Trouble with trial version..

[JJarmoc]

I finally broke down and bought a PVR-250 today so that I could give SageTV a try. I've installed the card, and it works great within Hauppage's apps. However, i've installed SageTV and gone through the setup wizard.. it populates guide data fine, but all I get is a black screen.

I've played with some of the settings, but it just doesn't want to show anything.. video or audio.

Ideas?

[SHS]

what input are you using?.

[JJarmoc]

It's set to RF/Tuner - Cable. I've got my cable TV feed plugged into the Coax connection on the 250. As stated above, it works fine with Hauppage's software, so I'm sure the cable is live and attached correctly. This seemed to be the right input selection for cable TV w/o a box.

[Mark Lamutt]

What OS are you using? In Detailed setup, do you have your video output set to go to the Default setting or Video Overlay?

[SHS]

In SageRecorder click on the Setup or ALT+F7
Under Video
Change the Video Decoder to "InterVideo NonCSS Video Decoder for Hauppauge"
Under Audio
Audio Patch Input: Wave/MP3 or Wave
Cange the Audio Decoder to "InterVideo NonCSS Audio Decoder for Hauppauge"
Under Sources
Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II TV Tuner Input "Cable" click on Auto Tune

[JJarmoc]

It's Windows XP Pro with all current patches per Windows Update.. Video output is set to the 'default' setting, though I've tried overlay to no avail.

SHS - I'll try the settings you suggested when I get home in a few minutes. I'm a bit surprised to see that it needs tweaking right out of the box that isn't part of the auto-setup wizard. Clearly that could be a problem for less technical users.

Thanks for the help! I'll post back here when I've had a chance to try this things.

[dkardatzke]

I believe he's using SageTV, not SageRecorder. To change the Video Decoders in SageTV go to Setup > Detailed Setup > Video.

When you install SageTV it uses the default Video decoder on your system which may be different than the Intervideo decoder so the changes are needed. Let us know if that works.

Dan

[Narflex]

Out of the box, Sage uses the default MPEG2 decoders; which are the same thing as if you open an MPEG2 file in Windows Media Player.

For black video, there's a couple things it usually is:

1 - wrong input selected (not in your case)

2 - default MPEG2 decoder doesn't function correctly, selecting the one mentioned above in Setup will resolve this

3 - Your graphics system is configured for a monitor & TV and you have the TV set as the primary surface and you're seeing black video on the monitor (or vice versa)

Should be one of those 3, let us know. Thanks.

[SHS]

I guset I need more you rigth Dan

[JJarmoc]

Dan's suggestion fixed the problem. Thanks!

Strange thing is, the video decoder was set to 'Intervideo' but the audio was set to 'default' I changed the audio decoder and hit apply, and it's working now!

I'm anxious to start playing with it. I'll probably post on AVS later with my impressions, and maybe post a link here.

Thanks again for the help.

[laurenglenn]

I think I read on SHS (I believe that's the right site) that there is a conflict if you own and have installed WinDVD. The same exact thing happened to me, but when I uninstalled WinDVD, reset, and changed the decoders to Intervideo for Hauppauge, it worked great.

Lauren

[JJarmoc]

I don't have WinDVD on this machine yet, so that wasn't my issue. At any rate, it's working now..