I'm officially giving up on my HD PVR and Directv dreams - for now..

[Shield]

The HD PVR is an amazing device. However, I like to watch sports, and I cannot get rid of the micro-stutter no matter what I try. Recording regular TV shows are fine, but anything with lots of motion results in the micro-stutter that's too annoying.
Just last night I recorded the men's gold medal basketball, and it was just the final straw for me. I've tried everything under the sun, short of buying an extender (they are sold out) and just cannot deal with this any longer.
I had an order in for 2 additional directv HD receivers and the order got really botched on the DTV side.
Sometimes in life it's just not meant to work out. Begrudgingly, I will have to stay with my 2 DTV HD-DVR's that miss recordings and have a slow interface, but at least playback smooth HD.

I will revisit this again in the future when hopefully there are more mature drivers that work better with 720p.

I'm done.

[domc]

I have resorted to the same thing. It's kinda sad and have been with SageTV for over 3 years. HD takes a lot of horsepower and that's what I've got. Same situation as yours. I have directv also and there interface sucks and the system is slow to respond. I will put up with it till the situation with HD smooths out and I see more success here on the boards with HD.

[karpodiem]

Originally Posted by Shield

The HD PVR is an amazing device. However, I like to watch sports, and I cannot get rid of the micro-stutter no matter what I try. Recording regular TV shows are fine, but anything with lots of motion results in the micro-stutter that's too annoying.
Just last night I recorded the men's gold medal basketball, and it was just the final straw for me. I've tried everything under the sun, short of buying an extender (they are sold out) and just cannot deal with this any longer.
I had an order in for 2 additional directv HD receivers and the order got really botched on the DTV side.
Sometimes in life it's just not meant to work out. Begrudgingly, I will have to stay with my 2 DTV HD-DVR's that miss recordings and have a slow interface, but at least playback smooth HD.

I will revisit this again in the future when hopefully there are more mature drivers that work better with 720p.

I'm done.

Yikes. Not good to hear. I'm in a quasi-similar situation; I have Dish Turbo HD package with a HD DVR, and am very close to pulling the trigger to getting a HD PVR to record games on the Big Ten Network (Go Blue!), ESPN/ESPN2 HD. I was going to record the games on my Dish box, and record them with the HD PVR at a later point. Have you tried searching around in this thread on AVS?

Maybe someone there might be able to help.

[Shield]

Originally Posted by karpodiem

Yikes. Not good to hear. I'm in a quasi-similar situation; I have Dish Turbo HD package with a HD DVR, and am very close to pulling the trigger to getting a HD PVR to record games on the Big Ten Network (Go Blue!), ESPN/ESPN2 HD. I was going to record the games on my Dish box, and record them with the HD PVR at a later point. Have you tried searching around in this thread on AVS?

Maybe someone there might be able to help.

Well it's not a Directv problem per se; it's a Hauppage problem. I've tried every codec under the sun; even tried switching to custom MpegDemuxer's as suggested in other threads.
I could never get perfectly smooth feedback with sports broadcasts, like MLB Baseball and the Olympics. It was very close, and I hadn't noticed it at first because we were recording things like "House Hunters" on HGTV.
I hear the HD media extender works well; I just had a problem paying another $200 for something that should have worked better with my hardware. I chalk it up to very early versions of the hardware and a lack of mature drivers.
It's funny that you mention the AVS forums as I even spent some time over there; there a huge thread about the HD PVR and one poster had 2 of them on 4 different pcs - he mixed and matched the HD PVRs on all the pc's and came to the conclusion that sometimes they would not get perfectly smooth playback on any of the pc's. It's a great read.

The AVS person is named "The Tom"

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hd+pvr&page=77


I quote:

"I have two HDPVR, a C1 and a C2; and I've tried them on four different computers. It is clear to me now that correct operation of the HDPVR can depend on the interaction of "internal variations" (differences in the units) and "external variables" (differences in the PC).

