Anyone able to use FusionHDTV 5 w/ analog cable?

[xred]

I have a DviCo FusionHDTV 5 Lite I am trying to use to receive analong cable ONLY. I have tested the card using the FusionHDTV software and it can receive analog cable no problem, so I am quite sure its not a hardware / driver issue.

Inside Sage on the other hand, I cannot even set this card up as a source since Sage hangs every time I attempt it. When I go to setup sources, I select the Tuner as the source (not Digital Tuner which I know is for ATSC) and bang it locks up. It continues to display the video / audio in the preview window, but the UI itself is dead and the only way to exit is to kill the SageTV.exe thread in task manager.

This has been driving me nuts for a while, and I've been reading all the other FusionHDTV 5 threads, but none of them specifically deal with analog cable reception, which is what I need.

TIA

[xred]

Originally Posted by xred

I have a DviCo FusionHDTV 5 Lite I am trying to use to receive analong cable ONLY. I have tested the card using the FusionHDTV software and it can receive analog cable no problem, so I am quite sure its not a hardware / driver issue.

Inside Sage on the other hand, I cannot even set this card up as a source since Sage hangs every time I attempt it. When I go to setup sources, I select the Tuner as the source (not Digital Tuner which I know is for ATSC) and bang it locks up. It continues to display the video / audio in the preview window, but the UI itself is dead and the only way to exit is to kill the SageTV.exe thread in task manager.

This has been driving me nuts for a while, and I've been reading all the other FusionHDTV 5 threads, but none of them specifically deal with analog cable reception, which is what I need.

TIA

Wow am I the *only* person using this card w/ analog cable? The Fusion is able to pipe audio out on its own in OTA (Digital) or QAM (Digital) mode, but for analog cable it needs to be connected to the audio card (onboard AC97 in my case). This is what I think is causing problems for Sage, since it freezes the SECOND I pick the sound card as the audio source for the tuner.

I'm hoping someone else with a FusionHDTV 5 Lite can confirm / deny this before I submit this as a bug.

[iwanthtpc]

If I get some time this weekend I will set it up this way and see what happens.

-Charlie

[xred]

Originally Posted by iwanthtpc

If I get some time this weekend I will set it up this way and see what happens.

-Charlie

Thanks. Since my last post I'v been doing some more reading around other forums and I found another Sage user on avsforums who is having this same issue.

I submitted the bug to Sage based on this second report, and as soon as I get home I am going to submit my logs to them so they can hopefully track it down.

[bob_s]

I had the same problem with HDTV Gold and Sage TV. In my case I was trying to use the analog input to record with SageTV. I was told by Dvico that there card will not work (record live) from analog only HDTV. Sage would allways give errors when attempting to use this card analog output. I think the card is only good for HDTV. I had to return mine. Good luck.

[xred]

Originally Posted by bob_s

I had the same problem with HDTV Gold and Sage TV. In my case I was trying to use the analog input to record with SageTV. I was told by Dvico that there card will not work (record live) from analog only HDTV. Sage would allways give errors when attempting to use this card analog output. I think the card is only good for HDTV. I had to return mine. Good luck.

The card I have is the Fusion5 HDTV Lite, and I can get it to work with analog cable inside its own software no problem... this could be an issue with QAM support where the cards ability to tune QAM channels is causing problems for Sage, but its hanging at point when it looks for the audio input for the card, which is before the channel setup occurs.

I've submitted a log to Sage, so as soon as I get a response I will post here.

[bcjenkins]

I am sorry, but I feel compelled to ask why you would want to tax your computer with a software encoding tuner? The Fusion card does not have a HW encoder for analog channels. (Nor does it for HD, but those are already MPEG-2 streams)

B

[xred]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

I am sorry, but I feel compelled to ask why you would want to tax your computer with a software encoding tuner? The Fusion card does not have a HW encoder for analog channels. (Nor does it for HD, but those are already MPEG-2 streams)

B

Because I can't get rooftop access to setup an antenna where I currently live, and the two indoor antennas I have bought both don't work. I do have cable available, so rather than putting the card in to a drawer, I decided I might as well us it with Sage.... except it doesn't work.

I agree that software encoding cards are a huge burden in Sage. I have an ATI All in Wonder 9800 Pro in my machine and whenever I try to use it to watch TV under Sage it eats 90 to 95% CPU time on an AMD64 3000+, which is just crazy. Its so bad the UI locks up and you can't do anything unless you stop playback first. I'm hoping that the Fusion card isn't quite as bad as the ATI, but I can't confirm that as I can't get it to work at all.

[gplasky]

But it will be. 90%+ utilization is not uncommon for any software encoding card. ALL the encoding is being done by the CPU. Most people would use their Fusion for the HDTV and get something like a PVR150 for the analog side. I don't think anyone is using this card for analog only. In any app except its own.

Gerry

[xred]

Originally Posted by gplasky

But it will be. 90%+ utilization is not uncommon for any software encoding card. ALL the encoding is being done by the CPU. Most people would use their Fusion for the HDTV and get something like a PVR150 for the analog side. I don't think anyone is using this card for analog only. In any app except its own.

Gerry

In my experience you can use the AIW 9800 Pro as a source in Windows MCE and it uses about 70-75% per cent CPU on a 3Ghz CPU. It doesn't seem like a huge difference, but when you think that it leaves 25% CPU time for UI background threads vs less than 5% in Sage, its a big difference.

I haven't checked in a while, but when software encode did actually work in MediaPortal, its was similar to MCE usage levels.

[gplasky]

And those other apps may be more efficient than Sage when doing software capture. But if you're at 75%CPU during a recording I don't think you would have much left over to, say, watch a recording too. When you look at what you want to do with a Media Center-type machine 75% utilization doesn't leave much left over to do much of anything else. Ends up being a pretty expensive VCR.

Gerry