My 6.3.5 issues and workarounds...

[OttoNP]

Every now and then, I do a complete reinstall of everything from scratch with latest drivers, usually when my shows are all gone or for some other reason. This time, I was making my raid 0 array of 2 160 gb drives into a raid o array of 4 160 gb drives (yeah, baby, yeah!)

1. It appears to have happened to several others, Sage seems to be doing something weird to decoder priority. My solution was found in another post, use command line (I always use a command prompt windows so it is not saved in the run history)

regsvr32 /u "C:\Program Files\SageTV\Common\stvm2vd.ax"

freaking brilliant! The problem in that thread did not capture the whole extent of it for me. In my case, I was trying to use nvidia video and audio decoders as default, usually after deselecting ac3 in windows media player, they become the default. In this case, it was very interesting. I have both DVD and Sage recordings set to use default for both audio and video decoders, however, it was using nvidia for sage recorded playback and sage decoders for dvd playback. I know this from changing the settings around, cpu usage was low for nvidia and very high for sage, in fact, high def playback would stutter when sent to sage decoders. DVD would not play at all, until I would change settings to nvidia decoder. Also, windows media player would not play DVDs as well, it was trying to use sage decoder. Also, no matter what the setting, the nvidia decoder icon would not appear in the system tray. Until i used above command line, which cleared everything up.

I still amazed at how hidden all the decoder stuff is, you'd think it would be some simple thing in control panel...

2. Tried QAM with hVR 1600

I tried to switch from my antenna source to cable, to eliminate the antenna on my roof. I only cared about the major networks, i was able to get all be 2 no problem. I tried 4 different amps that would work to get all channels, but not consistantly. It appears the strenght on my cable line varies. One of the maps had a gain control, which would work at one time but over a month I could never find a setting that would work everyday. I talked briefly with cable company and there were pretty clueless, also, said they would not guarantee high def without their box, which I think is BS, but whatever. When I did get the cable stations I felt (totally subjective) that the picture was not as good as when I captured off antenna. This could be in my head though...as a result, I went back to antenna support.

3. The first time though setup, the channel scan on the digital TS does not work

This was a problem with me from the start with hvr-1600, first time through it would fail scan. In the new version it does not fail but does not find any channels and subsequent scans act weird. If I do not scan the first time through setup, it works find the second time. Very weird.

4. Very good now, not sure it was latest nvidia drivers or what, but before I had to switch to the ac3 audio filter to get stutter free 1080i...time will tell, but looks stutter free with nivida video and audio decoders...this makes me happy! UPDATE: I may have spoke too soon, I was getting stutter free football at 1080i with nvidia decodes, but tried some other sources and some silly show on PBS at 1080i stutters with nvidia audio but not with AC3...PBS was my test station before, so I guess I'm back to using AC3 filter...it is weird though, because the station wih stutter is only in stereo...I think I will leave nvidia audio as default and select ac3 if there are problems....

[mcaron1234]

Just out of curiosity why is it that you prefer the NV audio decoder? Many have reported problems with it over the years.

Matt

[OttoNP]

I'm actually now onto the AC3 filter that came with Sage completely (got some stutter on other 1080i on abc), it seems they put in an updated version with a way to easily access the settings in sagetv/common files....

I don't have that strong of a preference for the nvidia audio decoder, in fact, from a performance standpoint the ac3filter seems to be better. I am just very impressed with the video decoder, takes my cpu useage from 90-100% with sage decoder to like 20-30%. Since the video decoder is so good, i keep thinking the audio decoder should be that good as well...also, a part of me thinks that using the two together should be better.

So, it is just me thinking what should be better, versus what actually is...

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by OttoNP

2. Tried QAM with hVR 1600

I tried to switch from my antenna source to cable, to eliminate the antenna on my roof. I only cared about the major networks, i was able to get all be 2 no problem. I tried 4 different amps that would work to get all channels, but not consistantly. It appears the strenght on my cable line varies. One of the maps had a gain control, which would work at one time but over a month I could never find a setting that would work everyday. I talked briefly with cable company and there were pretty clueless, also, said they would not guarantee high def without their box, which I think is BS, but whatever. When I did get the cable stations I felt (totally subjective) that the picture was not as good as when I captured off antenna. This could be in my head though...as a result, I went back to antenna support.

I had a similar experience and finally just gave up. I guess QAM offerings and quality are on a cable company-by-cable company basis, mine being one where few channels are offered and signal strength is poor.

[gblinckmann]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

I had a similar experience and finally just gave up. I guess QAM offerings and quality are on a cable company-by-cable company basis, mine being one where few channels are offered and signal strength is poor.

I'm in the same boat. But I'm questioning the root cause of the problem being the cable company's signal strenth. Isn't the QAM feed the same feed that their own boxes use? I know it's the same feed that my TV uses when I hook that directly to cable. Neither of those devices have any problems or need any fancy amps to work. So why do the HVR-1600's and HVR-1800's have this problem? I've only seen people having this problem with the Hauppauge cards and not other brands. I don't think that the signals are so low, I think that the cards and/or driver are not designed well. I've not heard the same complaints from the HDHR owners.

[zakrzep]

My video seems fine, but the audio stutters. I tried all different combinations of decoders both audio and video and it still stutters. Anyone find any solutions? It seems to have started with the 6.3.5 version.