Happauge PVR500 unrecognized by SageTV?

[lash]

I am looking into SageTV, I added a Happauge PVR500 to my current home server and it simply doesn't work.

The machine is a Windows 2008 R2 x64 system. Sever motherboard with a quad core Intel Q6600 and 8 gigs of ram. Just in case that gives the wrong impression, I am generally knowledgeable about computers, networking and that kind of thing, but not an expert. I'm in the sciences by profession not consumer technology. I'm taking time off and part of that is to watch all these TV shows and movies that people always talk about and I have no clue.

I installed the drivers and they report working fine but SageTV doesn't see them. I know they are working because a MythTV virtual machine does see them and can record video from them. I tracked down a thread with something about BDA hacks. I installed the MSI provided and ran the registry file.

This allowed SageTV to see 1 of the tuners but not both. Also, the recording is extremely choppy, even in "service mode" with no UI. I determined this by recoding to a directory and playing the resulting mpg file on another computer with more than enough muscle to not play it choppy and the MythTV recordings pay back fine.

My guess is the BDA hacking is a problem. My question is why can't SageTV see the Happauge PVR500? This supposedly works in Windows 7, correct? Windows 2008 R2 is basically windows 7. Is this program not able to work on x64 systems? Or am I missing something?

Thanks!

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by lash

I am looking into SageTV, I added a Happauge PVR500 to my current home server and it simply doesn't work.

The machine is a Windows 2008 R2 x64 system. Sever motherboard with a quad core Intel Q6600 and 8 gigs of ram. Just in case that gives the wrong impression, I am generally knowledgeable about computers, networking and that kind of thing, but not an expert. I'm in the sciences by profession not consumer technology. I'm taking time off and part of that is to watch all these TV shows and movies that people always talk about and I have no clue.

I installed the drivers and they report working fine but SageTV doesn't see them. I know they are working because a MythTV virtual machine does see them and can record video from them. I tracked down a thread with something about BDA hacks. I installed the MSI provided and ran the registry file.

This allowed SageTV to see 1 of the tuners but not both. Also, the recording is extremely choppy, even in "service mode" with no UI. I determined this by recoding to a directory and playing the resulting mpg file on another computer with more than enough muscle to not play it choppy and the MythTV recordings pay back fine.

My guess is the BDA hacking is a problem. My question is why can't SageTV see the Happauge PVR500? This supposedly works in Windows 7, correct? Windows 2008 R2 is basically windows 7. Is this program not able to work on x64 systems? Or am I missing something?

Thanks!

Direct from the Hauppauge web site:

Note: Currently, the WinTV-PVR-150 and WinTV-PVR-500 receivers used with 64-bit versions of Windows are limited to less than 4GB of memory.

Also see this: http://mymce.wordpress.com/2008/10/2...-64-bit-issue/

[wayner]

This bug has been around forever but Hauppauge seems to have no interest in fixing it.

[lash]

Yuk, I confirmed that the over 4GB issue is the problem. Took out the 4gb sticks and put in a 2gb one and there was no choppiness. However SageTV still only sees 1 tuner.

Guess I will have this problem in any Windows environment. I am a unix person myself, but the person working on all of this for me (my nephew) is windows based.

I am not sure how this forum works, so just in case, I will start a new thread for a question on other TV cards.

Lets say I am willing to take the server down to >4GBs and put on windows 2008 32bit (I only have licenses for windows 2008 or windows 2008 R2). Is there anyway to get SageTV to recognize the second tuner?

Thanks!

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by lash

Lets say I am willing to take the server down to >4GBs and put on windows 2008 32bit (I only have licenses for windows 2008 or windows 2008 R2). Is there anyway to get SageTV to recognize the second tuner?

Thanks!

Assuming the drivers are properly installed, SageTV should recognize both tuners. On a side note, if you have a PCIe slot, you can swap the PVR500 with a HVR2250 and you shouldn't have any trouble sticking with a 64bit OS with more then 4GB RAM. The HVR2250 is a dual tuner that does analog cable and also does digital ATSC (OTA) and QAM (cable).

[lash]

Thanks! Might you have any clue on why SageTV won't recognize the second tuner on the pvr500? My nephew and I set up another computer to test possibilities and Windows 2008 x86 with 4GB of ram can run all the tuner cards he has with the BDA vista hack thing. However SageTV still only recognizes 1 tuner on the PVR500. My nephew is in the process of hacking Windows Media center onto Windows 2008 as another program to test, but he believes SageTV is the problem here as the application that comes with the PVR500 recognizes 2 tuners where SageTV sees only 1.

[gplasky]

Look in the sage.properties and see if it ended up in a setting like ignore_encoders or something like that. If it is there just get rid of it from the = sign on out.

Gerry

[lash]

Thanks everyone, got it working. Apparently Happuage is a UK company? The drivers on their UK website are far more upto date than the ones on the US site.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by robogeek

Assuming the drivers are properly installed, SageTV should recognize both tuners. On a side note, if you have a PCIe slot, you can swap the PVR500 with a HVR2250 and you shouldn't have any trouble sticking with a 64bit OS with more then 4GB RAM. The HVR2250 is a dual tuner that does analog cable and also does digital ATSC (OTA) and QAM (cable).

Will the HD-PVR and HDHomerun also work with a 64 bit OS and more than 4 GB of memory? If HD-PVR, HDHomerun, and HVR-2250 all work work 64 bits, then I could switch to a 64 bit OS for my next SageTV computer. I would retire the PVR-350 to an older computer.

Dave

[gplasky]

The HD-PVR driver is WHQL for 32bit and 64bit Vista. Should also work on Win 7. HDHomerun also has 32bit and 64bit all wrapped up in their .exe download. I had tested HDHomerun on 4GB ram Win7 RC. Worked.

Gerry

[davephan]

Originally Posted by gplasky

The HD-PVR driver is WHQL for 32bit and 64bit Vista. Should also work on Win 7. HDHomerun also has 32bit and 64bit all wrapped up in their .exe download. I had tested HDHomerun on 4GB ram Win7 RC. Worked.

Gerry

That sounds great Gerry! I think I will build my new SageTV I7 950 quad core system with Windows 7 64-bit with more than 4 gigs of RAM.

Dave

[gplasky]

I would also recommend either disabling UAC or making sure that you have full permissions to the SageTV directory to avoid the virtual store thing.

Gerry