Hauppauge Colossus HD-PVR

[rstone]

Prior to installing my Colossus, I was using a older WinTV tuner with SageTV 7 and using the EXEMultiTunerPlugin method of changing channels with my DirecTV box, which worked great! However, since I upgraded to the Colossus with the new SageTV beta I have been unable to get the EXEMultiTunerPlugin to work or for that fact Directv HTTP Tuning. It looks like I'm going to have to run something to the box if I want to change channels with this new beta version.

Has anyone else had any luck with their Colossus and the new beta using the ethernet method of changing their DirecTV?

[cat6man]

anyone know if channel change drivers can be assigned to more than one tuner?

i created firewire ones named 'changetuner4' and 'changetuner3' for my 2 hdpvr boxes.
i am feeding video/audio passthrough the #4 tuner and want to also assign the 'changetuner4' to the colossus, but it doesn't show up as an option.

maybe i need to
1) copy 'changetuner4' to 'changetuner5'
2) disable tuner4 and re-use 'changetuner4' (not preferable right now)

also, after i installed the collossus drivers, sage went into wizard mode on me
and asked for country, language, etc..............huh??? it didn't do that when
i upgraded to beta earlier in the day

[Clift]

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...2&postcount=12

[Wrx4me]

Here is where I am so far with the colossus. I have 2 HDPVR's that have been working well and I added the Colossus and installed the drivers from the cd which maybe I shouldnt have done.

Anyway after installing the Sage update everything seemed to be working well and the video quality looks good. However, the sound stops working from time to time and I have to just stop playback and it may come back on. I am using spdif by the way.

I also now notice freezing when I change channels on my hdpvr which did not happen prior. Also the Colossus freezes sometimes or just has a black screen. I am still experimenting but I may have to pull the card until the drivers mature, it is affecting the WAF which has been very good lately.

[jptheripper]

please note there was driver fix specifically related to spdif earlier in this thread.

[rstone]

Originally Posted by Wrx4me

However, the sound stops working from time to time and I have to just stop playback and it may come back on. I am using spdif by the way.

I was able to fix my SPDIF issues by installing the WinTV 2.3b from the Hauppauge support site vs using the software and drivers that came on the CD.

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/suppor..._colossus.html

OR if you prefer you can try this link to the driver, provided by SHS. I actually had trouble getting this method to work, for some reason. However, it couldn't hurt to try it.

http://www.shspvr.com/ftp/download/c..._1.0.29046.zip

[cat6man]

no joy here...............i can't get any picture with 'component + spdif' selected, using the hdpvr as a feedthrough

i deleted the tuner and backed off for today, so tonight's recordings won't
be jeopardized. i'll start again tomorrow afternoon with video and audio
directly from STB (i'll disable one of the hdpvr and steal its firewire channel tuner)

[Wrx4me]

Thanks rstone. I looked at that link and downloaded it but it is the same driver I installed from the cd and my computer indicated that I already had the updated driver. I am still having audio dropping out and stuttering after a channel change on my client or if someone on an HD300 changes channels. If the colossus picks up the channel change, it stutters for a minute with no audio and it may end up working or if not I just have to change the channel again for one of my hdpvrs to handle the request. I will keep everyone posted.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

Also up and running in Sage (WinXP Home 32bit).

Initial impressions are that it's still a bit buggy, but working for me. I have my cable box locked at 1080i and am using analog Audio to the Colossus.

PQ seems pretty good - maybe even better than the HD-PVR, but that might be my imagination. I have both my Colossus and HD-PVR set to record at "Best H.264" quality in SageTV.

But, everything has not been without a couple of hiccups.

One of my recordings last night got recorded as 1080i in a 4:3 aspect ratio. So, when the AR is set to Source, the picture was 4:3 pillar boxed. But, if I set the AR to Fill, the picture stretched to fill the screen correctly. Note that I am *not* talking about an HD broadcast showing 4:3 content (which should be pillarboxed). I am talking about an HD broadcast with 16:9 content that Sage incorrectly believed was 4:3. (The program was last night's Daily Show). I've only seen this behavior once.

When I did some channel surfing last night, channel changes were very snappy - maybe faster than the HD-PVR. I notice that Sage defaults the "delay_to_wait_after_tuning" property to 4 seconds in Sage.properties.

However, when I tried some channel surfing this afternoon, I noticed that channel changes were taking ~30 seconds (as another poster mentioned earlier). I'll try tuning the Colossus again later to see if this changes.

