Poor image quality with Hauppage PVR-500 on lower channels

[itsanogo]

I am on analog cable with Shaw Cable in Canada. I've had my PVR-500 for 3 years now and the image quality of the lower channels (2-9) have never been the best. I always thought that I could just blame Shaw for it, but yesterday I placed a service call, and when the technician made all his tests, the signal was optimum. He then plugged my feed in his TV and the lower channels were "perfect". So now I have to blame my capture card?

Why would it do that? and only on lower channels?

[Fuzzy]

Those lower channels are in a completely different frequency band, so there is something in your tuner that is impairing it's ability to cleanly tune those channels.

[itsanogo]

I have the latest drivers from Hauppage so would it be that the tuner is getting old and whatever is impairing it is not repairable?

[paulbeers]

Lower channels always seem to be the most affected by poor signals and interference. The PVR500 also has an internal splitter that degrades the signal after it enters the card (and there is no amplification done by the PVR500). To be honest, my Hauppauge PVR500 was my worst capture card. I preferred my Avermedia Purity 500MCE over my Hauppauge PVR500. They both were dual tuner cards, but the Avermedia didn't have the signal degradation that my HP PVR500 had. When I was using analog cable, I had my tuner merits set to the Avermedia tuners to be used before the PVR500 with the hopes of rarely having to use it. When I switched to Dish, I started using my PVR500 for composite capture which it did flawlessly so it was definitely the tuners that was causing the problem. The complaints of the HP PVR500 are long and well documented (there were 2 versions and one of the versions had terrible tuners, i can't remember what the difference is as it has been a few years).

[corwiniii]

I experienced the same thing and never used the Tuner cards for recording anything I cared about. It was a waste from day one. It did well getting input from S-video and composite as previously mentioned, but that was it.

[Polypro]

The problems started when they switched to the Samsung tuners. That said, I love my original 500, and when I got the second with the Samsung tuners and had a problem...Hauppauge has the best customer service I've seen. I don't know what they can do now because of the digital transition, but I'd contact them for an RMA. My 500's are still plugging away on S-Video