Size DOES Matter!

[rickgode]

Size matters not, OH YES IT DOES! It would seem in my situation that the physical size of the tuner on the Hauppage card has a direct correlation to my picture quality. I know it sounds dumb, but follow me. Refer to this post http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18988

In my situation SD cable from Charter in Fort Worth, TX using the pvr500 card was horrible. The tuner on the TV was crystal clear, while anything watched through this card was awful. To see if it was a bad card, I borrowed this Hauppage 26552, which I’m told is a pvr150. The picture quality was very good. Many of the channels were good, if not better, then the TV. Certain higher channels, 64, 70, 78 to name a few, have always had horrible reception with ghosting and hum bars, and the mpg compression of the Hauppage 26552 made the noise look like little ants crawling all over the place.

Then I went to CompUSA and bought a PVR150. The picture quality is clear on all channels, 100% brighter and with less noise than the TV tuner. While I was switching pci slots to see if I could improve the picture quality, I noticed a size difference in the tuner. Today, I bought another PVR150 and everything is finally perfect. I would have never known there was a picture quality difference in the retail pvr150 and the 26552 card until I watched two different recordings of a show on the same channel. One was great and the other had noise. Looking at the details I found that one was recorded using the 150 while the other was using the 26552.

The Charter install people always said that the cable signal here is terrible, so I asked him about a signal amplifier, and his response was, “You want to amplify a bad signal?” He was right, I tried an amp, and it made things worse. Now all I need is my RMA number for my PVR500, and hopefully this will help some people that are having frustrations with picture quality and/or setup. It helped me out. Attached is a picture showing the different sizes of cards I have tried.

[stevech]

I too have weak signal.
Be sure to use a good low noise amp and make it be the first connection into your house.

cheap amp = lots of additive nose = no benefit.

Insist on a decent signal. The cable companies have specs they are supposed to meet for signal at the subscriber demarc.

PS: There seems to be a trend here about the PVR500 having low sensitivity and noise-prone receivers/tuners.

[heffe2001]

If he's got Charter, they won't care one bit about signal quality, I've been fighting them for over a year now to get my signal to where it should be. It's pretty bad when SD cable on a digital box gets corrupted 4 or 5 times in one 30 minute show, let alone what happens to HD cable & their Pipeline broadband...

In our area, as long as you can at least SEE picture, that's all the techs care about...

[rickgode]

I hear ya, but here is what 'they' said. When they built my house all the phone/cable/power wires are all bundled together and go through the same hole and the cable was getting interference from the power wires. The guy that installed it was pretty nice, he said he was the 'same cable guy' in the commercial that used dishTV, he said that picture quality was superior to the cable around here. My signal was within specs so nothing was done. I am pleasantly surprised that the tuning capabilities of the pvr150 exceed the tuner of my Sony Vega. Ghosting in the Sony can still be seen, on the same channel that cannot be seen coming from the pvr150.

[rickgode]

heffe2001,
I didn't see your post, but you’re exactly right about the signal. I guess I've been lucky because my charter broadband SCREAMS! and is never out (knock on wood) At least now with two pvr150's everything is working perfectly and has been up for 3 days now with no lockups. Now it is on to some of those customizations I've been reading about.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

In our area, as long as you can at least SEE picture, that's all the techs care about...

And if its like Charter here, being able to SEE the picture isnt necessarily a 24/7 requirement! If it shows up at any point in time its considered good.

[null_pointer_us]

No idea what you're talking about WRT card length. I've got two PVR-500's and couldn't be happier with the quality - they're significantly better than the conventional TVs. It sounds like you're having a problem with the PVR-500's internal splitter in conjunction with poor signal quality.

[rickgode]

null_pointer_us, I was half-joking about the size, but was actually referring to the little silver box tuner thingy soldered to the card. It seems the bigger that box, the better signal quality I receive. Many people have told me that the Gateway Hauppage 26552 was a rebranded PVR150, it uses the same drivers, but the physical size of the silver tuner on the card is smaller than on the retail PVR150.

