HELP!! Major problems!!

[lido]

Hello. I am hoping someone can shed light on this situation.

I have a PVR250 in a PIII 1Ghz 512mb HTPC (CUSL2-C Motherboard). I have an Maudio 24/96 sound card.

My settings are as follows:

Video: Elecard MPEG2 Video Decoder
DScaler does the deinterlacing
Renderinf Filter: Overlay

Audio: Sonic Cinemaster @ DS Audio Decoder (tried all of them)
Audio renderer: default (there is not another option here)


It appears that the video is good quality (using the Dscaler/elecard decoder).. although I am noticing these "skips" that occur at times...

The major problem is the audio! There is a HUGE sync problem. I have switched through all the audio encoders, and it still is problematic! -

What can I do to get the two to sync appropriately? I played with the delay, and while this helps - it still is far from acceptable.... I also downloaded the beta version of the SageTV which didn't help either.

Please help with this situation! It's the only thing preventing me from purchasing the software...

-L

[mlbdude]

Have you tried not using DScaler? Do you have another MPEG2 decoder to try? What quality setting are you using(Good, Best)? I have almost the same setup except for the sound card and possibly video card. I have no audio sync problems ever. I am using the Intervideo MPEG2 codecs supplied with the Hauppauge drivers.

One good thing to check would be your CPU usage percentage when the audio sync begins.

The skips you mention may be the video glitch problem that is in the Hauppauge drivers. What version are you using?

Good luck.

[dkardatzke]

Another thing to check would be if you get the same error using the WinTV 2000 application. That would zero in on a potential driver problem with Hauppauge.

[Narflex]

If you've got 'double refresh rate' checked, try unchecking it and see if it resolves the sync issue.

[lido]

Well, I tried to use the WinTV 2000 application, and I get the same audio sync issues.

My CPU % is 60-70% consistently - doesn't seem to go above 70% -

The audio sync is a major issue - makes it unwatchable.

Any other ideas? I have the latest betas installed.


I am at a loss...

-M

[mlbdude]

Have you tried moving the card to another slot? Is it sharing an IRQ? Are you running the latest betas from Hauppauge from from SHS? I only run the ones from Hauppauge. 70% is way to high for the 250. Even with hardware decoding disabled in my decoders I never went above the 50's. Is this a clean OS install? Also, I am using the onboard sound.

[lido]

Hmmmm....

I will check on the IRQ status. I am also going to reformat the HD and do a clean install and upgrade from Win2k to WinXP and see if this helps.

I will keep you informed and post my results this evening.

--

Update: I checked on the IRQ status and it is indeed sharing an IRQ .. in fact.... it is quite disturbing.... I see that I ahve multiple devices sharing the same IRQ...

It seems, for some reason, I have the following devices all on IRQ 9:

Hauppage
Radeon
MAudio
SCSI Controller Card
Ethernet controller
Firewire controller

ACK! NO idea how this happened or if it is interferring with things. Any ideas from anyone on how to fix this?

Thank you!

-L

[mlbdude]

That is almost normal for Win2k. For me it had everything under IRQ 7. I am running WinXP. It works great with Sage.

[lido]

I just updated to the lastest SP4 for Win2k - if this is unsuccessful - then it's off to XP land for me.

I will report back!

-L

[lido]

One other question I have:

If I have a satellite dish that I want to control externally, what's the best way to arrange for the inputs?

Dish svid out/RCA audio out -> Svid in + the audio in port on the PVR250?

Dish svid out/RCA audio out -> Svid in + audio in on the sound card (AP24/96)?

Dish coax out - > Coax in on the PVR250?

I have been brainstorming about the sync issues and I thought this might be where the problem lies. My current hookup is:

Dish Svid out -> home receiver Svid in/out -> PVR250 Svid in
Dish RCA audio out -> home receiver in

Just trying to figure out the best way to approach the hookups and use what is known to work for others.


-L

[Narflex]

lido,

If you've got another sound card lying around, I'd give that a try or at least upgrade the drivers on the one you've got. It could be a problem with the audio hardware.