AverMedia M180 Installation Problems

[rsagetv99]

I have recently installed an AverMedia M180 in my SageBox and I had a few problems getting all of the channels to tune in.

For some reason, when I try to scan for channels both in Sage and in the Avermedia software I do not pick up all of the channels. But if I manually put the channels in as Freq-Channel-SubChannel, I can tune most all channels and most of them at 100% signal strength.

I don't mind that it is working this way, but one channel that shows 100% signal strenght will not tune in. Instead I get a black screen and every now and then I will get a frame of video that stays frozen on the screen until the next frame of video. I have tried changing the numbering combination for this channel to Channel-Freq-SubChannel (which did not work at all) and Freq-SubChannel (which gave me the same results as Freq-Channel-SubChannel (black screen)).

Has anyone else had similar problems? Is there a magic driver for this card that works better with Sage?

Any guidance would be appreciated.

[Thomas Wischgol]

From what you describe it seems to me that the signal quality is not good enough. What software did you use that told you about signal quality being almost 100%? Was it that high for this particular channel as well?

I use an Avermedia A180 and it works fine now. Signal quality seems to be the most important thing for DTV. I had a small indoor antenna before which worked okay. But since the signal quality was between 70 and 80% only I had dropouts (missing frames, pixelized) more or less regularly. I am quite close to the towers (only 11 miles away) but behind trees. After replacing the small antenna with a 8 foot one (mounted inside the attick) I get 100% signal for all channels (according to Sage).

As mentioned before, the issues you describe sound very much like signal related problems.

[Motofreak75]

I used to have this problem with my old A180 & F-lite 5 card

1. need to know what DVB card and driver version your using, I found my DVB-S card left any ATSC pci card useless when using the BDA drivers for the DVB-S (the chipest are the same i guess ? )

Edit: removed question that was answered already

[rsagetv99]

Originally Posted by Thomas Wischgol

From what you describe it seems to me that the signal quality is not good enough. What software did you use that told you about signal quality being almost 100%? Was it that high for this particular channel as well?

It shows 100% for this channel in Sage.

[rsagetv99]

Originally Posted by Motofreak75

I used to have this problem with my old A180 & F-lite 5 card

1. need to know what DVB card and driver version your using, I found my DVB-S card left any ATSC pci card useless when using the BDA drivers for the DVB-S (the chipest are the same i guess ? )

Edit: removed question that was answered already

I was using a Twinhan DVB-S (red PCI card), but when I put in the M180 I took the DVB-S out since I used the old coax cable to feed the antenna to my Sage box.

I don't think I had any drivers loaded, I think MyTheatre either doesn't need drivers or it loads them automatically.

[rsagetv99]

Is there 3rd party software out there that I can use to get more accurate signal readings? Right now I am going by what Sage shows, since I am can't get most channels to scan in the AverMedia software, and even when I got a couple to scan in, I didn't see a signal meter...

[Thomas Wischgol]

The AverMedia software has a signal meter in the GUI. It looks a little like the ones you see on cell phones. I cannot check it because the AverMedia software does not even start up anymore on my computer and since Sage works I no longer need it anyway.

I just did a little google image search:

The signal meter is marked with the red circle.

[rsagetv99]

Mine looks similar, except the signal meter is even smaller. Very hard to see even on a 57". Thanks for pointing it out though.

[rsagetv99]

I have tried a few different things and I am still having this problem. After searching the AVS forums for info on the A180 it seems that the A180 does not handle multipath problems well, and that might be what is happening to me.

I ordered a Vbox 150, we'll see if that makes a difference.

[rsagetv99]

Just to follow up on this, I received the Vbox 150, and it does not seem to work as well as the Avermedia card, at least for me.

I still cannot receive the station that I thought I had a multipath or over-power problem, and a few stations that I'm receiving with the A180 do not come in at all on the Vbox. I even split the signal between the two cards and the A180 still receives the channel at about 75% (same as before splitting) but the Vbox shows 0%.

I know a lot of you have said that anything under 85% will not tune in Sage, but I have not found this to be true with the A180.

The only thing the Vbox was able to do that the A180 has problems with, is scan for channels and assign the appropriate Major/Minor channel numbering combination. The A180 does not do this so well, but as long as I use the real frequency plus the Major/Minor it tunes just fine.

In retrospect, I guess I did not have it as bad as I thought with the A180.

I'm a little curious now to see how the Fusion lite would work.

[naln]

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

For some reason, when I try to scan for channels both in Sage and in the Avermedia software I do not pick up all of the channels. But if I manually put the channels in as Freq-Channel-SubChannel, I can tune most all channels and most of them at 100% signal strength.

Have seen this with sage.
I just enabled all the channels on the listing and manually checked the signal on each channel (by watching it) - at least the ones I care about and then went back into the setup menu and disabled the ones that had no signal.
I live in a condo style unit and so signal issues are more or less the norm with indoor antenna.