Problem tuning with Avermedia M780

[brandont]

I have an Avermedia M780 installed on WinXP and the latest trial version of SageTV.

When I first installed the card, driver, and software I got a lousy picture. Very fuzzy on all channels but they all came through. I also noticed that some channels would cut out and go all black, and I would get 'No Signal' on the display. So I re ran some cables today. But now I can't get anything to come up at all. I have restarted the service & program, rescanned my channels, and switched from ANT to CABLE and back.

The odd part is, when I do a channel setup - they all work GREAT. I can do a preview on all of them and it's fantastic. But when I quit that menu and go to watch - nothing.

I also downloaded AVERTV and for some reason I cannot change channels with it, but the one that it is set to comes in fine. The changing channels might be something or might not. I didn't try to fix it since I just wanted to verify the video for troubleshooting.

I found some mention of the M780 not working with XP, but that appears to be old info as there are now drivers for XP.

[BFisher]

sorry brandon, not sure what to tell you to fix it. I have 2 M780s in XP and they tune in OTA HD excellent. I haven't upgraded my drivers in a long time - it just worked fine. It's been so long ago, I don't really remember if I had to do anything special... don't think so. Think I followed the installation guide that came with the card and it worked.

Do you have the antenna connected to the right input on the card? I don't remember which it is... but there is definitely a right one to use - the other is for analog signals.

Hope you find the problem

[brandont]

A bit more info as I try to fix the issue:

I removed the digital tuner (not currently using it) from setup and rescanned the channels again. This worked for a brief time.

I rebooted the computer and noticed that SageTV worked fine, for a while. I watched TV for about 10 min. Then while I was switching channels, the signal got all mixed up – lots of digital blocks all over, and then it went black and did not come back.

Meanwhile, I got the AverTV working 100%. I had to add the other channels by doing a scan.

Now the important conclusion – when SageTV is NOT working, AverTV does work. AverTV seems to work all the time. If I close AverTV and try SageTV again – Sage still doesn’t work. Also Sage is working in the channel setup screen. Just not the main watch / record functions.

I seriously doubt if there is any hardware issue at this point due to AverTV always working. But the “sometimes” nature of the Sage issue has me stumped. I would lean towards heat or power problems, but again – AverTV works. And Sage does NOT come back after a non-use period. It requires a reboot.

Oh, and I only have 1 cable connected and it works perfectly when it is working. So I am sure I have it connected to the correct tuner.

[BFisher]

Sorry - I don't have this issue. I use Digital OTA HD, and the SVideo input from my satellite boxes. I've never used the analog cable input... good luck