I believe you are right about my signal quality effecting my pvr500 ability to tune correctly, but the other two cards worked 100% better with the pvr150 tuning better than my TV. I was hoping that this thread might alleviate some frustrations some people might have when setting up their systems. Tech support had me make all kinds of changes to the registry, but none seemed to improve the picture quality.

[Oats]

You may be on to something. I posted in your other thread about having issues with one of my PVR150s. I took a look at my 2 tuners and the good one has the larger silver box, while the one I am having issues with has the meduim sized box like your Gateway tuner.

Both of mine are OEM, however the good one with the larger box is much older.

[heffe2001]

Yeah, it's been like that here lately. I had to change out cable modems today, as they have done some sort of 'hardware upgrade' at the main office here, and my old Linksys apparently isn't very well supported anymore. Best speed it would get was around 3600ish, but I'm paying for their 5m service. with one of their cheap westel modems I'm getting much closer to my spec'ed speed, around 46-4800ish.

Now if they could just keep my HD going with strong enough signal, I'd be happy... Bad signal + firewire decoding = ruined show 99% of the time...

Originally Posted by Kirby

And if its like Charter here, being able to SEE the picture isnt necessarily a 24/7 requirement! If it shows up at any point in time its considered good.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

Yeah, it's been like that here lately. I had to change out cable modems today, as they have done some sort of 'hardware upgrade' at the main office here, and my old Linksys apparently isn't very well supported anymore. Best speed it would get was around 3600ish, but I'm paying for their 5m service. with one of their cheap westel modems I'm getting much closer to my spec'ed speed, around 46-4800ish.

Now if they could just keep my HD going with strong enough signal, I'd be happy... Bad signal + firewire decoding = ruined show 99% of the time...

Yep, I know what you're sayin there! I've got to call them up and cancel my programming down to just lifeline, because I am going 100% to Dish now. Of course I still have 1 day left to upgrade my 3mbit to 5mbit for $49/mo for 12 months. Just not sure I can justify it, although it would probably help with placeshifting!

[stevech]

More people than not say they saw little speed increase when opting for the 5Mbps upgrade price on cable modems. YMMV


The trouble with our deregulated era of cable companies is
"without competition, there is no excellence"

thanks to our local governments for this, with a few rare exception cities.

[stevech]

On the dual-tuner card - something else to consider is that if you have a weak cable signal, the card has to split this signal for the two tuners. This 3dB (half power) may be just enough to reduce the signal to noise ratio to the point where these tuners are noisy. Ususally this affects some channels more than others because the cable companies can't or won't keep their system balanced.

This is no different than putting an external two-way splitter in - each port is half-power from the input port.

[rickgode]

All of this makes sense. I wish I could have used the pvr500, but I'm very pleased with the way the two separate 150s are working! Remember I'm still new to this and now my problem seems to be that some programs are off by 5 or so minutes. An easy fix. So far I'm loving my SAGETV!

[Oats]

Originally Posted by Oats

You may be on to something. I posted in your other thread about having issues with one of my PVR150s. I took a look at my 2 tuners and the good one has the larger silver box, while the one I am having issues with has the meduim sized box like your Gateway tuner.

Both of mine are OEM, however the good one with the larger box is much older.

I was wrong. My tuner with the meduim sized box is the good one and I was getting poor results with the larger box tuner. I RMA'ed my bad one and ordered a new 150 OEM and it is not good either(it also has the larger box). I think I am going to RMA it, sell my good 150, and get either the Nvidia DualTV or pick up a couple of the new ATI 650s.

[rickgode]

That’s too bad Oats, I sent mine back to sage earlier this week, delivery confirmation says they have received it, but my card hasn't been refunded yet. That’s one reason, why I bought my cards from CompUSA. It is a lot easier to drive 15 min to return a defective card vs. the whole RMA thing. I hope you get everything working out.

On another note, one of my tuners (actually both, it doesn't matter, even after changing pci slots) can't seem to tune into channel 81. The picture quality is terrible. On the software forum, BobP helped me out so now that bad tuner never tunes channel 81. So now my set up is 100% looking good!