HD-PVR Drivers 2.0 Out with Arcsoft upgrade

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by sic0048

Hauppauge must have pulled the drivers. They only list the 1.1 drivers (dated Oct 16, 2008) now. The new ArcSoft media updater is still up (dated Nov. 12, 2008), but no new driver. There is nothing listed in the beta tab either.

Still there for me.

[Taddeusz]

Interesting. I downloaded and installed them last night. I ran HCWCLEAR before I installed them. They appear to be working. It did one recording last night that, from what I can tell from work, recorded fine. I'll have to check it out once I get home but so far looks to be working.

As frustrating as it may be you shouldn't berate Hauppauge too much. They are going into relatively unknown territory with the HD-PVR. It's a one of a kind device that's still in it's infancy. I'm not particularly surprised that there are problems. My experience has been fine so far. I've had a few issues, most of which had to do with flaky power at my house. I believe my HDHR is actually giving me more trouble lately. Wish I could just set it and leave it but for some reason every few days I'll find that the network status light on it is blinking. Yes, I have a brand new power supply on it. Just weird.

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

My experience has been fine so far.

Maybe that's why you think we shouldn't be too hard on Hauppauge. As one who's wasted hours and hours trying to get things to work and sending defective units back, I'm predisposed to be a little more critical

[SHS]

Yes it was pull due to major bug in the drivers
And it best not update to newest TME

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by SHS

Yes it was pull due to major bug in the drivers
And it best not update to newest TME

Can you share what kind of bugs the driver has?

[Vaskill]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Interesting. I downloaded and installed them last night. I ran HCWCLEAR before I installed them. They appear to be working. It did one recording last night that, from what I can tell from work, recorded fine. I'll have to check it out once I get home but so far looks to be working.

As frustrating as it may be you shouldn't berate Hauppauge too much. They are going into relatively unknown territory with the HD-PVR. It's a one of a kind device that's still in it's infancy. I'm not particularly surprised that there are problems. My experience has been fine so far. I've had a few issues, most of which had to do with flaky power at my house. I believe my HDHR is actually giving me more trouble lately. Wish I could just set it and leave it but for some reason every few days I'll find that the network status light on it is blinking. Yes, I have a brand new power supply on it. Just weird.

I did the same thing but they did not work for me. (Thank goodness I backed up my SageTV folder and made a complete image of the system partition.)

I followed the exact steps that gave me success with the 1.1 drivers:

1) Ran HCWClear from original Hauppauge driver CD and rebooted.
2) Turned on my first HD-PVR, xp detected the hardware, pointed to the HDPVR_2 drivers directory and let it install with success.
3) Turned on my second HD-PVR, xp detected the hardware, automatically installed the drivers with a warning that an error occurred. Check the devices under system/hardware and all reported as "device is working properly" and had a version of 1.0.5.2.
4) Rebooted and opened ARCSofts video recorder with new patch (which worked fine with the 1.1 version of the drivers). Was able to see both units and to see the preview but the video was extremely choppy (run for a few seconds and then stop for a few and then resume). I played with the settings to see if the bit rate helped and it did not. I tried a few other settings to see if they affected the video (ie. contrast and brightness) and those did not seem to alter the preview. I gave up and went to sage.
5) Started SageTV in non-service mode. It showed both HD-PVRs as working in the sources setup. Tried to record a program with no luck. Immediate error with the capture device. Removed both sources and added them again to no avail. Shutdown (completely, not standby) SageTV.
6) Removed the sources from the sage.properties file and also replaced sage.properties.autobackup. Started SageTV and was automaticly asked to add a source. After selecting the input type for the source, an immediate error with the capture device was displayed. No good. Time to revert.

To revert, followed the same steps 1 to 4 with the exception of pointing to the 1.1 drivers. Even had the same driver warning with the second unit. Arcsoft was able to see both units and play preview with out issue and AC3 indicator seems to work fine.

Then restored my backup copy of SageTV directory and started SageTV in non-service mode. Started a test recording of two shows with out issue, channel changes properly on both, can watch while two record. All is good, but bling-lights are now missing.

Completely shut down SageTV. Opened ARCSoft. Both units had bling setting to on (unchecked), so I checked them, closed ARCSoft, opened ARCSoft and unchecked, closed ARCSoft and started SageTV service. No bling.

Well, I would highly recommend that no one install these drivers and it seems Hauppauge would agree (and SHS), unless you want to do all I did and still loose your bling.

[Taddeusz]

I couldn't care less about the bling. The bling is annoying. It would actually make me happy if it stopped working.

[HelenWeathers]

I installed these (2.0/1.0.5.2) drivers again today with only one HD PVR hooked up. It worked ok with a single unit but didn't solve the only issue I have with the 1.1 drivers. The Click Pop sound in the first few seconds of audio in my recordings was still present with this driver. I've gone back to the 1.1 drivers so I can use both of my HD PVRs.

Hauppauge does need to do some limited beta testing with users who have multiple HD PVRs and a variety of hardware before they release these drivers.

