HVR-2250 simultaneous tuner operation

[cameramonkey]

According to Hauppauge, the HVR-2250 can possibly run two ops from each tuner at once.

Has anyone confirmed this feature in SageTV?


I have a HVR-1600 right now, and when I am constantly having to go downstairs and suspend my SageTV software so that I can use my media extender (it tells me the encoder is busy because I forgot to turn it "off" (standby) before leaving the room).

I am hoping to alleviate that problem so that I can watch two analog -OR- two digital at the same time (one upstairs on the extender and one downstairs on the box itself). I would never expect more than two ops from the card in total. My concern is thier symantecs... they mean you can record and view off the same tuner, but not watch two shows at once. I really dont want to tear out a perfectly running tuner card only to find out it didnt help, and possibly screwing up a cherry system.

Or am I stuck buying another copy of Sage for my planned windows home server box and pointing my extender to it and use it for duplicate recordings, and leave the 1600 in my HTPC for use as a dedicated DVR for downstairs?

anyone have some experience they can share?

[mskitty666]

I have the HVR1600, 1800 and 2250. Based on the fact that I've had nothing but trouble to the point of removing the 2250, I say stay away. It isn't supported by SageTV. You might get lucky and have it work for a while, but in my opinion that card is a hunk of junk. Go with another brand, 1800 or even another 1600. That is unless you prefer to waste your time searching forums, editing Sage properties and your registry, viewing poor quality video and missing recordings because the tuner has gone wonky.

[wado1971]

Well, I admit that the 2250 takes some work but in the end I'm very pleased. I personally had nothing but problems with a 1600/150/HD-PVR combo so ended up giving the 1600 away in frustration. Come to find out the 2250 was just as quirky but my problems seemed to fade when I finally pulled the 150 and settled on a 2250/HD-PVR setup.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by mskitty666

It isn't supported by SageTV. .

Really? Because 6.5 added support for the HVR2250. Now with that said, I am running an HVR2250 and it works flawlessly for tuning 2 HD channels, tuning an HD and an SD, but if I try to watch/record two SD I get nothing but stutters. LehighBri and I are working with Sage on this issue and hope to get it cleared up. So basically what I am saying is that at this time, you are probably better off getting an HVR1800 or HVR1600 (so that you have 4 total tuners) rather than an HVR2250 if you are going to have periods where you watch 2 SD shows at once. Luckily I rarely record/watch two SD shows at once, so it really isn't a problem enough for me to put my old PVR500 back in.

[BrianDC]

Currently I have a 2250 in my system and it works wonderfully. Recording OTA HD and OTA SD without problems.

Also record with both tuners at the same time a lot. I'm going to be adding a HD PVR shortly, but hopefully will not have any issues.

Only thing that took a while to figure out was defining the channel lineup for the SD side on a tuner, followed by a HD channel line up on the same tuner for a total of 4 channel lineups for the card.
Best of luck.

[Dave62]

I've been using a 2250 since last summer and for the most part it's been working well. I just have occasional SageTV lockups.

About a week ago I was messing around with the system and temporarily switched the source to an antenna and upgraded the 2250 drivers to the January 23 version (27023). I have since switched the source back to comcast but kept the newer 2250 driver. After reading this thread I did a quick test and found I could no longer record 2 SD channels cleanly!

So, I reverted back to the original 2250 drivers from last summer and all is well again. I can record both HD and SD on both tuners using Comcast cable.

My system is:
SageTV 6.4.8, using service mode recording
SageMC 6.3.8
Vista - latest service pack/updates with UAC enabled
Norton 2009 firewall/antivirus
Single 2250 card connected to Comcast cable
2250 driver received with the hardware last July.

[toony]

After some computer issues not relating to the 2250 I got mine up and running very easily. Sage seems to get along fine with it and it's a very clean looking picture and recording quality is great. Mind you I am only doing SD right now. I plan on getting another 2250 in the near future for satellite.

