Hauppauge Colossus HD-PVR

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by heffneil

Just checking in on how people's colossus are running? I am not sure just how reliable the product is. I actually have two in the box but haven't put them in to production because - well I am scared. Whats the feedback / thoughts on the product and the best way to run it (i.e. which drivers and connections, hdmi or component)- Using DirecTV boxes.

Neil

I'm using 29168 drivers? (believe that is the version but will have to verify tonight) with HDMI input 5.1 sound on DirectTV. Since I've been rebooting every night and adjusted the "delay_to_wait" property to 12000 (like panteragstk suggested in earlier post in this thread) I'm close to 80% good recordings now. Still get the odd no sound recordings and still have glitches due to bad signal quality but those makeup the 20% bad with no sound being 5% or less. So excluding the bad signal recordings which I would get even with HD-PVR I really only have a 5% bad recording from the Colussus now. I only get the bad signal recordings with my 2 HD-PVRs on my other server now.

[jptheripper]

I am on cable, but

I have colossus on latest drivers with 5.1 and 720p fixed from an rng150 cable box. Record about 10 hours a day, reboot 1-2 a week

My guess is i am at 99.9% perfect recordings (meaning i cant remember the last time i even saw a glitch or pixel), with no sync issues even on 3+ hour football recordings.

[panteragstk]

Same settings as bob. Every once in a very long while a recording will have no sound because the colossus gets a pcm track at the start of a recording and when the recording switches to dolby digital it breaks sound in the recording. That happened to me again on sunday (true blood, why do I still watch that show?) but hadn't happened in 100+ recordings before that for a long time.

I love it and it is very reliable so far. I wish it was perfect, but I've never had a dvr that was (sagetv, dish network, suddenlink/cox cable). They've all missed recordings or recorded bad recordings before.

[dougbrose]

Hello,

This is a fresh install and when I get to the end of setting up my source the IR isn't listed as an option. I updated to the latest drivers, but no change. Any help would be great .

Thank you,

Doug

[w4rh4wk]

Originally Posted by heffneil

Just checking in on how people's colossus are running? I am not sure just how reliable the product is. I actually have two in the box but haven't put them in to production because - well I am scared. Whats the feedback / thoughts on the product and the best way to run it (i.e. which drivers and connections, hdmi or component)- Using DirecTV boxes.

Neil

Im running 3 DirecTV boxes, with 3 colossi, driver version 29192, Component with SPDIF no sync issues, daily reboots. Only issue i had was 2 times in the past couple months i got a "exclamation point" on all three devices under the device manager (they would not record when this happened). Rebooting didnt fix it, only shutting off the computer for a few mins and turning it back on seemed to fix it. other than that its been pretty rock solid, recording shows daily and using it as a regular tv every single day.

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by dougbrose

Hello,

This is a fresh install and when I get to the end of setting up my source the IR isn't listed as an option. I updated to the latest drivers, but no change. Any help would be great .

Thank you,

Doug

Did you install just the drivers or did you install the full software package from the CD (or full download)?

You should see a little black remote control in your taskbar if the IR blaster software is installed and running.

The IR blaster driver is not included in just the capture/encoder driver update package.

-uberpixel

[patja]

Originally Posted by dougbrose

Hello,

This is a fresh install and when I get to the end of setting up my source the IR isn't listed as an option. I updated to the latest drivers, but no change. Any help would be great .

Thank you,

Doug

I know this doesn't directly answer your question, but do you need the IR? Hauppauge's IR blasters have been notoriously flaky. If you are on DirecTV, ethernet tuning is the bomb.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by w4rh4wk

Only issue i had was 2 times in the past couple months i got a "exclamation point" on all three devices under the device manager (they would not record when this happened). Rebooting didnt fix it, only shutting off the computer for a few mins and turning it back on seemed to fix it. other than that its been pretty rock solid, recording shows daily and using it as a regular tv every single day.

I've had this happen once. I guess the daily reboots can cause issues as well. I'm seriously thinking about not doing the reboots just to see what happens. I'd rather not have that happen again.

[sleonard]

I gave up the daily reboots in favor of a scheduled task that does a net stop - net start of the SageTVService each night. Accomplishes the same goals but without the potential issues of the full reboot.

Occasionally, my Colossus hoses sage bad enough that a Net Stop doesn't complete and forces my to reboot the next morning but it is rare and I am there to monitor it unlike a middle of the night reboot.

