DVICO FusionHDTV5 Lite Still Work With SageTV?

[pciccone]

geogecko, have you had a chance to test more with your FusionHDTV card? I am just curious if the problems are really solved and its just me or does the beta still have some work to do in the area of HDTV?

I had to remove the card again as I continued to get the -80004005 sagetv component error and playback of any HDTV stream via Sonic is no good. Its funny because I think I can playback an SD stream recording on a digital channel. This proves even more that the card is somewhat working and its a playback not a record issue (I think).

I did open a beta ticket with Sage over the weekend. Will see what happens.

Thanks again.

[geogecko]

Actually, I did do some more testing. It took me a while, to finally find a show that was really in "HD" versus just a regular SD broadcast. I recorded Criminal Minds last night, because I was pretty sure it was in HD, and it was, 8GB worth. I let it record the show, without trying to watch it at the same time. Once it was over, I watched the entire episode, with no issues. Sound was perfect, video was perfect, and not jumpy or anything. I realized last night, before recording the show, that I still had 3.11 drivers installed for the Fusion. I downloaded 3.3, and installed those, and had no issues.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the Sonic decoders? Have you used a trial of the nvDVD decoders yet? You might want to give that a shot, I think you can trial them for 30 days, and I think they are $20 to buy.

[pciccone]

OK, good to know. I will try as you suggest. I almost hope they dont work because I just bought the sonic decoders due to the rave for them on these forums

I won't be home till Thursday night to try it. I will let you know.

Thanks.

[geogecko]

Do you have any other PCI cards in your system? One other thing, might be to take out any other tuners that are installed, and see if that fixes anything. I've read somewhere that a few people had issues with sharing IRQ's with the Fusion card, and that causing problems.

Have you verified that all 5 (or 6 if you have the Gold version) of the devices show up in Device Manager, correctly (as per the instructions)? Well, actually, now that I think about it, you said everything appears to work when using the Fusion software, so that's probably not an issue...

Well, I'd be more than willing to compare properties files with you, if you want to post it (edit out your webserver password if using that plugin). I have a windows diff program that I frequently use to compare my sage.properties to my sageclient.properties files...so I could see if maybe a setting that you have set seems strange. You'll probably have to zip it, in order to attach it to this forum.

What STV are you using?

[pciccone]

I wont be back home till Thursday night, I work away from home. I will see if my wife can give me my cable modem IP tonight and I will PC/Anywhere to the server to get the info.

Being that the Fusion card works flawlessly via its app I belive the card itself (IRQs, PCI, devices) are all OK.

[pciccone]

I have certainly made some progress this weekend. I am now able to playback HD content that is downloaded (any content other then which I record).

Now that I have this working I went back to my recording problems. I tried downgrading to Fusion 3.1 with no luck then went back to 3.3. Problem is the playback is slightly stuttered even in FusionHDTV now. I do have some channels with marginable signal strength but I have been testing with a channel that goes from 91% to 99% and averages around 95% which I assume should be fine. The same stutter in Fusion is amplified in Sage (even worse).

In your experience what is the minimum strength as reported by FusionHDTV program that shows a flawless playback?

Also - just in case it helps someone else... (for me) Playback with the Sonic decoders and HD content causes a slight motion studder (outside of what I am talking about above). The nvidia decorders, however, create a flawless playback. I ended up buying both decoders

[geogecko]

I think that I can get good playback from channels that report 60% or greater, but it may be closer to 70%, I can't remember.

On another note, I recently installed MCE Roll-Up on my HTPC (has Windows XP MCE, but I don't use the MCE part).

My FusionHDTV card stopped working all of a sudden, getting the error message saying I needed to reinstall Sage. After days of trying things, I realized that I used to have to go disable the 3 MCE services after doing an update. Sure enough, all 3 services were enabled again, and this appears to break Sage (or FusionHDTV's software) from working at all, with the Fusion card.

Disabling and stopping those services made everything work again...

[pciccone]

Have not forgotten to followup, I have been working on this problem now for a long time, finally..... This has been RESOLVED. Turns out that an IRQ conflict of sorts existed between one of my PVR-150 cards and my FusionHDTV card causing some SD shows to be messed up, and others to be OK. Also was the reason why FusionHDTV shows were stuttering most of the time but not all the time (depending on if SD was recording at that time). Had to move the Fusion card to a new slot now making it share with the USB controllers (which does not seem to be a problem yet).

Also wanted to mention, if this helps others: Nvidia decords w/ Overlay seems to produce the smoothest HDTV playback available. Also make sure you have a strong HD signal or stuttering could be coming from a weak signal. If you have any ghosting on SD playback forget HD until you get it resolved (ghosting occurs from a signal bounce of a nearby structure).