Tuner setup with Windows 7

[Jackass]

I have been running Sage 6 for several months with no issues on my WinXP file server. I am in the process of dropping cable and decided to move my tuners out of my file server and into my media center PC. I have three ATI tuners which have never given me any issues (2 600, 1 650). I put them into my Win7 HTPC, loaded the drivers, and verified that Media Center can see the tuners (well at least two of them). I loaded up Sage 6.x and it just didn't work very well so I loaded 7.x and it isn't much better. Trying to get Sage to use the tuners is very painful. The application just hangs with the busy circle when trying to tune to live TV. Even when trying to setup the tuners, Sage stops responding when downloading the local program information.

I have already disabled UAC, uninstalled Sage, uninstalled Java and started the process all over again. I have verified I have the latest drivers from ATI for the capture cards. I have verified Media Center can use the cards just fine. Getting very frustrated and looking for some guidance.

[rrhorer]

Originally Posted by Jackass

I am in the process of dropping cable and decided to move my tuners out of my file server and into my media center PC. ... I have verified Media Center can use the cards just fine.

When you say Media Center, do you mean Windows Media Center or Sage TV Media Center? WHile it may be possible, there are definite problems/obstacles to having both enabled on the samre machine, especially since each program will want absolute control of the tuners.

[heffe2001]

Definitely want to disable the MC stuff in Win7, or you'll not be able to use the tuners with Sage...

[Striker:WG]

I may be having similiar issues with my Theater 550 cards.

Is there any recommended steps to turning off the Windows Media Center stuff in Windows 7?

I went into gpedit.msc and set the group policy option to disable media center from loading which nicely solved the problem of both Sage and MC trying to load when I pushed the green button on my remote BUT my 550 tuners only give audio and a black screen when tuning so I'm thinking its possible MC may still be trying to control them?

-Striker-

[gplasky]

Go into add/remove programs and into Windows optional components I think. Media Center is an optional component that you can remove and uninstall.

Gerry

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Striker:WG

I may be having similiar issues with my Theater 550 cards.

Is there any recommended steps to turning off the Windows Media Center stuff in Windows 7?

I went into gpedit.msc and set the group policy option to disable media center from loading which nicely solved the problem of both Sage and MC trying to load when I pushed the green button on my remote BUT my 550 tuners only give audio and a black screen when tuning so I'm thinking its possible MC may still be trying to control them?

-Striker-

The crux of your problem is probably this:

Advisory:
Due to the incompatibility between Microsoft Windows 7 and ATI’s legacy TV Tuner products, driver support will not be available for the following products:

ATI Theater 550 Pro chipsets and older
Windows 7 Tuner drivers for the products listed below are not available. There are no plans for driver development at this time.

ATI All-in-Wonder™ HD
ATI TV Wonder™ 650 Combo USB
ATI TV Wonder™ 600 USB
Applicable Products:
This article applies to the following configuration(s):

Hardware
ATI TV Wonder Series
ATI All-in-Wonder HD Series
Operating System
Windows 7 32bit
Windows 7 64bit

That being said there was some process of install that got it working sometimes:

My 550Pro was working fine with Windows 7 on my old motherboard. Two weeks ago I was forced to get a new motherboard/cpu/ram/videocard as the old one died. The 550 never worked with the new system....

My repeatable steps to working 550 on windows 7 with an ATI HD4200 videocard are:
1) remove the 550 card from the PC.
2) Install Windows 7. Do not connect to the internet yet! select 'later' for windows update (ie it is turned OFF)
3) you may be in VGA mode 800x600. This is fine. If there are no drivers for your video card on the windows7 DVD, this will happen. It happened to me using the HD4200 (but not using an older PCI card)
3) connect to the internet
4) manually run windows update (Set it to run 'never')
5) you should see a critical update for your video card. Installing this will give you high resolution display again. Install all the criticals.
6) with video now working, power off the PC
7) insert the 550 card
8) pwer on PC. Windows 7 , will go to the internet and find the right driver for you. This works on both x86 and x64 windows 7. Since I did 64bit last, and it gives me some more ram to work with (I have 4Gb) I'll just stick with that.

or

So I downloaded these tuner drivers from ati's download page, select:
windows vista/theatre 550, and download 9-7
windows 7/theathre 750, and download 9-10 (this did not work for my theatre 650, I still required the vista 9-10 package for my 650 tuner)

rebooted my computer, tapping f8 to get the Windows boot options. I selected "disable driver enforcement"
From now on I click no to restart
I ran the windows 7 9-10 installer, which completed with errors.
I ran vista 9-7 installer just to extract the driver files to C:\ati, and cancelled before install started.
Then I went into the device manager
Under "sound, video, and game controllers" I found two entries for "ati unified avstream driver", so I'm looking for the 550. Check the driver version in the properties, the theatre 550 was version 6.14.10.364
I right clicked the 550, and installed the driver manually from the folder C:\ATI\Support\9-7_vista32-64_t550-600-650_wdm\Packages\Drivers\WDM\RIO\LH (note, there is another folder for 64bit)
reboot and everything worked

Gerry

[Jackass]

Originally Posted by rrhorer

When you say Media Center, do you mean Windows Media Center or Sage TV Media Center? WHile it may be possible, there are definite problems/obstacles to having both enabled on the samre machine, especially since each program will want absolute control of the tuners.

