Audio Levels

[kamikaze2112]

There is a major difference in audio levels between my SD (PVR-150 card) and HD recordings (HDPVR + Optical Audio). Anyone else experiencing this? Any ideas to fix it?

[dadof4]

Have you tried adjusting the volume on the HDPVR's cable/satellite box to equal the audio out on the 150? That's what works for me.

Rich

[kamikaze2112]

I will look into that, however I don't think that the STB's have their own volume controls. I'll check that tonight.

[kamikaze2112]

So, as far as I can tell, there's no independent volume control on the STB, but I haven't called Star Choice about it yet to see if they can help me. I'll try them some time this week if I get a chance.

[kamikaze2112]

ok, I contacted star choice, and they more or less told me that there isn't a volume control on the stb itself, but I am going to call them to see if I can get anything else out of a higher up tech. I tried tonite the regular analogue audio and hooked directly to my tv and receiver without the sage box and it was the same thing, really quiet which leads me to believe there's something with the source.

[kamikaze2112]

called today, they had me do a factory reset which didn't fix anything, so they are sending me a new STB, hopefully that will fix it.

[kamikaze2112]

got the new STB, digital audio is still super quiet, but the analog works fine on this one. guess I'm using that until I can afford another HD box and HDPVR lol

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by kamikaze2112

There is a major difference in audio levels between my SD (PVR-150 card) and HD recordings (HDPVR + Optical Audio). Anyone else experiencing this? Any ideas to fix it?

matrixmixer

[Ryokurin]

using ffdshow is also an option. I use the auto level option, and dolby digital.

[othy]

I may be mis-remembering this, but isn't there an option to boost the audio on the HD-PVR? I think it must be accessed via the software that ships with the device.

Tim

[babgvant]

any boost that you do on the PC will reduce audio quality, reducing PCM output levels is OK though.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Ryokurin

using ffdshow is also an option. I use the auto level option, and dolby digital.

Does this work if playback is on an extender?

[kamikaze2112]

I"ll try the suggestions above, thanks guys

my Sage box has been acting up all week, I think I'll wipe/reload it and do a fresh install of everything over the weekend, so I know I'm starting with a clean slate.

[kamikaze2112]

so i switched to the analogue audio, and the volume levels were much closer, but then i started to get the problem where it would drop the audio altogether.

so I guess it's back to digital audio, and manually changing volume levels between tuners. either that or buy another HD receiver and another HD-PVR

I just can't win with this thing. At this point I'm a little pissed about how much money I spent on it, and it doesn't work right. Guess I'll open up a ticket with hauppauge again, and see where it goes from there.

[MitchSchaft]

This is normal in the HTPC community. It's always been an issue, even for the microsoft media center folks. It has to do with digital/analog. It's the nature of the beast and nothing we can do about it. It's normal.

[cameramonkey]

I have seen it too with my dual tuner cards.

I put in a feature request to be able to tweak audio levels on different tuners to more closely balance between the analog and digital tuners.

[kamikaze2112]

Originally Posted by MitchSchaft

This is normal in the HTPC community. It's always been an issue, even for the microsoft media center folks. It has to do with digital/analog. It's the nature of the beast and nothing we can do about it. It's normal.

Oh i understand this, but it's not what pisses me off. Paying $300 for a device that doesn't work properly does, and getting nothing from their tech support just makes my blood boil. I emailed the guy yesterday, and still haven't gotten anything back. So far I've had this thing for close to 2 months, and I think I've had one, maybe 2 reliable weeks out of it. Since there's very little OTA HD, ditching this for one of those tuners just isn't going to cut it. I thought about sending my STB to that place in the US that puts the capture mod in them, but if the STB ever dies, then I'm out the money for it.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by kamikaze2112

Since there's very little OTA HD, ditching this for one of those tuners just isn't going to cut it. I thought about sending my STB to that place in the US that puts the capture mod in them, but if the STB ever dies, then I'm out the money for it.

Assuming you're still talking about the volume levels, this wouldn't solve your problem. It's just that analog channels seem to broadcast with different volume levels than digital channels. You're noticing the problem on the HD-PVR because that's what you have. I have a HD cable box that I record from over the firewire port, and I hear the same problem- the audio levels are usually much lower on the digital channels than for analog channels captured either directly, or through an analog set top box. I hear the same problem if I hook the cable boxes directly to my receiver.

I wish stations would do a better job at sort of standardizing their volume levels. Or really, I'd mainly be happy if individual channels would normalize their volume levels between TV shows and commercials. I was watching Ghostbusters on AMC-HD last night and the commercials were much, much louder than the movie.

This has always been a problem. I remember when TVs years and years ago first started coming out with volume levelers to deal with the issue. My HDTV actually can do that too, although that does me no good since I don't use the TV's speakers.

[kamikaze2112]

no no, i'm beyond the volume levels at this point, I was referring to a replacement for this plastic box (hdpvr) that only seems to work about 70% of the time

It's really too bad that the 2 PVR-150 cards I used to were soo damn good, it really set my expectations for the HD-PVR way too high, and now I'm pissed off about it.

oh and still no reply from hauppauge tech support, guess I'm going to have to call them

[MitchSchaft]

I'm saying it's not the company's product, it's the technology. reggie14 just said it in better detail!