Computers:

A. 3.0 GHz E8400 dual core with 8800GT running Vista HP (no SP) (current HTPC)
B. 2.4 GHz P4C (old single core) with AGP 3850HD vid card running XP SP2 (an old HTPC)
C. 3.2 GHz P4 (single core, hyperthread) with an old 5xxx AGP video card, XP SP2 (an old dev machine)
D. 2.5 GHz AMD 4850e dual core with integrated 3200HD vid, XP SP2 (a new dev machine)

HDPVRs

C1. An early (1st week June) unit modded by me with heatsinks and fan.
C2. A recent (3rd week July) unit with the factory fan and working bling lights


Unit C1 produces perfectly good captures at high res and bitrate (e.g. 1080i at 12Mbps) on computers A, B, and C (not tested on D) that play back fine on PC in ArcSoft and on PS3 after I reformat with H1R.

Unit C2 produces perfectly good captures as above on computers A and D. On computers B and C, unlike the C1 unit, the captures from the C2 unit are crap. They all have quasi-periodic artifacts, typically every 15 seconds "plus or minus 10", with occasional spans of good playback for 45 seconds or so. The artifacts are glitches that mostly look like frame jumps, little momentary stutters, but on a 2.25:1 movie they also involve bright flashes covering maybe 2% to 5% of the black band below the image, once a minute or so. This happens both with the TS played back on PC and with the m2t streamed to PS3. And it happens both with captures made using Arcsoft, and captures made using own capture sw at under 2% total CPU load (no preview).

To focus on the key contrasting results, and add a few crucial details. Using the exact same source playing the exact same program and connected with the exact same cables, unit C1 produces good captures on PCs A, B and C whereas unit C2 produces good captures on PC A but garbage captures on PCs B and C.

So it's a combination of factors. What factors? On the HDPVR, it could be the unit revision, or it could just be a random variation of the individual units - I don't have enough data to tell. On the PC I can rule out certain things, but not enough to nail it down. It's not simply Windows XP vs Vista (C2 bad on B & C, good on D). It's not exactly NVidia vs ATI (C2 good on D, bad on B, good on A, bad on C). It's not absolute processor speed (C2 bad on C, good on D). It could be an issue with AGP. It could be an issue with the USB2.0 chipsets in older machines. I suspected interrupt handling problems in the sound card in PC B, so I took it out! but that did not seem to improve things. My wild guess is that they added a control loop for the fan in C2 rev, and that was just enough to tip the timing/buffering on the data transfers to PCs that don't handle interrupts soon enough, either because they are single-threaded or have other problem drivers installed. That is pure speculation - but there has to be something on both sides to make the failing combination.

Bottom line. Got video glitches with captures from a C2 unit? Try a different (a really different) PC.


PS. PC D is based on a GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H MicroATX motherboard. To my surprise, it captures HDPVR 1080i using ArcSoft with single digit CPU utilization, and it plays back 1080i smoothly with single digit CPU, with the entire system (including 3 disk drives) consuming only 80W as measured at the wall plug. Built in a couple hours using parts from my favorite giant online gear shop, at a cost of under $500 (counting only 1 HDD, but including tax and shipping)."

[paulbeers]

I understand the frustration and not wanting to spend money on the HD100's just to get good playback of the HD-PVR, but I can tell you I have 3 of them and the play back content from my HDPVR flawlessly. On a very very rare occassion I get a strange "stop motion" effect with my HDPVR, but so far it has only caused one recording to have it and the only other times I have seen it where live tv and a quick stop and restart fixed it.

My wife and I spent several hours yesterday watching Pre-Season Football on the NFLNetwork in HD with no problems whatsoever.

There definately seems to be an issue with codec issue. I think Hauppauge's choice to go with H.264 and AACS audio makes it much more difficult. I'm glad I didn't go that route....

[Shield]

I've heard lots of stories about A/V sync with the HD-100's though too. It's moot right now as they're out of stock.

