Avermedia A180, Sage4, No Signal

[willgill]

I just built a new rig (as listed in my sig). I decided to go all new Sage with the new computer so I bought the Avermedia A180 and Sage4 plus Streamzap combo.

Installation seemed to go smooth until I installed the DCT Multituner serial cable STB changer. Keep in mind I did not tryout Sage4 to see if it was working before installing Multituner direct cable control. The direct serial cable control WAS screwing up and I was getting "No Signal" within SageTV. However, I tweaked Multituner settings and now direct cable control seems to work flawlessly. I see it changing channels on the cable STB.

Even though the STB is on the right channel, I get "No Signal"

If I shut down SageTV and power it back on, it will display the STB channel perfectly. Sometimes I can even change channels and the system will work. Most of the time I get "No Signal".

I checked IRQ usage and Avermedia A180 is sharing with one of the GeForce 7800 GTX video cards.

It's a huge pain to change position of the A180 since this is a water cooled system with a lot of items in the case so I thought I'd check here for other solutions.

[willgill]

Update: I put the A180 into another slot and it changed IRQ's to one that isn't being used. So the A180 is on IRQ17 alone. I still got the same problem.

So then I did more investigation. To rule out Multituner direct cable changer, I changed channels manually to see if it would crash. Nope. It changes just fine. So I've got a different problem. I'm going to stop posting to this thread and open a new one with a more appropriate title.

[Yorick]

I've had the same problem and haven't been able to figure out a solution yet. Have you tried using WatchHDTV? It's a little BDA applet that will utilize the A180 card. I can watch OTA HD just fine off this applet but I get "no signal" in Sage.

I think this is a newer version than the one I'm using so YMMV:
WatchHDTV

Paul

[Yorick]

I guess I've posted related problems a few times and this is just the latest incarnation...

I've got an A180 running in an XP box with Sage4 and I get "No Signal". When I turn off Sage and use the WatchHDTV applet I have no problems. The weird part is when I'm watching "No Signal" on Sage and launch the applet. HD content starts coming out of Sage. I can even change the channel on the applet and it changes on Sage.

There must be some potential for Sage to get out of whack with the BDA driver. I don't think I'm the only one with this problem but it does seem rare.

Anyone solve a similar problem???

Thanks.

Paul

[willgill]

I did some tinkering last night and I'm getting it narrowed down.
I'm using the same STB and serial cable and Multituner.dll configuration that came from the old computer.

Changing from VRM9 to Overlay -> still freezes video on channel change
Changing to every combo of decoder-> still freezes video on channel change
I took the video cards out of SLI mode (back to single card)-> no change
I put it in every resolution and color depth combo -> no change
I dinked with every option that could affect it in SageTV, with no success.

The channels change consistently via Multituner through the serial cable. I can see the channel change on the STB. I even see the new channel acknowledged by Sage's OSD. The video just freezes, though.

If I change channels via the STB remote, they change fine and video won't ever lock.

I hated to add more variables, but I went ahead and installed Girder 3.37 and Streamzap plugin. Channels change through Girder on the STB perfectly but video of course locks in Sage.

I then tested inputting a direct channel via the STB remote to replicate the way Multituner does it. I input 079 via the remote and it worked. I went through many channels direct inputting 008, 044, they all worked.

It must be something to do with how the direct cable plugin does the changing and the video card not initializing correctly.

Software:
WinXP Pro fresh legit, legal install on 2x250Gig SATA RAID Stripe drives
Forceware 81.94 on both video cards (just came out yesterday)
Java Version 1.5.0 (build 1.5.0_05-b05)
SageTV 4.0.0.56
SageTV Server active

[clmolnar]

I am having the same problem with a PVR-500. I submitted a CS ticket yesterday and will let you know if they are able to resolve the issue.

[willgill]

CS had be turn on the SageTV log. I did so, recreated the error, closed down Sage and sent in the log.

Thanks to the SageTV guys for helping resolve what seems to be a third party issue.

