Hollywood Plus with SageTV

[mattc]

I recently purchased SageTV with a PVR-250 Hardware bundle. I must say I was a little dissapointed at first, not with the SageTV software, but with the TV tuner card. The output on my television, and to a lesser extent my computer monitor looked washed out and had strange blurring when there was a large amount of motion on screen. I tried several different software decoders and Dscaler with varying levels of success but nothing that came close to the "live tv" look I was striving for. Then I installed an old Hollywood Plus card I had lying around and tried playing some of the mpegs I had recorded. After seeing the incredible quality of the Hollywood Plus decoder on my TV I knew I couldn't go back to my vid card's svideo output. Anyway to make a slightly long and frustrating story short, after scouring this message board and google for information I discovered a way to enjoy SageTV on my Hollywood Plus card with output that comes very, very close to live tv. Since I never found exact instructions for how to do this I will post them here in hopes of saving people some time and suffering. If anyone has posted this information before please accept my apologies.

Disclaimer: This is provided for information purposes only. I take no responsibility for you messing up your computer, tv, or life in any way by using this information. This is not officially supported by either SageTV or SigmaDesigns.

You will need:

Hardware:

TV Tuner card supported by Sage
Hollywood Plus decoder card

Software:

Windows XP (I use Pro but home should work. Other OS may work but I have not tried.)
SageTV
Hollywood Plus Windows XP drivers (ftp://ftp.sigmadesigns.com/HollywoodPlus/HP2_41k1.zip)
Hollywood Plus Windows XP applications (ftp://ftp.sigmadesigns.com/HollywoodPlus/HP2_41k2.zip)
Netstream 2000 Windows XP drivers (ftp://ftp.sigmadesigns.com/NetStr_2000/NK_2_4k1.zip)

Procedure:

1. Install tuner card, SageTV, Hollywood Plus card, drivers and apps.
2. Make sure SageTV is not running.
3. Unzip NK_2_4k1.zip to a temp directory.
4. Open a command prompt and cd to the directory where you unzipped the NK_2_4k1.zip
5. Enter the following command "expand rmmpeg2.ax_ rmmpeg2.ax"
6. Enter the following command "regsvr32 rmmpeg2.ax"
7. Close cmd prompt and start SageTV.
8. Go to the menu and then Setup and Detailed Setup.
9. Under the Video tab change your Rendering Filter to "Default (Uses VMR on XP)" and change Video Decoder to "Sigma Designs MPEG-2 hardware decoder"
10. I have all my audio settings under Detailed settings set to default. Not sure if that matters. Audio comes out of my Hollywood Plus card and is perfectly synced.
11. Apply settings and exit SageTV or put it to sleep.
12. Make sure your audio and svideo cables are plugged into the Hollywood Plus and using the Hollywood Plus config software set the output to Analog or Digital and TV or VGA depending on which display device and audio hook ups you intend to use.
13. Restart SageTV and enjoy high quality audio and video courtesy of your Hollywood Plus.

Notes: Most of this information was found by searching this forum I don't assume to be the first one to do this I just thought someone should write down the step by step procedure for people with this hardware config to try it out. There is no OSD so I use the H+ on my TV and navigate the menus on my monitor. I really hope Frey implements support for OSD on these cards in the future as the TV output (at least on SDTV) is far superior to anything I was able to do with my vid card and software decoders. Sometimes SageTV gives an error message about not finding the mpeg decoder on start up but it goes away if I put Sage to sleep and then restore. Hopefully all of this hasn't been said before and someone will find this useful. Sorry for the long first post.

-MattC

[SHS]

Matt you made a few error in your installation instructions

You will need:

Hardware:
TV Tuner card supported by Sage
RealMagic Hollywood Plus Decoder card

Software:

SageTV
Windows 2000/XP
RealMagic Hollywood Plus 2000/XP drivers (ftp://ftp.sigmadesigns.com/HollywoodPlus/HP2_41k1.zip)
RealMagic Hollywood Plus 2000/XP applications (ftp://ftp.sigmadesigns.com/HollywoodPlus/HP2_41k2.zip)
RealMagic Netstream 2000 2000/XP drivers (ftp://ftp.sigmadesigns.com/NetStr_2000/NK_2_4k1.zip)

Win9x/ME (Note: May or Maynot work)
RealMagic Hollywood Plus Win9x/ME drivers (ftp://ftp.sigmadesigns.com/HollywoodPlus/HP2_41w1.zip)
RealMagic Hollywood Plus Win9x/ME applications (ftp://ftp.sigmadesigns.com/HollywoodPlus/HP2_41w2.zip)
RealMagic Netstream 2000 Win9x/ME drivers (ftp://ftp.sigmadesigns.com/NetStr_2000/NK_2_4w1.zip)

