Lockups with 2.2 and a WinTV 350

[Crashless]

Right before my system crash, I had switched to Meekell's Stv, which doesn't have an eof options menu, and things seemed okay. Then the crash happened, so I can't really test things right now.

I'm thinking it's an EIDE controller failure right now. Anyone have an extra A7N8X-e deluxe laying around?

[1972]

Just received a mail from SageTV support in which they told me that they know about the 350 issues (and that this is a major one). They don't have a solution for it at the moment , but they are working on this issue together with Hauppauge.

[bhageman]

My problem is when I fall asleep 30 minutes into a show only to wake up 31 minutes later with my computer crashed and my TV displaying an all white screen. On a hungover Sunday, I've had this happen half a dozen times...

Originally Posted by Crashless

Right now I've just gotten very good at pausing right after a show ends. Doing this, I get no crashes, but unfortunately it isn't perfect - some shows that go over (Comedy Central, you know who you are.) cause crashes on a regular basis.

[zik]

I was going to purchase a 350 but after reading this thread I think I"m going to get a 250 or 150 instead.
1.4 ghz should be good enough for decoding.

[Crashless]

For most situations, I am recommending people do exactly that. If you never see the 350 decode, you'll never miss it.

In reality, if you're building a dedicated HTPC, and don't plan on having it do things while watching TV, then it doesn't matter if the CPU is maxed out.

Plus, with those dual-core CPUs on the horizon and prices on HDTVs dropping like rocks, I'd be surprised if anyone cares about h/w decoding in a year.

PS, for those keeping score - my system's PSU failed. I think my GFX card spiked when I tried to change resolutions, and killed it. Anyways, luckily I had a power supply laying around for a mod I've been putting off, and it works fine now.

Now I just need to dust off my dremmel and hack the case to fit it in there.

Don't worry overture, this won't hurt a bit.

[1972]

Something else: There is a (another) difference between playing a MPEG via WinTV and SageTV on a PVR-350: SageTV uses also a GUI ! Anyone experienced with turning this one off?

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by 1972

Something else: There is a (another) difference between playing a MPEG via WinTV and SageTV on a PVR-350: SageTV uses also a GUI ! Anyone experienced with turning this one off?

This has long been a work around that I don't consider a work around. Ever since 2.0 came out (which added a gui for the 350), the EOF thing has been around. The EOF is directly linked to the 350's api for guis.

You can turn it off, but then how will you control sage? Another monitor sitting next to the TV? Not very elegant if you ask me, which is why I don't consider it a realistic work-around. It's like being frustrated that a light bulb keeps burning out and instead of changing it, you sit in the dark.

Good observation though.

[1972]

I tried it with GUI off, but the same result: still 100% CPU usage at the end of the file
I also tried to disable the hardware decoder and to my surprise I still got 100% CPU usage at the end of the file (?????????????). Isn't that strange? I very sure I did it correctly, because I saw the video on my monitor and on my TV. If I use the hardware decoder I only see it on my TV.

What keeps me wondering from the beginning is how Sage ever could release SageTV with the PVR-350 options, which even can be set at installation, but that it does not work (!). Or are there people out their that don't have this problem at all???????
So that it might be a problem caused by the combination of hardware (like motherboard, chipsets, etc. with SagetV and the PVR-350). I must say I had a problem with the video and audio out of sync for the PVR-350 before, caused by a outdated BIOS version of my motherboard.
Maybe I should try to install SageTV and the PVR-350 on an other system I have, with an AMD processor. Maybe there is a difference....

I'll keep you informed!

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by 1972

What keeps me wondering from the beginning is how Sage ever could release SageTV with the PVR-350 options, which even can be set at installation, but that it does not work (!). Or are there people out their that don't have this problem at all???????
So that it might be a problem caused by the combination of hardware (like motherboard, chipsets, etc. with SagetV and the PVR-350). I must say I had a problem with the video and audio out of sync for the PVR-350 before, caused by a outdated BIOS version of my motherboard.
Maybe I should try to install SageTV and the PVR-350 on an other system I have, with an AMD processor. Maybe there is a difference....

Yes, there are people that do not have this problem. I believe they are users using Intel CPU's. I encountered the EOF problem when I first got my current Intel system, the previous Intel system did not have the problem. I reported the issue to SageTV support and the problem was corrected for me after a couple of months. However, that is about the time I saw it showing up for AMD users. Most of the 350 related problems seem to be CPU or chipset specific type problems. The first problem I saw with the 350 was its inability to work properly in the same system as the newer 250 cards. SageTV and several other users did not see this problem at all. This problem was finally corrected after about 8 months by a new driver from Hauppauge.

While I still believe their are several problems with the current 350 drivers I have been able to run several weeks without specific 350 issues. To work around 350 problems on my system I have to run with the Hyper-threading turned off and I have to restart SageTV every 24 hours. If I don't restart TV I tend to see soft lockups. I have only seen 1 soft lockup in the last several weeks and that was probably because I did not have an opening in my recording schedule to restart SageTV.

[1972]

Mmmmm, I have read a lot of people who have this issue are using a VIA EPIA board (like I do).
I also found a thread in the GBPVR forum, that showes that the GBPVR software has the same PVR-350 issue (see this link )....

[1972]

Update: I tried SageTV and the PVR on another computer of mine (AMD) and the same problem

It seems that I must let go of my dreams to make a simple PVR with the PVR-350 and SageTV after all the trying.... or Hauppauge/Sage should bring out a fix for it, which I don't expect ever to happen. (Since the problem has been around for more than a year - at least!)

