Hauppauge Colossus HD-PVR

[PLUCKYHD]

1. Are you using a Sage extender?

HD300 (5). But I also watch the recordings on SageTV Client.

2. What is your typical java heap size when using your extenders?

250/750/028 .

3. Do you run Sage server as a Service only?

Service only headless server.

4. How often do you stop/start the Sager server software?

Never unless I have to with a update.

5. Cable or dish?

Dish.

6. USBUIRT?

yes

7. How many shows do you record per day using the Colosuss?

4 to 10 depending on the kids shows

8. How many hours per day do you view live tv using the Colosuss?

1 to hours playing in the background

9. Do you channel surf live tv using the Colosuss?

No but I did to test without issue the other day for about 20 minutes changed channels allot and all went fine.

10. OS?

WIN7 64 bit ON SERVER AND CLIENT.

[bits]

To all who responded my post, which was post #802; thank you!

I will work on putting your responses into a more useable form and post back.

Thanks

[peternm22]

I'm waiting to take the plunge on ordering one of these. Hopefully the reliability and stability problems that (some) are having with be fixed up soon.

Also waiting for a more viable commercial skip option. Comskip seems like it will be too slow, and Showanalyzer is too buggy at this point despite it's speed.

What have peoples experiences been so far with commercial skipping on the Colossus? I have a quad core, but I'd really like real time performance and I don't know if it will cut it.

[bits]

Originally Posted by peternm22

I'm waiting to take the plunge on ordering one of these. Hopefully the reliability and stability problems that (some) are having with be fixed up soon.

Also waiting for a more viable commercial skip option. Comskip seems like it will be too slow, and Showanalyzer is too buggy at this point despite it's speed.

What have peoples experiences been so far with commercial skipping on the Colossus? I have a quad core, but I'd really like real time performance and I don't know if it will cut it.

In general accuracy of commercial detection on the Colossus h264 recordings is not as good as on mpeg but IMHO is still quite usable. I did compare SA to comskip and even though SA is faster it was significantly less accurate than comskip. I used to wait to start comskip until the show was completed but because of the slower speed of detection on h264 I now start it just after the recording starts. On my PC, a 1hr show requires comskip to run another 20mins after the show has completed recording to finish its detection and generate a Vprj file.

IMHO you may be waiting a very long time for a better commercial detection solution to come along. One reason I did not get an HDPVR was because I was affraid of the samething you are. After having taken the plunge with the Colossus I am glad that I got it. The trade off between poorer commercial detection and more HD shows is in IMHO well worth it.

[KeithAbbott]

Anyone know if h264 comskip is cpu-bound or IO-bound? If it's IO-bound, would using a SSD speed it up at all?

[jptheripper]

When reading through the release notes for comskip, i saw a recommendation to set

volume_slip=150

for h264. I have done this since the beginning. I either get perfect commercials, or none at all.

Originally Posted by bits

In general accuracy of commercial detection on the Colossus h264 recordings is not as good as on mpeg but IMHO is still quite usable. I did compare SA to comskip and even though SA is faster it was significantly less accurate than comskip. I used to wait to start comskip until the show was completed but because of the slower speed of detection on h264 I now start it just after the recording starts. On my PC, a 1hr show requires comskip to run another 20mins after the show has completed recording to finish its detection and generate a Vprj file.

IMHO you may be waiting a very long time for a better commercial detection solution to come along. One reason I did not get an HDPVR was because I was affraid of the samething you are. After having taken the plunge with the Colossus I am glad that I got it. The trade off between poorer commercial detection and more HD shows is in IMHO well worth it.

[heffneil]

I have been using a HD PVR for a long time and use comskip and love it. It isn't always perfect but it is a lot more right than wrong! Saves me ton of time. I don't think comskip should deter you from using either of these products (although I don't know a colossus, yet)

Neil

[patja]

I'm having no issues so far with a sole Colossus replacing a HD-PVR.

Re: comskip, it is not that bad. Especially if you combine with the Sage Job Queue plugin and setup distributed processing on other PCs to increase your comskip throughput.

[madas]

Anyone else using Dish VIP211k with HDMI get screwed up video after a while? The colours mess up and i get a black bar down the middle

it happens a couple of times a day in the middle of recordings. Stopping and starting the recording fixes it.

Any ideas?

Sample attached.

[tvmaster2]

So is anyone with both the Colossus and a HD PVR having the problem I'm having: when a recording begins on the HD PVR, it cancels any audio getting to the Colossus, therefore, if a recording was underway on the Colossus, you lose the audio for the recording.
Can't figure this one out - thought it may have been ATI HDMI drivers, but this is happening before output, since the Colossus has it's audio input cancelled.
The other way around, works fine - aka - if a recording is under way on the HD - PVR and a Colossus recording begins, the HD - PVR DOESN'T lose it's audio input.

weird

nobody?