The rigth way
Procedure:

1. Install tuner card, SageTV, RealMagic Hollywood Plus card, drivers and apps.
2. Make sure SageTV is not running.
3. Unzip NK_2_4k1.zip or NK_2_4w1.zip to a temp directory.
4. Open a command prompt and cd to the directory where you unzipped the NK_2_4k1.zip or NK_2_4w1.zip
5. Enter the following command "expand rmmpeg2.ax_ rmmpeg2.ax"
6: Copy rmmpeg2.ax to
(Win9x/ME) ?:\windows\system\
(WinXP) ?:\windows\system32\
(Win2K) ?:\winnt\system32\
"?" need be replace with drive letter where windows is install at for example "copy rmmpeg2.ax c:\windows\system32\"
7. Enter the following command
(Win9x/ME) "regsvr32 ?:\windows\system\rmmpeg2.ax"
(WinXP) "regsvr32 ?:\windows\system32\rmmpeg2.ax"
(Win2K) "regsvr32 ?:\winnt\system32\rmmpeg2.ax"
"?" need be replace with drive letter where windows is install at for example "regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\rmmpeg2.ax"
8. Close cmd prompt and start SageTV.
9. Go to the menu and then Setup and Detailed Setup.
10. Under the Video tab change your Rendering Filter to "Default (Uses VMR on XP)" and change Video Decoder to "Sigma Designs MPEG-2
hardware decoder"
12. Under DVD tab change Rendering Filter to "Sigma Designs MPEG-2 hardware decoder" (This may or may not work)
13. I have all my audio settings under Detailed settings set to default. Not sure if that matters. Audio comes out of my Hollywood
Plus card and is perfectly synced.
14. Apply settings and exit SageTV or put it to sleep.
15. Make sure your audio and svideo cables are plugged into the RealMagic Hollywood Plus and using the RealMagic Hollywood Plus
config software set the output to Analog or Digital and TV or VGA depending on which display device and audio hook up you intend to
use.
16. Restart SageTV and enjoy high quality audio and video courtesy of your RealMagic Hollywood Plus.

It kind odd that you said step 12 work when it dosen't work rigth with Xcard using the "Sigma Designs MPEG-2 hardware decoder" option.

[mattc]

Thanks for the reply. I posted these instructions before I actually tried playing DVDs through SageTV. You are right it doesn't work. I get a macrovision error when trying to play a DVD. I have made some changes to my original post. As for the copy to C:\windows\system32 step I haven't tried that yet. Will that auto-register the rmmpeg2.ax file? Also as I said before I haven't tried any OS other than XP Pro so not sure on how that works.

-MattC

[krutaw]

Originally posted by mattc
Sometimes SageTV gives an error message about not finding the mpeg decoder on start up but it goes away if I put Sage to sleep and then restore. Hopefully all of this hasn't been said before and someone will find this useful. Sorry for the long first post.

-MattC

Hmm... I get the error *EVERY* time I try this, however, sometimes it ignores the error and plays anyway. Also, it seems that the SageTV menus have no effect on what's playing on the TV. Did I miss something?

[krutaw]

Originally posted by krutaw
Hmm... I get the error *EVERY* time I try this, however, sometimes it ignores the error and plays anyway. Also, it seems that the SageTV menus have no effect on what's playing on the TV. Did I miss something?

Okay, so I was an idiot on the whole sage doesn't control the video thing (it helps with you have the sagetv client highlighted when using the remote.) hehe

Anyway, I've read several threads that mention that it is supposedly possible to get Direct Show filters working through the H+, allowing for the OSD to be shown through the H+. Has anyone actually gotten this working?

[blindman]

Will this also work with the Creative DXR3 card which I believe is a rebagged Hollywood + card?

[krutaw]

Originally posted by blindman
Will this also work with the Creative DXR3 card which I believe is a rebagged Hollywood + card?

It should. You are correct in that it's a rebagged version of the H+. They both use the "EM8300" chipset. Anyways, there's 2 bad things about this setup.

1. The OSD cannot be sent through the H+ card. This is a major problem in my opinion because it means that the video output is limited to video cards with TV out, which are known to be really ify at best.

2. The SageTV gives errors when first attempt to open a file, then you have to put the client to sleep, and then open it again. This is true if the Sage software hasn't been used in a few hours as well.

What we really need is an update to allow the use of a hardware decoder with OSD support. I've read several times that the PVR350 will support the OSD in Sage 2, and that the XCard is compatible with the Sage software but nobody says for sure if we will have support in Sage 2.0 right off the bat for the XCard.

I would honestly buy just about any hardware decoder (of a decent price) that Sage would support. That would be a major step towards becoming a truly powerful HTPC system and allow for the processor to be used for much better things (like BF: 1942.)