I was referring to Win7 MC. At the time I was toying with Sage, WinMC was not configured for the tuners yet although it was running. I finally configured WinMC to verify the tuners were functional. I will try today to fully disable WinMC to see if I have any better luck.

[Jackass]

I uninstalled WinMC, rebooted, and now Sage is at least somewhat stable with a single tuner configured. I think I may have lost one of my tuners. I can configure Tuner #1 and #2, but as soon as I make any attempt to configure #3 (as an additional or as the only tuner) Sage hangs itself up and I have to reboot the box. I have 2 ATI 650-PCI and 1 ATI 600-PCIe. I "think" tuner #3 may be the 600, but not sure how to confirm that without just yanking the card out.

Over the weekend I just may yank the 600 out and drop it into the original XP system to see if it still works. Being stuck with just 2 tuners isn't the end of the world, but may cause some issues between me and the wife on what shows get recorded.

[Jackass]

I have given up on my Win7 HTPC as a Sage server for now. It could not even handle a single placeshifter client. So I moved all tuners back to my original winXP server and even my problem child tuner is now functional again (i think). Odd how a 3800 x2 (socket 939/Win7) can't handle a single placeshifter client, but my 3600 x2 (socket AM2/WinXP) that also hosts 2 VMs can handle it fine.

Guess I will just have to buck up for a new Sage Client license for the Win7 box. Maybe next spring I will re-build into a more modern and powerful HTPC.

[Jackass]

Update: I ended up building a new server (Phenom II X6) since I was getting tired of fighting with my old systems. Installed all three of my tuners along with Win7x64 and Sage7. Soooooooo much better. Still had some issues with the "Halt Detected" and "Capture Failure" which I have had for quite some time on all systems I have tried. Emailed support and they sent me a new DLL file to see if it helps out. One week now and no issues yet. Need to wait another week or two before writing it off as fixed. This issue has sometimes cropped up multiple times in one day and other times it would happen only once a month.

Amazing how much better the picture quality is now that I am not using placeshifter. Now starting to research affordable remotes that can drive Sage. I have an WMC remote and USB IR box from an HP computer, but am looking to move to a single remote for my TV, Sage, DVD, and Receiver. My TV remote will drive Sage and my DVD player, but not my Receiver. My Receiver remote will drive everything but Sage.

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by Jackass

Now starting to research affordable remotes that can drive Sage. I have an WMC remote and USB IR box from an HP computer, but am looking to move to a single remote for my TV, Sage, DVD, and Receiver. My TV remote will drive Sage and my DVD player, but not my Receiver. My Receiver remote will drive everything but Sage.

I have a couple of Sony RM-VLZ620 universal remotes, you can teach them any codes that are not in their built-in database. My family room remote controls my TV, HD300, Blu-ray player, and receiver. I also use a similar remote on another TV set in the house, it's great to control two different setups with the same remote. The remotes retail around $25, but if you look around you can get them for $20 or less.

[Jackass]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

I have a couple of Sony RM-VLZ620 universal remotes, you can teach them any codes that are not in their built-in database.

Does it function properly with the WMC IR receiver? I have a much older Sony universal remote (RM-VL900) which cannot handle those functions.

My Toshiba TV remote actually has a code for "Microsoft" which drives the PC perfectly.

[theguru]

Jackass... did your halt problem stay away? I'm having that problem on my HVR-1600s (two of them) and can't seem to figure out a solution.

[Jackass]

For the most part, yes. I ended up removing my PCI tuner while troubleshooting some blue screen issues and things got much better. Guessing it was either failing or fighting with something on my motherboard.

I ended up buying a HDHR to take over my main tuner duties and have been very happy since then. I do not think I have had a single halt issue with the HDHR in 2 months of use. Any halt error I get still comes off of one of my ATI tuners and always seems to be only for the local PBS station.

So a summary of my adventures:
- Updated DLL from support made a huge improvement
- ATI tuners seem to have other issues from time to time
- HDHR tuners seem to be much more stable at this time

The newer HDHR is crazy small and only needs a single input for the dual-tuners.

[sflamm]

Even easier (doesnt require uninstall / reinstall):

Bring up gpedit.msc

Go to Computer->Services->Media Center and choose "disable"

Now Green button does nothing.... yay!