HD PVR Poll: Stable or not?

[IVB]

It's awful. It sucks. It's disgustingly yechhy and smelly.


I'd be willing to buy yours off you for $4.38 to put you out of your misery, it'll keep my totally stable one company

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by Brent

Congrats. I know you in particular had many issues with the HD-PVR during that time - so its good to see things are better for you now.

Thanks Brent. It is sweet when working well. Just added my second HD-PVR to the system last night and fingers crossed.

To anyone having frequent problems I say RMA your unit (I went from C1 to C2 to D2 to E1). Obviously I can't know but I still believe Hauppauge put a lot of bad units out there but a recall is too expensive. Hauppauge is cool about the RMA though either by phone or email request.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

Thanks Brent. It is sweet when working well. Just added my second HD-PVR to the system last night and fingers crossed.

To anyone having frequent problems I say RMA your unit (I went from C1 to C2 to D2 to E1). Obviously I can't know but I still believe Hauppauge put a lot of bad units out there but a recall is too expensive. Hauppauge is cool about the RMA though either by phone or email request.

What is new with the E1?

I believe I am at D2

[sleonard]

I bought 3 C1's a year ago. I have RMA'd all 3 to C2, D1, and, finally, E1's. Still had multiple daily lockups.

In January, I built a new PC for my Sage server. I had no lockups at all for the first month. Then I got brave and installed a 2250 HDTV dual-tuner card and immediately started getting lockups again although much less frequently than with the old system. After a couple of weeks I removed both the 2250 tuners from Sage but left the card physically installed and also left the driver. The frequency of the lockups dropped even more but did not go away. Sage was the released version 6.5.9.

When the current betas started being released I waited until 6.5.16 (the one with the "HD-PVR Magic" property and became too tempted so I installed that. The frequency of the lockups steadily increased through 6.5.20 until I set the "Magic" property to false. It hasn't been very long but only a single lockup since then (and I strongly suspect the cable box itself for that one). I am keeping my fingers crossed.

S

[Brent]

Originally Posted by sleonard

When the current betas started being released I waited until 6.5.16 (the one with the "HD-PVR Magic" property and became too tempted so I installed that. The frequency of the lockups steadily increased through 6.5.20 until I set the "Magic" property to false. It hasn't been very long but only a single lockup since then (and I strongly suspect the cable box itself for that one). I am keeping my fingers crossed.

S

"magic" property?

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by Brent

"magic" property?

Discussion started here:
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...39&postcount=6

Continues for a few posts - since mine's been on false my problems went away.

[Savage1701]

I came over from BTV where my HD-PVR was crashing 2 or more times a day. Foolishly, SS has everyone believing it's always the HD-PVR's fault. Maybe it is sometimes.

But I can tell you this - I am at about 24 days now on Sage with no problems, except one that was my fault when I accidentally changed the overlay.

I've thrown the book at this thing - multiple, sequential recordings at all different resolutions (I can't lock my Charter STB to a single resolution). Non-stop marathons on the same channel. 480i to 1080i to 720p and on and on and on...

Biggest help - I immediately set my tuner delay to 4000ms. I suspect if BTV let people do that, a huge amount of their issues would vanish.

FWIW, I also lock all recordings from the HD-PVR at the maximum bitrate. I know that may cause issues with interleaved vs. progressive content, but it's working for me.

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by Savage1701

Biggest help - I immediately set my tuner delay to 4000ms. I suspect if BTV let people do that, a huge amount of their issues would vanish.

tell me about it.........i created that BTV bug report and request for delayed recording option back in JANUARY!

on the other hand, i'm NOT seeing recording failures due to this, just capturing the cable box previous channel and the channel change at the beginning of almost every recording..............and my hd200 plays through the channel change glitch with no problem

[Brent]

Originally Posted by cat6man

tell me about it.........i created that BTV bug report and request for delayed recording option back in JANUARY!

I'm saddened by how little attention SS is giving the consumer stuff. Their enterprise business has really taken off in the past 12 months so I would imagine they have all available resources trying to keep up with that demand along with the higher customer support needs of those clients.

[Savage1701]

I think you are correct. I have invested a lot of time and money in BTV. I felt it was legitimate and fair in both departments until recently.

For the most part, I think the BTV user crowd is being duped into thinking the whole problem lies with Hauppauge. I'm sure there were driver and/or hardware iterations at first, but, again, I think SnapStream is just letting their customers beat their heads against the wall rather than being fair with them.

[loonsailor]

Works fine for recording, not always as well for watching live TV. I'm using the analog audio out, haven't tried digital yet.