shaw direct colossus

[garbageman]

I am using 2 colossus cards to record from Shaw direct 505 STB's. I updated to the latest Sage beta and Hauppauge drivers. Everything was sailing along smoothly until it tried to record Glee last night. This was the only scheduled recording. The video was stuttering/slow motion and there was no audio. I have the STB's set to output 720p and am using SPDIF for audio. The STB is set to output DD stereo. I did remove my HD pvr but I notice it is still there in the properties file. I have a couple of questions. Hopefully some answers?
1) Does anyone set the delay to tuning with the Shaw Direct STB. If so how much.
2) What are people using for audio. I was wondering if Glee is 5.1 and this scrambled things?
3) Will the old HDpvr setting effect my set up?

Any other suggestions working with the 505 STB's

Thanks Dave

[wayner]

You might want to post in one of the other forums as Shaw Direct likely uses the same, or similar, hardware to the US satellite providers.

[garbageman]

Thanks Wayner,

I was hoping someone who has a DSR505 would post what settings they are using for audio. I know you can set to PCM or DD and there is a setting for mono, stereo, and surround. There is also a setting for compression of audio, light, heavy, no compression. I was hoping someone could explain these settings in respect to spdif or analog.

By the way all my recordings for yesterday and last night worked perfect, recording with both cards at the same time and individually.

[Rico66]

I don't think that this is specific to this STB, if I understood you correctly that this only happens with one show. What you describe is pretty much a generic problem with the Colossus that some recordings can have audio (no audio) related issues or stuttering.

What I've seen for the no audio issue is that this seems to be temporary, meaning the next recording (channel change) is typically OK. The problem is that the Colossus crossbar filter somehow doesn't always recognize the digitial (spdif) input and instead uses the analog input, which is not connected. If you check such a file, it should show AAC audio.

Once you run into the stuttering you will need to restart the Sage service (if used), or the Client (if no service is used).
Delay to tuning is fine using default values. I've set mine to 3 seconds with no problems (this might differ depending on what kind of blaster you use; using non Hauppauge blasters, like usbuirt or MCE blaster works typically better).

[Rico66]

Originally Posted by garbageman

Thanks Wayner,

I was hoping someone who has a DSR505 would post what settings they are using for audio. I know you can set to PCM or DD and there is a setting for mono, stereo, and surround. There is also a setting for compression of audio, light, heavy, no compression. I was hoping someone could explain these settings in respect to spdif or analog.

By the way all my recordings for yesterday and last night worked perfect, recording with both cards at the same time and individually.

I use DD, stereo and no compression, since that's basically not altering the signals and passes through 5.1 if available.

[garbageman]

Thanks Rico

That was the exact info I was looking for. It was just the one recording. I just wanted to make sure my STB settings are not the cause. I have my delay to tuning also set to 3 sec. I am using a usb uirt. I may increase it as we watch almost all recordings and little live tv. Does anyone have any comments if the delay to tuning should be the same or different for the 2 cards and if different how much? If I have a corrupted recording happen again I will look for the AAC
audio.

Thanks again for your input.

[phareous]

Originally Posted by garbageman

Thanks Rico

That was the exact info I was looking for. It was just the one recording. I just wanted to make sure my STB settings are not the cause. I have my delay to tuning also set to 3 sec. I am using a usb uirt. I may increase it as we watch almost all recordings and little live tv. Does anyone have any comments if the delay to tuning should be the same or different for the 2 cards and if different how much? If I have a corrupted recording happen again I will look for the AAC
audio.

Thanks again for your input.

I am also curious as to what people use for the delay. I have two cards and I have it set to 4000. It works great but I would love to speed it up (if it could be done without issues)

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by garbageman

Thanks Wayner,

I was hoping someone who has a DSR505 would post what settings they are using for audio. I know you can set to PCM or DD and there is a setting for mono, stereo, and surround. There is also a setting for compression of audio, light, heavy, no compression. I was hoping someone could explain these settings in respect to spdif or analog.

By the way all my recordings for yesterday and last night worked perfect, recording with both cards at the same time and individually.

Mine is set to DD - surround - no compression. I record from SPDIF with video usually set to 0000, so the box ouputs whatever the source is sending. No problems, except for when Canadian substitutions are placed, then, the sync-jolt sometimes screws up a HD-PVR recording. Colossus seems a little more stable.

[Rico66]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

Mine is set to DD - surround - no compression. I record from SPDIF with video usually set to 0000, so the box ouputs whatever the source is sending. No problems, except for when Canadian substitutions are placed, then, the sync-jolt sometimes screws up a HD-PVR recording. Colossus seems a little more stable.

Doesn't SD video (which is 480i, if you use native resolution) look too bright? I'd like to record SD in 480i, but the colours are wrong (washed out). As a workaround I used to record in 480p with the HD PVR, but this is currently broken (very unstable) with the Colossus. So it's all HD at the moment.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Rico66

Doesn't SD video (which is 480i, if you use native resolution) look too bright? I'd like to record SD in 480i, but the colours are wrong (washed out). As a workaround I used to record in 480p with the HD PVR, but this is currently broken (very unstable) with the Colossus. So it's all HD at the moment.

hmmm - I have noticed that MSNBC 511 SD is clamped as far as video levels go. I recorded a sample and ran it through the scopes in Sony Vegas. I'll take some samples of other SD channels and see what's happening.