Win7-64, HDHR, HD-PVR -- fixes n failures.

[teedublu]

A long post. It is broken down into numbered/titled sections.

But First:

System Description:
My Sage 6.6 system hardware died so I’m quickly transitioning to a new system using Sage 7 (Beta dot 10). I’m temporarily using a laptop with an internal 640GB hard disk that has a separate video partition formatted 64K blocks. Sage is running in the main C partition in the default directory for Win 7. Windows 7 has the UAC setting set to Lowest (disabled? I suppose). I’m using Sage service mode.
Windows 7 64bit w/ 4GB ram. AMD Athlon Neo X2 Dual Core 1.6GHZ with ATI Mobility Radeon HD3200 graphics.

Have one Silicon Dust HDHR dual-tuner configured for cable (Comcast, and recently only the “base” network channels are clear).

Have one HD-PVR (brand new) used with a cable STB (more further details below).

1. Problem - Digital Audio Stop Noise (not sure if this is only 7Beta10):
The HDMI audio may be left in a noise state when playback is stopped using stop button. I have to use pause first to avoid this (this was noticed on some older MPEG2 files via PVR-250 card, may also have occurred with other sources, not sure).
This may have been an issue in 6.6, but the audio output in my old system was analog and I never had this problem before. In this new system audio is via HDMI. But since pausing first solves this problem, the Stop process could be fixed to include a “pause” to audio before stop.

2. Problem – HDHR & Win7 firewall:
For Silicon Dust HDHR tuner, I had to disable the Windows-7 Firewall (just the Local Network side) to get this to stream within Sage (it would stream using their viewer w/o disabling the firewall). I suppose there are specific ports/rules that need to be configured, but I can’t find any info on this. Maybe this is a Sage-7/b10 problem that I can work around manually with firewall port settings. How do I restore the firewall and allow the HDHR-Sage streaming connection? (I just found post in thread 428653, regarding UDP ports 5002 and 5004, so I’ll try it).

2.1 Problem – HDHR tune:
I also had a timed tune failure. A subsequent timed tune to a different channel worked. I notice some posts with unreliable tuning in Win7. Is there something else? I need to do besides a firewall tweak?

Background info - HD-PVR system configuration:
I’m also using a brand new HD-PVR connected to a Comast RNG110 (Pace/Cisco) HD STB. I’m using the HD-PVR blaster and I updated the IR Blaster to the latest with a separate download. The other software and drivers are the ones on the included disk and are the latest version. I’m also using the included 45 button Remote (and therefore the Hauppauge IR input port of the HD-PVR). So far the blaster is working (using codeset 85 (or 0085?, under STB brand Comcast) by configuring with BlastCfg.exe.

3. Question/Problem - HD-PVR remote control is slow:
The remote control is working but it is very slow and often misses key presses. I see on the forum others are having similar problems with Windows-7 64bit and the Hauppauge IR receiver. I did not see a concise resolution to this (other than using a USB-UIRT instead). Some registry tweaks to polling and adjusting the IR config file, etc, were suggested but unclear what tweak really is needed.

4. Question/Problem - HD-PVR aspect ratio and decoder settings:
Currently the STB box’s output resolution is set to Native. But this is causing problems with incorrect aspect ratios when played back. I’d set the STB to a fixed 1080, but so far I have not been able to get Sage to smoothly playback any HD-PVR 1080 video on this laptop. I realize the hardware is marginal, but I can get Arcsoft to do a reasonable playback. I could force the STB to output 480p and temporarily solve the changing aspect ratio problem as well as the HD jitters – albeit by not using HD! For playing back older SD recordings, I’ve had the best luck so far with the Sage Decoder, 3D, Overlay, No DXVA (DXVA doesn’t work at all or stutters badly). The H264 decoder is Arcsoft. Any suggestions on getting the most out of the HD3200 graphics within Sage? The Microsoft DTV/DVD decoder (sp?) was choppy even on SD. I assume this Microsoft decoder option in Sage does not include the full “Native Recording Patch”. I was hoping that the statement “Sage7 now officially supports Windows 7” would have included the “patch”. No? Yes?

5. Question/Problem - HD-PVR quality setting by resolution:
How do I manage Sage’s HD-PVR recording quality settings between SD and HD (720, 1080) sources? The current setting is “Great / 3.8GB” (something like that). I assume that is for 1080 but what happens for the other resolutions? Is there some additional sage.properties that can be added to configure bit rates per resolution for the HD-PVR? Also , I’d like to have a custom bit rate of just under 4.7GB / Hr for HD 1080 source to fit 1Hr on a std DVD.

6. Question - Hardware minimums:
The new system I plan uses the AMD 785G chipset which has Radeon HD4200 (adds full MPEG2 hardware decode over the HD3200 partial). CPU plan is Athlon II X2 Regor 240 (Dual Core) 2.8 GHZ. Surely that’s enough “power” -- no?

TW