At the end of the day, I'd have to buy 3 HD-100's, ($600), 2 Directv HD receivers ($200) and extend my directv contract for 2 more years. Right now there's no Dolby digital from the HD PVR, a 720p stuttering problem, and no ability to skip commercials. And I had to power cycle my HD PVR every so often for whatever reason.
It's just TV, and I do have the HD Homerun to record all the fall shows in HD on Sage, and 2 directv dual tuner DVR's that do DD right now. Even though they suck.

I say that, but of course it's still tempting. Having a weekend where the Directv guy did a no show and called late I felt was fate telling me it's not time. And the HD-100's were out of stock. I'm an impulsive guy, you know?

[Taddeusz]

I'm happy with my purchase of my HD-PVR. I sat on the fence for a bit waiting for updated drivers to come out and finally just bit the bullet and bought one. I haven't regretted it at all but I am waiting on pins and needles for the drivers that allow AC3 pass-through. They are supposedly coming out "any day now" for the past few weeks. So hopefully they'll be coming out pretty soon.

[QueOnda]

Another option for you might be a modded R5000 box (if I recall from memory). A directTv modded box which allows you to stream capture.

As for the HDPVR, I haven't connected mine yet. I don't know if will play nicely with my setup or not.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by QueOnda

Another option for you might be a modded R5000 box (if I recall from memory). A directTv modded box which allows you to stream capture.

As for the HDPVR, I haven't connected mine yet. I don't know if will play nicely with my setup or not.

The R5000 mod does not work with the new Direct TV boxes that use MPEG4 video streams. It only works on the old MPEG2 boxes. The R5000 is really only an option for those wtih Dish Network.....

[Chriscic]

I share your pain,Shield. I have one HD-100 extender which works well. I've knocked myself out trying to get smooth playback on another system with a 2600Pro in it, but even with hardware accel working (finally), it's not smooth enough to use on a regular basis.

I might do things definitely if could start over, but at this point I'll probably just suck it up and get a couple more Sage extenders.

EDIT: Actually not sure why I said the HD extender works well last night. It plays the video pretty smoothly (although I'm not sure 100% smooth... at least close), but there the audio is out of sync significantly. Sage tech support indicated that this is a problem with the Hauppauge drivers and that Hauppauge knows about it. I hope someone fixes this soon.

I know others have been having the audio sync issues as well.

Bottom-line: Shield you're correct. The tech is not ready for your dreams yet. Hopefully soon, but even that's optimistic.

[Shield]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

I share your pain,Shield. I have one HD-100 extender which works well. I've knocked myself out trying to get smooth playback on another system with a 2600Pro in it, but even with hardware accel working (finally), it's not smooth enough to use on a regular basis.

I might do things definitely if could start over, but at this point I'll probably just suck it up and get a couple more Sage extenders.

EDIT: Actually not sure why I said the HD extender works well last night. It plays the video pretty smoothly (although I'm not sure 100% smooth... at least close), but there the audio is out of sync significantly. Sage tech support indicated that this is a problem with the Hauppauge drivers and that Hauppauge knows about it. I hope someone fixes this soon.

I know others have been having the audio sync issues as well.

Bottom-line: Shield you're correct. The tech is not ready for your dreams yet. Hopefully soon, but even that's optimistic.

Being a techno-geek, I don't want to be correct, really! I want someone to come on here with the full solution to the problem.
My thought process right now is this - do I really need those HD channels to be in Sage? I already have 2 dual tuner Mpeg4 directv dvr's that have dolby digital - I can record 4 HD channels at the same time without Sage being in the picture.
The Sage interface is faster, and the guide is better. Yes.
But today (08/27/2008) I cannot have commercial skipping with the HD PVR or Directv's HD solution.
I don't archive recorded Tv shows.
I have Directv's MLB Extra Innings package which still as of today does not have Zap2it guide information. Another strike against the pairing of the HD PVR and Sage.
Channel changing is much slower than on the DTV box. Period.