Their testing seems to be done in a simulator.

[Taddeusz]

After I installed the drivers I did try it out for a bit to see if it worked. I was actually doing everything remotely as my server is headless.

Other than a stutter problem on the client end it was working fine. And that stutter problem actually had nothing to do with the HD-PVR. Decoder issues on the client that are now straightened out... finally.

[Vaskill]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I couldn't care less about the bling. The bling is annoying. It would actually make me happy if it stopped working.

Ah, yes, normally I would agree, but, since my units sit in a "server room" away from sight, they do not bother me, and in fact I use the bling as a great way to know if I'm currently recording something at a glance, with out having to turn on a terminal, etc.

The point is, regardless of wanting or liking bling, the new 2.0 drivers caused a change that has persisted after reverting to the old 1.1. Not a good thing at all and may be an indication of other changes that are not apparent or that HCWClear is not "getting" everything .

PS. Taddeusz, you do know you can disable bling through ARCSoft?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by Vaskill

PS. Taddeusz, you do know you can disable bling through ARCSoft?

Yes, after I installed the v1.1 drivers the bling came back and for some reason I couldn't disable it even though the box was unchecked in Arcsoft.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Yes, after I installed the v1.1 drivers the bling came back and for some reason I couldn't disable it even though the box was unchecked in Arcsoft.

I thought you checked it to disable it. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong.

Gerry

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by gplasky

I thought you checked it to disable it. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong.

Gerry

Whichever way it was. I just remember that it was set to be disabled and was still coming on.

[SHS]

They didn't say Taddeusz all he said was he was able replicated the issue

[egeller]

Originally Posted by vividweb

Haven't installed the drivers yet, I think I'll wait, but there was a note on the hauppauge site about having to unplug the RCA audio to get the SPDIF to work.

I had that covered already. I unplugged the RCA audio when I first plugged in the SPDIF cable at the time I installed the beta drivers.

I did that because I'm easily confused and wanted to make sure where the sound was coming from.

[HTPCguy]

Regarding the earlier points on whether or not to be critical of Hauppauge, I'm definitely more thankful for having the HDPVR than not, although I would agree they might benefit from a revision of their beta testing process.

While the product's development has been challenging for us 'early adoptors', in hindsight, aren't the setup battles (and hopefully their rewards) part of the fun in some ways? Maybe not always at the time, but I think the setup is worth it. And as far as I know, the HDPVR is still a one-of-a-kind for consumer-grade HD capture (save for the Intensity product, which sounds like a whole other beast) ... and despite a minor glitch on playback, the 1.1 / 1.0.5.1 driver with Sage works really great for me. I've replaced my miserable Scientific Atlantic cableco box with Sage's incredibly versitile interface, and I love it.

My thanks to Hauppauge for their continued development efforts on the HDPVR, which remains an awesome product.

[Olias]

Originally Posted by HTPCguy

Regarding the earlier points on whether or not to be critical of Hauppauge, I'm definitely more thankful for having the HDPVR than not, although I would agree they might benefit from a revision of their beta testing process.

While the product's development has been challenging for us 'early adoptors', in hindsight, aren't the setup battles (and hopefully their rewards) part of the fun in some ways? Maybe not always at the time, but I think the setup is worth it. And as far as I know, the HDPVR is still a one-of-a-kind for consumer-grade HD capture (save for the Intensity product, which sounds like a whole other beast) ... and despite a minor glitch on playback, the 1.1 / 1.0.5.1 driver with Sage works really great for me. I've replaced my miserable Scientific Atlantic cableco box with Sage's incredibly versitile interface, and I love it.

My thanks to Hauppauge for their continued development efforts on the HDPVR, which remains an awesome product.

As a user of both the HDPVR and the Intensity device I'm glad that I have both to record HD. The Intensity did take more tweaking and the file sizes are larger but it is rock solid. The HDPVR setup was much easier (for my setup anyway) but still has issues with slower channel changing and the audio driver issues.

I see this whole thing from the hobbyist perspective. I expect to run into issues and just love it when FINALLY after hours of tweaking, I can watch that Thursday NFL Network game in all of it's HD goodness.
If I wasn't such a hobbyist I would've long ago picked up a DVR set top box (I'm sure my wife would be happier). But no, that's too easy. I've gotta stick it to the content providers and make sure I can watch HD at any time from any device I choose.

[dvsing]

Am I missing something? I go here:

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/suppor...ort_hdpvr.html

And all I see is a 1.1 driver dated October 16th 2008, and TotalMediaExtreme_1.0.9.4_1.0.9.5_Update_ALL.exe dated November 12th, 2008.

Did Hauppauge take the 2.0 drivers down off their site because of the problems being reported here?

-Dan

[trini0]

Originally Posted by dvsing

Did Hauppauge take the 2.0 drivers down off their site because of the problems being reported here?

They took it down because almost everyone (not just SageTV users) were complaining.

[Fluffdaddy]

Makes you think if Hauppauge tested this driver at all beforehand.
I mean really, how does something like this make it past their in-house testing?