Maybe I should buy a another videocard for the TV-out... and maybe than I should also consider MCE... (since the main reason for usage of SageTV was 'supporting' the all-in-one 350 card)...

[mayamaniac]

350 owner here.

The 350 is so unstable that I removed it out of my main SageTV machine. Its currently sitting in the client machine with only one purpose, which is TV-out. This way, when it has problems, it won't affect my recordings.

Anyway, I switched from VIA to intel chipsets and saw no difference in stability. Face it people, this thing is junk. Yes the picture quality is outstanding, I don't care what anyone claims, nothing beats the 350. I have a DVI to HDTV setup also, and no it cannot compare to the 350's quality no matter what software decoder I use, and I tried them all. Plus, you still get VMR9 tearing and PQ problems with fast motion video with software decoders.

Right now, as a decoder only card, the 350 rarely lock up the computer, maybe once every two weeks. But it does frequesntly freezes from FW/RW commands, usually stopping the video will bring back menu, and then replay the show again works. And sometime I completely lose the OSD menus and have to disable and enable it in Detailed settings to get it back. This is bareable since I don't have to reboot the computer, but if I have money, I'd rather go with the XCard or MediaMVP instead.

I haven't followed ErsatzTom's Xcard plugin development much, can anyone detail how that project is going and is the Xcard stable and usable as a 350 replacement? At less than $100, I'm willing to shell out the money if it is that much better. Plus, I can always use the 350 as a tuner only card.

[fieldeffect]

mayamaniac - The XCard in Sage is rock solid stable and the picture quality easily matches the 350. It's the only real option since Hauppauge clearly have no intention of ever fixing their problems (and you can't bash Sage and expect them to somehow work around Hauppauge's issues)

The XCard plugin is also very stable. Doesn't deal properly with PAL yet and needs a pretty fast CPU to keep the OSD rendering time down, but if those aren't problems for you then it's a dream solution.

My only two recorded timings for OSD rendering are opposite ends of the scale:

Athlon XP2600: about 0.25 seconds (more or less instant)
EPIA M6000: about 3 seconds (totally unusable)

Nick.

[jlindborg]

Is there some reason I don't understand why Sage can't just stop playback, say, 5 seconds from the end of the file automatically to get around the EOF lockup using the 350 out? How hard can this be? Or is there some reason why this doesn't fly that I'm not understanding?

I'm getting sick and tired of my system going in the ditch if I'm not there with the remote in hand to make sure the show doesn't play through to the end... very, very annoying...


I don't _care_ if it's a driver/HW issue with the 350, if there's an easy work around like this, Sage should make it happen. Just pointing fingers and shrugging shoulders is lame.

[fieldeffect]

Originally Posted by jlindborg

Is there some reason I don't understand why Sage can't just stop playback, say, 5 seconds from the end of the file automatically to get around the EOF lockup using the 350 out? How hard can this be? Or is there some reason why this doesn't fly that I'm not understanding?

I'm getting sick and tired of my system going in the ditch if I'm not there with the remote in hand to make sure the show doesn't play through to the end... very, very annoying...


I don't _care_ if it's a driver/HW issue with the 350, if there's an easy work around like this, Sage should make it happen. Just pointing fingers and shrugging shoulders is lame.

They could yes, but that's only one problem with the PVR-350. The others - loss of audio sync, overheating, occasional random loss of input, inability to run for more than about a week at a time without intervention - can't be worked around.

Whatever magic Sage manage to weave they're never going to make the 350 into a reliable card, which is a pain because there really isn't anything else on the market that does the same job

I'm not sure what's worse, the fact that Hauppauge don't fix the problems (and act like a cow in headlights when you suggest to them that the problems even exist), or the fact that they won't even put a one liner in the release notes that's something along the lines of "Some of our customers have observed that if you try to use our card for an actual PVR it kinda sucks and crashes a lot". Hmmmm thinking about it that wouldn't come across too well

I think most people seem to be getting to the stage where they realise that their fantastic dream PVR actually requires them to fiddle with it or reboot every few days and either switch to a different hardware decoder or experiment with the higher quality software decoding options (which of course is a whole other can of worms where we can start asking why Sage don't use renderless VMR).

Ever feel like you're running in circles with one shoe nailed to the ground?

Nick.

[jphhughes]

From the various comments here it seems that "we" 350 users are experiencing a range of problem. I guess I am one of the lucky one's since I only have to deal with the EOF issue and even that is not too ugly. When the end of file problems happens it takes about 20-30 second for the systems to start responding again. The CPU is pegged at 100% usage for this period of time. Outside of the EOF problems I have no other issues with the 350 performance.(fingers crossed- don;t jinks myself)

[1972]

Yeah, same for me!!! I only have the EOF problem also.
I had a audio/video synco problem, but that one was caused by my motherboard's outdated BIOS. So.... if only they had a fix for the EOF.... they would make at least two people happy :-)

[jlindborg]

I only have the EOF problem as well - which leads me to believe there is much benefit for Sage to add a simple EOF work around... pronto...

[1972]

that makes three happy people!

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by jlindborg

I only have the EOF problem as well - which leads me to believe there is much benefit for Sage to add a simple EOF work around... pronto...

I'm sure if it were a matter of a 'simple EOF work around' they would have done it already. My understanding of the problem is that it's a lower-level issue with the way the card handles things, and the only people that have access to that low-level stuff is hauppauge.

I'm also one of those users who only experiences the EOF problem and no others. I work around it myself by pausing the show before it ends, going back to the menu, and setting watched. Like I said, some shows/channels make this easier than others.