S

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by sleonard

I gave up the daily reboots in favor of a scheduled task that does a net stop - net start of the SageTVService each night. Accomplishes the same goals but without the potential issues of the full reboot.

Occasionally, my Colossus hoses sage bad enough that a Net Stop doesn't complete and forces my to reboot the next morning but it is rare and I am there to monitor it unlike a middle of the night reboot.

S

Didn't help me when I tried this. Granted it was the earliest driver for the Colossus when I tried it. So I may switch to this with the current driver and see if I get better results then before.

[heffneil]

Originally Posted by w4rh4wk

Im running 3 DirecTV boxes, with 3 colossi, driver version 29192, Component with SPDIF no sync issues, daily reboots. Only issue i had was 2 times in the past couple months i got a "exclamation point" on all three devices under the device manager (they would not record when this happened). Rebooting didnt fix it, only shutting off the computer for a few mins and turning it back on seemed to fix it. other than that its been pretty rock solid, recording shows daily and using it as a regular tv every single day.

Something is strange because I had the exact same problem but on my HD PVR. I thought it was a driver failure and tried reinstalling and rebooting and only a power off and a few seconds later of powering on fixed the problem. I am encouraged people are getting better performance but I really do not want to reboot daily. Is that really making a big difference!

Thanks,

Neil

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by heffneil

...but I really do not want to reboot daily. Is that really making a big difference!

For me - YES! I was at about 55% good recordings before the reboot and "delay_to_wait" changes.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

For me - YES! I was at about 55% good recordings before the reboot and "delay_to_wait" changes.

+1. Daily reboots gives me about 97% reliability.

[metzz71]

its been over a month since we had a driver update... I could really use one.

29192, I went from no problems (except for audio sync) for weeks to having daily reboots. Not sure what changed, but something has. If I don't reboot, the cards hang the system the second day.

I am almost at the end of my rope. If they don't get a solution soon, you will see my rig on ebay.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by metzz71

its been over a month since we had a driver update... I could really use one.

29192, I went from no problems (except for audio sync) for weeks to having daily reboots. Not sure what changed, but something has. If I don't reboot, the cards hang the system the second day.

I am almost at the end of my rope. If they don't get a solution soon, you will see my rig on ebay.

So if you reboot daily there are no issues?

[metzz71]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

So if you reboot daily there are no issues?

meh, can I say "zero" issues, no. however, before this past week, i never rebooted, zero blue screens, and zero sage crashes. I do however have the infamous audio sync issue.

[heffneil]

Are you guys using components or HDMI? Just curious if there is any rhyme or reason to this?

[metzz71]

Component with optical audio. Seems to be the type of STB coming in on optical audio.

If I use a DVD player or PS3, etc, the is no audio sync issue.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by metzz71

Component with optical audio. Seems to be the type of STB coming in on optical audio.

If I use a DVD player or PS3, etc, the is no audio sync issue.

I'm starting to think that the audio sync issues are STB related. This somewhat confirms my suspicion. I use directv and the HR25 connected via HDMI, and I never have audio sync issues. Every once in a while it will mark the audio as AAC (which it is not) instead of Dolby Digital (which it is) and if I could make that stop happening I'd have 99% reliability. I think that this happens just due to the way the audio signal is captured from the stb. I'm not sure if there is a delay in the information that the colossus is getting or what, but I'm so close to perfect I really hope they fix this, or I can figure out how to make it stop.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I'm starting to think that the audio sync issues are STB related. This somewhat confirms my suspicion. I use directv and the HR25 connected via HDMI, and I never have audio sync issues. Every once in a while it will mark the audio as AAC (which it is not) instead of Dolby Digital (which it is) and if I could make that stop happening I'd have 99% reliability. I think that this happens just due to the way the audio signal is captured from the stb. I'm not sure if there is a delay in the information that the colossus is getting or what, but I'm so close to perfect I really hope they fix this, or I can figure out how to make it stop.

I took the files that came out for me with AAC and looked at them in DVDFab. It reported two audio tracks one AAC and one Dolby Digital. I told it to drop the AAC and just output the Dolby Digital and video to MKV (maybe don't remember now) but got sync issues. Looked like the video was behind the audio by several seconds - one at least. Need to try it again with VideoRedo maybe that will sync it up better.