecture. The Core i3 is looking more and more like the processor for these ends. How do you like it? Is it robust enough for all video formats? I'm probably going to go itx using a very small case and keep everything external, but I don't know yet...
Thanks

[Braumin]

I've been running now for about a month without a single HDPVR reset. I switched to the older driver at the same time as building my new HTPC. I waited about a week with 2 NTSC tuners and 1 HDPVR before switching to 2 HDPVRs and 1 NTSC tuner. The results have been everything I wanted (well almost). Finally I can get HD without my wife hating me.

The only major issue I had was HDMI. I just can't get HDMI to work 100% of the time so I dumped it and went back to VGA and SPDIF. Unfortunate, since I was looking forward to HD audio blu-ray but I guess I can still hook up the HDMI when needed.

The only minor issue I have is sometimes a channel will not change and I will miss a recording. I'll have to dig through the logs and see what is going on. One of my HDPVRs is using the Hauppauge blaster, and the other is using MCEIR.exe.

Anyway I am very happy now and want to thank the 1geek1tool guys for making HD Media Center a reality in Canada.