HD-PVR Stops Responding ~Once/Day

[personalt]

ssd drive fixes it for me... ssd for windows drive smoothed the hiccups

[joe123]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

And, after all this, get out your checkbook and either buy a Tivo or cable DVR to save your marriage and family.
As Dick Van Dyke once said: "put it in a brown paper bag, wave it over your head and scream like a chicken".
How a single piece of hardware and a single software app can be used so exclusively together and work so miserably together is almost like watching congress operate on CSPN.

Funny and so true!

Thanks for the laugh!

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

As Dick Van Dyke once said: "put it in a brown paper bag, wave it over your head and scream like a chicken".

That's about it since everyone has their pet theories on why the HD-PVR locks up. Probably nearly all of it is nonsense, but no one knows which small part may be true.

Having had many problems, then everything cleared up, then bad again, then working great again, and reading a lot on these forums over the course of a couple of years, my conclusion is the HD-PVR handles signal glitches poorly and that's what deep sixes it most if not all of the time. But that could be more chicken-like screaming

[phelme]

I had zero problems for 2 years until I recently upgraded (XP) to Service Pack 3 from SP2. Could be coincidence but I'm not sure. Now I get "Halt Detected in Recording" frequently on the two HD-PVR's I have. It got so bad this morning after another failure the SageTV service's JVM heap ran out of space.

The other change is I recently installed SJQ v4.

[Taddeusz]

I have SP3 on my SageTV server and have none of those issues.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by joe123

So you have your STB Fixed at 720p? Have you tried 1080i as well?

Oddly, I can't use my DTV receiver/HD-PVR combo at 1080i, I just get a pink or blue screen. So I'm locked at 720p.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

That's about it since everyone has their pet theories on why the HD-PVR locks up. Probably nearly all of it is nonsense, but no one knows which small part may be true.

Having had many problems, then everything cleared up, then bad again, then working great again, and reading a lot on these forums over the course of a couple of years, my conclusion is the HD-PVR handles signal glitches poorly and that's what deep sixes it most if not all of the time. But that could be more chicken-like screaming

So, after sending in my HD PVR for RMA status on December 13 (for which they are still looking for the box, even though UPS tracking shows it being received on December 17th), I inserted my old and trusty PVR-150 in the system from which the HD-PVR was removed.
Over three weeks later, the PVR-150 is still working, no crashes, no failures, no worries.
I believe the HD PVR is a deeply flawed product, and I guess it's time to say adios to it and Sage, as there is no other way to record HDTV.

On a side note, I was getting my JVC D-VHS machine serviced in SoCal at the JVC service center. They told me that Hollywood nixed them from manufacturing and selling any new D-VHS machines in the U.S.
How's that for freedom? I am imagining the same pressure is on Hauppauge, but of course, no one would admit that.

I guess the cable companies must be very happy with their HD monopolies, as I now cannot even record programs over the airwaves.
Oh to return to a pre-Reagan era, when we really had laws and choices that weren't controlled by a corporation.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

I guess the cable companies must be very happy with their HD monopolies, as I now cannot even record programs over the airwaves.
Oh to return to a pre-Reagan era, when we really had laws and choices that weren't controlled by a corporation.

I'm confused, how are the cable companies preventing you from recording over the air? If I stick up an antenna I can get all the local HD programming I want without having to subscribe to cable. I don't understand your comment.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I'm confused, how are the cable companies preventing you from recording over the air? If I stick up an antenna I can get all the local HD programming I want without having to subscribe to cable. I don't understand your comment.

how do you record over-the-air HD programming?

[Skirge01]

With an antenna. They make small ones that sit in the house, by your TV, just like the old days (though, they look better now). They make attic antennas and they make antennas that you mount on the roof, again, just like you used to see on every rooftop. Once you have that, you hook it up to something like SiliconDust's HD HomeRun and now you can record two HD channels, for free.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

how do you record over-the-air HD programming?

Hook an antenna to an ATSC tuner like my HDHomeRun and scan. Your PVR-150 won't do it because it's analog only.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

how do you record over-the-air HD programming?