[mskitty666]

I just returned my 2250 to Newegg. Of course all they can do now is replace it. I'm hoping the one I got was a dud. I'll find out when I get the replacement, but until then I still think it's better to get something else. Hauppauge still isn't listing any 3rd party software as compatible and if SageTV is now supporting it, that's new. Meanwhile some of us had to suffer and miss shows. That is not a quality tuner in my book.

[wtsitmn]

I got my new 2250 working nicely, so I bought another for the same machine. However, when I added the second one in Sage (Add New Source), the first 2250 setup no longer works. (No Signal on digital or analog)

If I then remove the source for the new 2250 I just installed, the first 2250 comes back and works fine again.

If I add the source for the second 2250 and remove the first, the second one then works.

Somebody please tell me there is a way to configure two 2250's simultaneously in Sage.

Thanks!!!


P.S. I'm using SageTV V6.5.9.204

[Peter_h]

Did you run hwclear.exe?

For some reason, most of the hauppage devices need to be installed all at the same time. They do not play nice if you install another card at a later date.

You will need to uninstall both devices and run "hwclear.exe", this comes bundled with all of the hauppage drivers, restart and then reinstall both cards and you should be good.

Do a search here for hwclear. It's a pretty common issue with the hauppage cards.

[wtsitmn]

Originally Posted by Peter_h

Did you run hwclear.exe?

For some reason, most of the hauppage devices need to be installed all at the same time. They do not play nice if you install another card at a later date.

You will need to uninstall both devices and run "hwclear.exe", this comes bundled with all of the hauppage drivers, restart and then reinstall both cards and you should be good.

Do a search here for hwclear. It's a pretty common issue with the hauppage cards.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll certainly give it a try. Sounds quite promising. I've never used Hauppauge cards before, so I wasn't aware of any unique issues.

I'm sure glad Sage runs this forum. Where would I be without it? Thanks again for the tip. I'll report back with the results.


-----


Well, that worked great! FYI, the program is hcwclear, not hwclear. For anyone who's interested, this is the procedure I followed.
1. Removed second tuner from SageTV Media Center
2. Closed SageTV
3. Stopped and disabled Sagetvservicecontrol.
4. Uninstalled each High Definition Audio Device.
5. Uninstalled each Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250, removing driver software on second uninstall.
6. Ran hcwclear.exe
7. Rebooted
8. Cancelled Windows new hardware install for both tuners
9. Ran Hauppauge driver install (latest version downloaded from Hauppauge.com)
10. Enabled and started Sagetvservicecontrol.
11. Started SageTV Media Center
12. Added new tuners using lineups from existing tuner.
13. Rebooted.

Extra Comments.

I have Time Warner Cable (basic), which has both analog and digital feeds. To get both to work using a single 2250 card, I installed one tuner as digital, the other as analog, in Sage, with their respective lineups. Then installed the other two tuners (digital and analog) using the lineups I had just created. Then for the second card, simply installed both digital and analog tuners using the existing lineups. What I noticed was that for the first 2250 card, I couldn't install two digital tuners first, then the two analog ones afterward. Sage seemed confused about them when doing it that way, with varying results--none correct.

To help confuse any newbies reading this, the 2250 is called a dual-tuner card, but technically there are four tuners, two digital and two analog. With this setup I described, I can use any two simultaneously on the single 2250 card. Now with the second card I installed, I can record any four simultaneusly. Mixing and matching analog and digital. I'm pleased to report everything seems to work great.

---

Another update. 6/6/09

Using the latest drivers from Hauppauge, was having problems recording 2 analog channels simultaneously on the same card. Discovered there is a Hauppauge driver which resolves this issue. Apparently, Hauppauge is having issues with the driver for this card, because they've now rescinded their latest Beta drivers. Luckily, the driver I needed could be downloaded from this forum: HVR-2250 driver fix for recording 2 analog channels at the same time

Or just click here do download the driver for yourself NOW!

Thanks, Andy!!!