[Wrx4me]

Originally Posted by madas

Anyone else using Dish VIP211k with HDMI get screwed up video after a while? The colours mess up and i get a black bar down the middle

it happens a couple of times a day in the middle of recordings. Stopping and starting the recording fixes it.

Any ideas?

Sample attached.

I got the same thing on Directv using HDMI before ditching hdmi. It doesnt happen right away, everything seems fine and then the distortion shows up. As you said stopping and restarting the recording does fix it.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by madas

Anyone else using Dish VIP211k with HDMI get screwed up video after a while? The colours mess up and i get a black bar down the middle

it happens a couple of times a day in the middle of recordings. Stopping and starting the recording fixes it.

Any ideas?

Sample attached.

Weird I am using a 211k and have never seen that via hdmi what resolution I switched to 1080i and haven't had any issues.

[SWKerr]

Originally Posted by madas

Anyone else using Dish VIP211k with HDMI get screwed up video after a while? The colours mess up and i get a black bar down the middle

it happens a couple of times a day in the middle of recordings. Stopping and starting the recording fixes it.

Any ideas?

Sample attached.

I had something similar with DirecTV H20 on HDMI.
Setting HDPVR_MAGIC=false seemed to fix it. I also run HD-PVRs.

[jalyst]

Originally Posted by SHS

This still not possable due to the onboard Hardware Audio Encoder only support Stereo as in 2 channel PCM and the only way that is possable with "HD" DD/DTS is in bitstream mode meaning it all ready in compression form like AC-3 or AAC where it just copy the all ready encode audio format and far I know of the only deivce that support 8-channel LPCM over HDMI are PC graphics card becuases they didn't support bitstream mode.

Yes but I was referring to their longer-term plans.
I realise it won't be possible with this card...
Did they say they may implement something like that in the future?

Thanks!

[SHS]

Originally Posted by jalyst

Yes but I was referring to their longer-term plans.
I realise it won't be possible with this card...
Did they say they may implement something like that in the future?

Thanks!

Far I know of there are no other longer-term plans other then possable of get to MPEG2 Recoding and Transcoder support.

[phareous]

Yes, I had the exact same problem. I reported it to Sage and they are adamant it is a problem with Hauppauge's drivers. I wrote Hauppauge, they asked if I used WinTV or Showbiz, and thats it... haven't responded back to me since then. I'm a little disappointed in their support.

Originally Posted by madas

Anyone else using Dish VIP211k with HDMI get screwed up video after a while? The colours mess up and i get a black bar down the middle

it happens a couple of times a day in the middle of recordings. Stopping and starting the recording fixes it.

Any ideas?

Sample attached.

[phareous]

I have this exact same issue and have the resolution set to 1080i and audio to PCM

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Weird I am using a 211k and have never seen that via hdmi what resolution I switched to 1080i and haven't had any issues.

[mistergq]

Finally installed Colossus today. I have had it pretty early on, but since I was going on vacation, I did not want to start using it without me being here. When I got back from vacation, I just did not have time to play with it. So this morning, I decided to install it.

I shut the computer down, had to move my RAM to the other bank because one of the cards, installed the two cards.

I then rebooted, installed the Colossus drivers from the link Slugger posted. I restarted the computer. I then installed the latest SageTV beta (not sure i had to do it, but I thought I needed to install an updated SageTV). I believe that required a reboot as well. Restarted, Sage wouldn't load because the java commands could not be found or something. I tried to repair the install, that failed. Unistalled sage, reinstalled sage, sage loaded.

So then I began setting up each Colossus.

Firewire did not work initially. Turned out that was caused by the firewire cable becoming disconnected when I installed the new cards.

So far everything is working fine.

[Wrx4me]

I have been trying to get my Colossus working but have had limited success. I installed Beta 7.15 and re-enabled my Colossus to test my config again. What I found out was that the recording quality was very good. However, when a show that is not in Dolby digital comes on, my sound disappears and the Dolby light on the receiver goes out, the Colossus program starts displaying in slow motion. When I change the channel to a show that is Dolby digital, all is fine again.

So I think I have narrowed down my issue to a sound problem. Can someone help me with AC3 filter setup so that I don't lose sound when a non Dolby digital program is tuned or should I just pick a different decoder. I think once I resolve this, my Colossus can co-exist with my HDPVR's.

update: The sound passthrough issue is with the HD300 to receiver. Watching on the server is fine.

[mistergq]

well, so far we are impressed. We have been watching premium movies all day today with component and SPDIF. The picture quality seems to be better than HD PVR. The sound also seems to be better and I can actually notice the surround sound now.

As to any problems, there is a stutter here or there, but they occur rarely. I also can't tell if that is caused by STB or Colossus.