So ultimately, I can record our fall TV shows with the HD Homerun, record my wife's Golden Girls episodes with my NTSC tuners, and let Directv provide the Dolby Digital fully guided non-overheating non-stuttering HD baseball games. With an interactive guide that shows the league leaders, stats, etc.

Maybe in a year or so it'll all be better...maybe another company will come out with a component capture device. I really wish that the Hauppage had done this in mpeg-2 format like the HD Homerun - those files play back beautifully. Disk space is cheap!

[bialio]

FYI - Today (8/27/2008) I have commercial skipping working quite well on the HD PVR.

There are lots of variables with getting the HD-PVR working well on a PC, no doubt. Thankfully I've get extenders on all of my TVs - just use a client on the PC in my office. The extenders work very well on the HD-PVR channels - those with lots of motion look just as good as Sunrise Earth.

In my office sometimes I see some stuttering, but I use that PC just for development, so I don't care too much about PQ there.

btl.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by bialio

FYI - Today (8/27/2008) I have commercial skipping working quite well on the HD PVR.

There are lots of variables with getting the HD-PVR working well on a PC, no doubt. Thankfully I've get extenders on all of my TVs - just use a client on the PC in my office. The extenders work very well on the HD-PVR channels - those with lots of motion look just as good as Sunrise Earth.

In my office sometimes I see some stuttering, but I use that PC just for development, so I don't care too much about PQ there.

btl.

I was just about to ask how you were doing that. Then I quick went and checked out the ShowAnalyzer forums and noticed the post about a new version with H.264 support going public next Monday.

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by bialio

The extenders work very well on the HD-PVR channels - those with lots of motion look just as good as Sunrise Earth.

No audio sync issues? Are you using the latest version of the server and extender firmware?

[bialio]

I'm pretty sure I'm using the latest on everything.

[Brent]

Count me as a happy HD-PVR user. With the latest public HD-PVR driver, latest HD100 firmware and latest SageTV (and SageMC) versions I get great playback from live, HD-PVR on my dual-core HTPC client and my HD100's.
Things that helped me with playback on my HTPC:

1. Installed ArcSoft on the client PC and made sure it was using the ArcSoft H.264 decoder
2. Upgraded the client PC's processor from single core to dual core

None of these things are needed for HD100 playback - for that it just works and works well.


Channel changes seem to be faster than they once were too - even with the USB-UIRT IR blaster so I think there must have been an improvement in the last version of SageTV. One of the reasons the latest DD5.1 HD-PVR driver hasn't be released to the public is because some testers are experiencing syncing problems with playback. So the driver has a lot to do with the success of playback too.

I do get very choppy (almost unwatchable) playback on my server HTPC, but it has an underpowered video card and very underpowered CPU.

[Chriscic]

Seem unlikely it can be a Hauppauge driver bug when some folks are getting great playback with audio sync.

I suppose it's possible the Hauppauge driver bug could only manifest itself under certain server conditions. Personally I've already tried two different servers.

Anyway, I'm not trying to disparage Sage's explanation, I just want the thing to work.

[bialio]

I had real flakey results originally - turned out to be a network throughput issue. One of my switches didn't die, but it was running a lot slower than it was sposed to. So you might check your network and make sure everything is groovy there.
btl.

[Opus4]

You'll have to wait for a Hauppauge HD-PVR driver update to see if that resolves it.

- Andy

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

Seem unlikely it can be a Hauppauge driver bug when some folks are getting great playback with audio sync.

I suppose it's possible the Hauppauge driver bug could only manifest itself under certain server conditions. Personally I've already tried two different servers.

I'm not saying its the driver that is causing anyones problems - just that the driver is definitely a factor and COULD cause playback problems. It also could affect only certain hardware configurations (e.g. component vs. rca or SPDIF vs. analog audio etc). I know this because that is the very reason the unreleased HD-PVR driver (the one with 5.1 support) has been delayed.