Something like this will work.

As for your comment on HD recording with the HD-PVR. I have posted here numerous times about the HD-PVR.

At one point, my HD-PVR on a newly built system ran perfectly fine for weeks and weeks recording almost non-stop without a SINGLE lock-up. My setup was rock solid and I almost cried seeing such a stable setup. Then all of a sudden I started getting the dreaded RED-ICON by Sage saying that my HD-PVR stopped producing data.

I think there are several things going on here and it is NOT clear to me what exactly causes the mysterious lock-ups from time to time.

For me, the single and best TRICK that has basically eliminated my HD-PVR lock-ups has been to lock my Time Warner HD Box to only output at 1080i. Once I did that, my HD-PVR lock-ups have basically gone away. Very rare lock-ups after months of recording.

[tvmaster2]

HD Homerun - ok, good info, thanks. I have OTA available, just not many channels of course.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

I believe the HD PVR is a deeply flawed product, and I guess it's time to say adios to it and Sage

The HDPVRs have given be problems in the past,

but this holiday season it has been perfect. With people watching satellite channels on the Window Media Center Clients and Sage scheduling recordings, all without a single problem.

Major improvement from last year when anyone could crash my HDPVRs, simply by channel surfing.

I suggest you keep trying, and refuse to give up.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by jerryt

I suggest you keep trying, and refuse to give up.

I would agree. I was having problems with my HD-PVRs but (knock on wood) I am problem free now for a month and a half. Upgraded from XP 32bit 2GB to Win7 64bit 4GB, added NEC USB card and installed SageTV from scratch keeping only the Wiz.bin from old V6/V7 sage install. I can even record multiple programs on my 2 HD-PVRs at the same time now. Before I only used them singly with padding the only overlap between the two.

Hope I didn't jinx myself.

[Xiphoid]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

I would agree. I was having problems with my HD-PVRs but (knock on wood) I am problem free now for a month and a half. Upgraded from XP 32bit 2GB to Win7 64bit 4GB, added NEC USB card and installed SageTV from scratch keeping only the Wiz.bin from old V6/V7 sage install. I can even record multiple programs on my 2 HD-PVRs at the same time now. Before I only used them singly with padding the only overlap between the two.

Hope I didn't jinx myself.

I'm wondering if this is a common experience? I'm considering upgrading my Vista OS to Win7 in the hopes that it will improve performance (better memory utilization, lower CPU usage), but I'm MOST interested to know whether it improves the stability of my HD-PVR. Like most others on the board, my HD-PVR seems to work fine for a while, then I get very unstable patches of time where Sage throws an error mid-way through a program.

Can anyone comment on whether Win7 will impact (in a positive way) my HD-PVR stability????

[BobPhoenix]

I think the difference for me was the NEC USB card. I can't say Win7 didn't help but I suspect the biggest factor is the card.

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by Xiphoid

my HD-PVR seems to work fine for a while, then I get very unstable patches of time where Sage throws an error mid-way through a program.

I have a theory that the problem is the Sageproperty file getting corrupt, with the fix being to delete the file and rebuilt the file again after restart Sage.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

I think the difference for me was the NEC USB card. I can't say Win7 didn't help but I suspect the biggest factor is the card.

I had the exact opposite experience. I bought the recommended USB card mentioned here (exact one - even from the same seller Newegg.com), plugged my HD-PVR by itself with no other USB connections going to the card and my HD-PVR lock-ups were the same if not worse.

I have done EVERTYING mentioned here with no steady results.

The only thing that did work for me for a brief period of time, was when I built a fresh new XP Pro 32bit with a fresh SageTV installation. It ran PERFECTLY GOOD for weeks and weeks (months) without a single failure. I almost cried. Then out of no where, BANG - RED-ICON HD-PVR stop producing data

It's something else.

[joe123]

Originally Posted by jerryt

I have a theory that the problem is the Sageproperty file getting corrupt, with the fix being to delete the file and rebuilt the file again after restart Sage.

Have you noticed less lock-ups when you do this? Are you able to reproduce the results?

I wonder if this was one of the "fixes" for V7?