If I find any other info of value, I will try to pass it along.

[KeithAbbott]

First the good news: I got a package tracking email from UPS today for my Colossus, and the anticipated delivery date is Friday.

Now the bad news: I placed my order on February 4th, and had order number 62896. Wrx4me had a higher order number (63094), and it was already delivered on Monday.

What kind of random sequence did Hauppauge use to decide which orders to ship first? Certainly wasn't by order number...

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

First the good news: I got a package tracking email from UPS today for my Colossus, and the anticipated delivery date is Friday.

Now the bad news: I placed my order on February 4th, and had order number 62896. Wrx4me had a higher order number (63094), and it was already delivered on Monday.

What kind of random sequence did Hauppauge use to decide which orders to ship first? Certainly wasn't by order number...

maybe because he lives in NY close to hauppauge?

[billcoff]

Originally Posted by cat6man

maybe because he lives in NY close to hauppauge?

Not necessarily. I got mine this afternoon (Feb 23). I live near Sacramento, ordered the Facebook offer on Feb. 8 with an order # higher than 63000.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by jptheripper

I dont mean to sound snarky, but why do we care about mpeg2 recording? its analog so its being compressed anyway, h264 vs mpeg2 quality difference is nearly imperceivable and h264 file sizes are so much smaller when i did my comparison h264 was all pros and mpeg2 was all cons.

Is there some functionality that is missing with h264?

MPEG-2 also works much better with Placeshifter, requires much less CPU to decode (you should be good with an Atom CPU which wouldn't work so well with H.264) and is easier to edit since many more video editors support MPEG-2.

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by cat6man

maybe because he lives in NY close to hauppauge?

Interesting, your order number (63051) was also higher than mine, and you received your Colossus on Monday. Your theory might hold true. TallMomof2, with a much higher order number (63153), received her's yesterday. Not sure where she is located.

Hopefully, they saved the higher-quality components for those of us in the second batch. Or maybe those of us in the second batch will get the HDMI cable.

[patja]

Order 62794 is still a no-show in Seattle

[SWKerr]

Installed Colossus today.
Downloaded wintv7_cd_2.3b for latest drivers. (Driver only install)
Downloaded SageTV_V7_1_2Setup (updated SageTV server and Clients)

Setup the Colossus with pass-thru output from one of the HD-PVRs. (Component+SPDIF with DirecTV) No EPG
Picture looks good maybe better than HD-PVR. (Not sure if I lose source quality using the pass-thru)

Tried to parallel record a show with the HD-PVR so I could compare the output but SageTV server locked up. SageTV seems to be working fine when not using the Colossus. With the NCSU vs UNC game on tonight I am not going to risk any more problems. Will play with it more when there is nothing I care about recording.

First Try: Less than stable.

[stanger89]

First things first, would anyone happen to have a VIP211 IR file for the USB UIRT for an STB code of other than 1 (eg 2, as I have my second box set now). I'm having a heck of a time learning the codes for the box, probably because it looks like Dish uses 56k IR and I don't think I have a UIRT with the 56k sensor.

Second thing, and probably of more interest to the community at large. I got my UIRT yesterday, but was unable to attempt an install. I did get around to it today, and using SHS's drivers the installation was completely uneventful.

On a whim, I tried HDMI from my Dish box and to my surprise every channel I tried (which wasn't that many) showed a picture. Problem is most of them had static for sound. Haven't had time to debug yet or work with Sage to see if it's a Hauppauge or SageTV issue.

[traker1001]

order #63255, Received tracking today, delivery date of 28th. I ordered 2 cards thru the facebook promo. I don't have the HDPVR, So I can't wait to go HIDef. Also going to dumping my USBirt for the http tuning on my Directv.

Heres a question, Will I be able to pipe the Dolby surround thru the card or am I limited to stereo?

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

Initial impressions are that it's still a bit buggy, but working for me. I have my cable box locked at 1080i and am using analog Audio to the Colossus.

Spoke too soon. In addition to the degrading performance of channel changes, playback via an HD300 just crashed. And it looks like my SageTV Server crashed as well (I have a nice "Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Error dialog sitting on my server's desktop).

I removed the Colossus as a source for the time being - it seems to be very unstable - at least it's unstable on my system... YMMV.

[Rico66]

Originally Posted by patja

Order 62794 is still a no-show in Seattle

Seattle is always last in line (except maybe AK/HI)...