3 PVR 250s in machine with only 3 pci slots?

[Crowdx42]

Hi,
I bought a 3rd PVR 250 and I now have a conflict in the device manager, so I am wondering has anyone got 3 PVR 250's running in the same machine or are 2 cards the max?
It is an NForce board, Asus A7N266.
Patrick

[Cayars]

I've got 2 PVR-250s, 1 PVR-350, 1 E-Home & 4 PVR-USB2 on one machine.

The USB2 devices are a snap but the internal PVRs are a pain. I have a conflict on one PVR-250 with the video card but I use this machine as a "server" and never watch any videos on it so there doesn't seem to be enough traffic to cause me any problems.

I've had this machine up and running since beta .13 came out and it hasn't been shutdown or crashed yet.

You might be in for a rough ride. When I installed XP on this machine I setup my BIOS so that I control all memory and IRQs and not Windows XP. If you are letting Windows XP control things you might not be able to pull it off.

Besides the conflict you are seeing in device manager does it work? You may still have a 100% functioning system even with the conflict.

Carlo

[Crowdx42]

I installed Standard COmputer and all is showing with no conflicts at present, have not extensively tested it yet though. I disabled all the periperhals that I am not using.
Will see what happens over next few days. My problem before I did a complete fresh install was getting the USB-UIRT to send a command to my cable box, for some reason it just stopped. Again have not tried it yet to see if the new install works ok.
Patrick

[Crowdx42]

Just a cross post here, everything is working fine BUT Sage is not selecting the composite in on the PVR 250, I installed WinTV and it is working fine with composite it. Anyone know why I am getting a black screen when I select a channel on the composite in from my cable box? I can hear the sound, so it is selecting a correct channel, seems like it just isn't rendering the picture.
Any ideas? Am I faced with a full format and reinstall? I uninstalled Sage and it didn't help, even deleted all the reg keys I could find and the folder, so I am thinking it is a Java problem or something else which is not happy.
Patrick

[Crowdx42]

Has anyone seen this happen? Changing channel, sound but black screen? Is it a conflict or is it software related?
I am considering disabling the 3rd card to check for a conflict but wondering what other course of action I have?
Patrick

[phenixdragon]

Have you tried to just set everything up with the card you are using composite with and then install the 2nd card and then the 3rd card?

[stanger89]

Yeah, I thought I remembered reading a post where someone said it worked if they set the tuners up in a certain order, but not if they did it the other way. Sounds like one of the bugs they've hopefully squashed in .14.

[Crowdx42]

I will try that tomorrow. Which should I do? Pull all cards out of the box and then install each one individually? Or just install the card with the composite first and then install the other cards?
I have uninstalled Sage, then installed one card by itself (not physical install, I have not pulled all the cards physically) none of that helped.
So I am assuming there is a physical step by step I should be doing?
Patrick

[wrwaugh]

I have only one 250 so no conflict... but I occassionally get the black screen with sound... I have to kill Sage and restart it. Don't have any idea why... no common cause.

[stanger89]

Originally posted by Crowdx42
I will try that tomorrow. Which should I do? Pull all cards out of the box and then install each one individually? Or just install the card with the composite first and then install the other cards?
I have uninstalled Sage, then installed one card by itself (not physical install, I have not pulled all the cards physically) none of that helped.
So I am assuming there is a physical step by step I should be doing?
Patrick

I thought it was just the order you set up sources.

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...8633#post28633

[Crowdx42]

Well did what you guys said and so far so good, seems all the channels are now working fine. I unistalled all the cards just in Sage, then installed the composite in first, then the tuner on that card and after that all the other tuners.
Will see how things goes, but looks good at present.
Thanks guys.
Patrick

[phenixdragon]

Glad to hear it. Really any type of installation issues it is a good idea to do 1 thing at a time.

[Crowdx42]

Just a quick update, when I tried to set the color on the composite input, I got an error and Sage locked up solid, tried twice to configure color on the composite with identical result. Does the color on the composite input match the color on the tuner section of the card?
My color in general looked pretty washed out on the PVR 250 defaults, have lowered the brightness, highered the contrast and things look a bit better, also downloaded Elecard player to see if that gives better results.
Patrick

[ktwebb]

Perhaps a dumb question but I am new to the capture community. Why exactly would you use multiple tuner/capture cards. I have seen this a few time tonight and can't think of a reason to use multiples, and certainly not 4 or 5? Would a PC MAC or linus box even have the horsepower to utilize multiple cards?

[fidget]

Originally posted by ktwebb
Perhaps a dumb question but I am new to the capture community. Why exactly would you use multiple tuner/capture cards. I have seen this a few time tonight and can't think of a reason to use multiples, and certainly not 4 or 5? Would a PC MAC or linus box even have the horsepower to utilize multiple cards?

The tuner cards all perform the MPEG endocing in hardware, so it does not require very much of a PC. If you disable software decoding with the PVR-350 then the playback PC can be considerably less capable as well.

In my system, I have a dedicated recording PC that has 3 PVR-250s and a PVR-350 in my playback machine. Recording CPU is < 5% (P4 @ 2.6 GHz with 3 tuners recording) and playback is < 3% (PVR-350 with software decoding disabled, the OSD can jump the CPU to 26%, however). I haven't had any conflicts in a loooooong time.

[Crowdx42]

Well the simple and obvious reason is to record multiple tv channels. For the ability to watch one show and record another USING Sage TV, you need 2 cards, some may watch the live show on the tv while Sage records the other BUT most of us want to use Sage exclusively. Also to fully utilise the intelligent recording, three tuners has much less recording conflicts than 1 or 2 tuners.
Remember without a tv card Sage can not view any tv.
Patrick