[clmolnar]

I was playing around with my preferences this morning and I found the cause of my problem. When the default recording quality is set to any of the SVCD (MPEG-2) options, I receive the "no signal" popup when I change the channel or watch several minutes of live TV. When I change the recording quality to any of the DVD options, this problem goes away completely.

Does anyone have any idea what would be causing this? I would rather record in one of the SVCD modes. I am using the Nvidia mpeg decoder, and have tried switching to the SageTV decoder but the problem persists so this doesn't seem to be the problem. Switching from VMR9 to overlay does not fix it either.

My system is:

WinXP home SP2
p4 2.5GHz
1GB RDRAM
Nvidia 6800GT 256MB AGP8x (Forceware 81.94)
SB Audigy
250GB SATA II HDD
Hauppauge PVR-500 (latest drivers)
SageTV 4.0 (VMR9, Nvidia mpeg decoder, no FSE)
Directx 9.0c
Java 1.5

Thanks for any help,

Carl

[willgill]

I'm glad that fixed your problem. Unfortunately I tried that and it did not fix mine. No matter what setting I have, the A180 locks.

[willgill]

Sage support had me Close SageTV (and the service if using) and open my Sage.properties file in the SageTV folder. Look for this line, "seeker/fast_mux_switch=true" and change it from true to false.

SUCCESS! At first that didn't work. I had VMR9 and 3D acceleration enabled. I changed to Overlay and no 3D acceleration and it worked. So I then enabled 3D acceleration and it still worked. I appears that the VMR9 is to blame. Maybe it has something to do with my 2 GeForce 7800 GTX cards in SLI? I don't know. I'm just glad it works.

Also, in VMR9 mode, I get some an artifact line across the top of the screen. In Overlay mode, I can use the NVidia settings to zoom that out so it all worked out for the best.

[Yorick]

Wow, congrats. I've tried shuffling the slot of the A180, using overlay instead of VMR9, turning off 3d accel, and the seeker change you mention below. Still "No Signal". It'll show me HDTV when I have the WatchHDTV applet running in the background. I can record the HD and play it back later when WatchHDTV is not running. I just can't get Sage to get past the "No Signal" deal on it own.

You contacted Sage support? Hmmm, I'll have to try that next.

Paul

[mattdcknsn]

Just wanted to let everybody know, I was getting an "error -12" message when trying to use an A180 on Win2k3. I used this fix and everything works just fine. Thanks for the post.


-Matt

Originally Posted by willgill

Sage support had me Close SageTV (and the service if using) and open my Sage.properties file in the SageTV folder. Look for this line, "seeker/fast_mux_switch=true" and change it from true to false.

SUCCESS! At first that didn't work. I had VMR9 and 3D acceleration enabled. I changed to Overlay and no 3D acceleration and it worked. So I then enabled 3D acceleration and it still worked. I appears that the VMR9 is to blame. Maybe it has something to do with my 2 GeForce 7800 GTX cards in SLI? I don't know. I'm just glad it works.

Also, in VMR9 mode, I get some an artifact line across the top of the screen. In Overlay mode, I can use the NVidia settings to zoom that out so it all worked out for the best.

[thomaszoo]

I found out last night that my A180 was not working. Luck had it that the show I was going to record had just started and I was going to watch it semi-live. When I found Sage displaying the "No signal" message, I just watched it using MyHD. I haven't finished troubleshooting, but I did try the fix on the Seeker/fast... setting and switching to Overlay and turning off 3D acceleration. Nothing worked. But WatchHDTV works just fine so I know it is not the card. Then I got to thinking that I did some MS updates over the weekend, including the Media Center 2005 Rollup 2. I tried using Media Center with the card but it wouldn't do anything (it no longer liked any of my hardware!). At this point in time I strongly suspect one of the updates messed things up, but I don't have any more time this evening. Hopefully someone else can confirm or eliminate the recent MS updates as a culprit.

[thomaszoo]

I uninstalled Rollup 2 for XP MCE and my problem with the A180 went away. Anyone else have an A180 and running Rollup 2?