Hauppauge PVR 500 problem... "solved"

[markettwain]

I know many out there have had problems with poor picture quality and sound problems with the PVR 500.

I read through many forums, and tried every trick in the book, but never got the results I was hoping for.

After six months of trying everything I could think of, I called Hauppauge and asked if they would replace my single PVR 500 with two PVR 150's. They said, "Yes."

All my headaches disappeared and my HTPC is working like a champ.

I just wanted to let people who are having the same problems how I "fixed" it.

[Ryand833]

I've been wondering to myself if I wanted to get a PVR-500 to have two tuners in one PCI slot... I guess this post answers that question for me.

Thanks for the info!

[blade]

Originally Posted by Ryand833

I've been wondering to myself if I wanted to get a PVR-500 to have two tuners in one PCI slot... I guess this post answers that question for me.

Thanks for the info!

There are other dual tuner cards that are supposed to have superior quality. The Nvidia card (which has a few problems of its own) and the Saber2020 (I think it's called). Anyway there are other dual tuner cards available.

[jhkoenig]

I guess everyone's experience is different. I have two 500's in my Sage 5.x system. Picture quality is fine and the system is *really* stable. I couldn't have four tuners taking up four slots, so this is a great solution for me.

I'm sorry that your experience was so poor.
--John

[markettwain]

I had high hopes when I bought the card, that's for sure.

I'm glad yours is working. I know that at some point along the way Hauppauge changed the tuners on the cards. From what I've read, the older tuners work better than the newer ones. I had the one that didn't work so well.

I'm glad Hauppauge let me exchange it.

[hanki]

I bought the SageTV bundle as well with the PVR 500 - If there are so many problems, why do they sell them anymore?

[blade]

Originally Posted by hanki

If there are so many problems, why do they sell them anymore?

Because it is still the most commonly used and best supported dual tuner card available. I have two cards with the Phillips tuners and they work fine. People are having problems with the Samsung tuners. I've read that there are drivers with something that can be enabled that is supposed to help improve the reception with the Samsung tuners. I didn't pay much attention since I don't own one. Also some people have found removing the cover from the tuners improves reception because the cover is actually touching something it isn't supposed to. I don't have one with the Samsung tuner so I haven't tried it myself and I doubt Hauppauge tech support would ask you to do that as a fix.

As mentioned before there are other options such as the Nvidia Dual Tuner; however, their drivers won't allow more than 1 card in a computer so it is a no go for many of us. The Saber2020(I think it was this card) had problems where the internal splitter didn't work properly and you had to use both RF connections or an additional software applet to get both tuners to work. Basically most of the dual cards out there have some quirks and problems.

If your card is having problems I'd either return it to Sage for a refund and get another brand card or contact Hauppauge and try and get a replacement card. If neither work out I'd look into updated drivers and removing the cover.

[doc]

Are the problems with the PVR 500 only on the RF input, or do they affect the composite/s-video too?

[vorius]

From my experience its only the RF tuner signal.

I have a satellite receiver also connected to my PVR 500 via S-Video and the picture is great. It's my analog cable signal that looks like total Sh1t. I am so unbelievably frustrated by it because of how much time I spent on it trying to get it to work, and it's drivers are preventing my operating system from booting properly. Every time my machine shuts down for whatever reason it freezes on the Windows XP loading screen so I have to restart, choose "Last known good configuration" which was exactly before I installed the Hauppauge drivers, then once I boot I have to install the drivers again so I can use SageTV. If I do not install those drivers again I can reboot many times no problem.

[jredwine2857]

I just got my sage setup up and running mostly tonight. I have the PVR 500 and my rf input looks like sh!t. Svideo is quality!! It does appear the issue is with the RF input, as I can select the RF input from either tuner in sage, and both look bad.

Are people getting replacement cards to work at all!!!?? I plan on having 4 directv STB's connected, so I'd like to have 2 pvr 500's.

Anyone know of anything???

[vorius]

Originally Posted by jredwine2857

I just got my sage setup up and running mostly tonight. I have the PVR 500 and my rf input looks like sh!t. Svideo is quality!! I

Haha welcome to my world, aka hell. I just read that someone had uck using the newer 21408 (?) beta drivers with their 500 so I might try that tomorrow. I'm just so sick of wasting time on this thing.

[jredwine2857]

I just came across this link and it fixed my problem.

You have enable lna mode, then it works?

http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/show...hlight=pvr-500

Hope it works for you. BTW...I still plan on getting the pci slot extender to run it svid, the pic looks better, but not by much. this definitely clears up the rf input pic.

[blade]

Originally Posted by jredwine2857

I just came across this link and it fixed my problem.

You have enable lna mode, then it works?

http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/show...hlight=pvr-500

Hope it works for you. BTW...I still plan on getting the pci slot extender to run it svid, the pic looks better, but not by much. this definitely clears up the rf input pic.

That's the thread I was talking about. It discusses lna mode as well as removing the covers from the tuner. That part of the discussion is located here.

[vorius]

Well, ran through the steps to enable LNA mode and no dice. Still just as lousy picture as before. I tried enabling it on both tuners one by one and restart SageTV to see difference. I did see a difference when I did it to Tuner #1- it made the picture completely unviewable- it made the picture snowy. Enabling the other tuner made no difference.

I have attached 3 screen shots of SageTV on various channels through my RF input. channel 2, channel 25 (CNN) and channel 64 (SciFi infomercial)

The fourth is a shot from the S-video input from my satellite receiver. it looks great

the regular cable channels are horrendous.

[markettwain]

I tried every solution in that snapstream thread, and many others that I found, and nothing, nothing fixed my problems.

Once I got the two 150's from Hauppauge to replace the one 500 I had, I haven't had a single problem. I spent six months banging my head against the wall trying to make that 500 work, and I'm convinced it was just a bad card.

15 minutes after getting the replacement 150's in the mail my HTPC worked perfectly.

I wish I had asked for an RMA sooner, but I was so sure I could figure it out. Wrong! LOL

[webdb]

Hi

I have the same issue and in the meantime I've tried almost everything but nothing helped.
But I'm confused about the usage of the TVSApplet and I hope anybody can help me. If I open the properties pages for my four tuners and set the Hauppauge ECP Video tab and set the bitrate to constant 9000 for instance this setting will be stored but only for a couple of minutes.

Is SageTV overriding those settings? If yes, why does SageTV override the settings allways with Bitrate constant 5000 regardless of the selected quality in SageTV->Setup->Multimedia->Recording Quality??????

Thanks in advance
Danny