Colossus vs. 1212 HD-PVR

[Mesh]

Colossus vs. 1212 HD-PVR

I'm at a point where I can select between these two devices. I have both and both are still within its return window (Colossus only about 3or 4 days). It will be my 4th device with the others being two 1212 HD-PVRs and one HVR-1600 using Directv and OTA. So, I have had colossus installed for about 3 weeks with Component + SPDIF input.. So far it's worked “Okay” – I have had a couple crashes (blue screens) and sage 7 locking up. It seems I have to reboot daily. The recordings have are been good – some times I get freezing at video at play back.. The only advantages of the device I see is its internal and it has HDMI input (which does not work with HBOZHD channel). My concern is the reliability of this device with sage (Google?). Where as the 1212 HD-PVR seems to be very stable.

I really want to stay with colossus thinking it will become more stable in time (I sure that the 1212 was a this point at some time) and that HDMI input that may become useful. However I keep thinking “stay with what works” – meaning the 1212. I have read many of the other posts and nothing is clear about colossus. What are some of the other experience with this configuration? I would appreciate some input.

Thanks,
Mike

[wbarber69]

I really need to run a colossus and an hdpvr on the same system and cannot seem to find any relevant information as to whether or not this is a feasble solution. My cable provider recently digitized its entire catalog and an stb is my only option now. All I need to know is should I go ahead and purchase a colossus or just more hdpvrs

[Jesse]

Hi,

I run both an HD PVR and a colossus in my server. It is working ok with the right drivers. It does seem to need a reboot every couple of days.

If I were to do it again I would buy a second HD PVR instead of the colossus.

Jesse

[wbarber69]

yes but I could buy 2 colossus for the price of an hdpvr and im getting low on usb ports unless I want to sacrifice my front ports

[Jesse]

Hi,

I am seeing the HD PVR for about $60 more than the colossus. Based on my experience (and yes, it is just my experience) it is worth the extra $.

In any case, I would not spring for two right off the bat. See if your system will work well with one first.

My .02

Jesse

[wbarber69]

I know I can get better prices but I have a charge account with bestbuy with platinum rewards so I kinda tend to lean that direction when it comes to electronics. I would like to run an hdpvr and colossus since I have an hdpvr now and since the usbuirt only has 3 zones the 3 stbs would be perfect so I'm hoping that I can run both smoothly. I know I'd need a daily restart with the hdpvr as I do that now and I would recommend it to anyone. I even bought a timer to hard reset the hdpvr everyday at the same time too to prevent lockups, and I love its performance that way. So I'm no against some seriously weird setups if it means it will be stable. I really need to run in an hdpvr + colossus environment in order to go forward.

[gambitpvr]

I've been running a HD-PVR / Colossus setup for over 6 months myself. Personally, I like the Colossus better than the HD-PVR. It seems to have a slightly better image quality but I was hesitant to recommend it to anyone because of the stability issues I was having when I first installed it. I haven't tried using the HDMI input for recording yet but I may try that in the future just for kicks.

It took awhile but after a bit of testing and tweaking, I finally got my setup stable. Here's what I do:

1. Run SageTV in 'Service' mode and use a bat file to do a 'net stop Sagetv' / 'net start sagetv' every morning to restart the service. This is mostly just a general preventative step but it will also reset the Colossus if it does have an issue.
2. Loaded the newest Colossus drivers (v29192)
3. Installed a fan on my HD-PVR. This completely stablized my HD-PVR (see my sig for a link). The HD-PVR has a tendency to overheat and lockup if you don't add extra cooling. I used to use a timer to reset the HD-PVR but the fan setup has actually worked out better.
4. Locked the video output of my cable boxes to 1080i. This fixed the odd 'green screen' issue I was having with the Colussus. Sometimes the Colossus can't lock onto the image properly when the cable box switches resolutions and just records a green screen. The updated drivers resolved this issue for most of my recordings but, the issue was still there. Locking the cable box resolution basically just bypasses the root cause of the issue.

[Jesse]

I hear you.

I don't know if I should be glad that at least someone is making this kind of hardware, even if it is flawed, or be pissed that I am stuck with Hauppauge's not quite baked drivers.

I don't think it will get much better. Sage won't be doing any work to improve compatibility with any hardware, and Hauppauge now has no incentive to improve compatibility with sage.

Jesse

[panteragstk]

I really like my colossus. Since I've gotten it I've only had a few recordings where the colossus gets confused about what type of audio it was supposed to encode. Other than that no issues. I'm using HDMI with native resolution turned on and dolby digital enabled.

[Rico66]

I like the Colossus better, because it's integrated - but not with Sage.

HD playback is fine, but SD playback is broken in my case. This looks like a splitter issue, since these "broken" recordings play fine elsewhere.
I know that this doesn't affect everybody, but it's a killer criteria for me and the reason why I left Sage.
Hauppauge drivers are hit or miss. Strange enough the one that's working great for me is v29168 as that's the only one for which I don't have any audio playback issues (the 29191 regressed this issue).
If you don't mind the box, then the hdpvr is probably a safer solution with Sage, since it's a more established product.

[SteveD]

I have two hd PVRs. I never have to reboot or stop and restart the sage service. I did the fan mod on them and connected them to a UPS. I also run the optical inputs. No special usb cards. I am very satisfied with their performance. See attached

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Rico66

I like the Colossus better, because it's integrated - but not with Sage.

HD playback is fine, but SD playback is broken in my case. This looks like a splitter issue, since these "broken" recordings play fine elsewhere.
I know that this doesn't affect everybody, but it's a killer criteria for me and the reason why I left Sage.
Hauppauge drivers are hit or miss. Strange enough the one that's working great for me is v29168 as that's the only one for which I don't have any audio playback issues (the 29191 regressed this issue).
If you don't mind the box, then the hdpvr is probably a safer solution with Sage, since it's a more established product.

SD recording doesn't work well at all with the Colossus. Lucky for me my hvr-1600 has an unused tuner for s-video that I can use for my sd directv recordings. Some may argue that the sd on the colossus looks better, but IMHO SD sucks no matter what so I don't worry about it.

[Rico66]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

SD recording doesn't work well at all with the Colossus. Lucky for me my hvr-1600 has an unused tuner for s-video that I can use for my sd directv recordings. Some may argue that the sd on the colossus looks better, but IMHO SD sucks no matter what so I don't worry about it.

For me it works perfectly fine on WMC. The quality should be better than through s-video, though probably not that much (and depending on the quality of the source channel)

[Jesse]

Hey Steve,

I see I am not the only one to find it useful to have a hot water heater in their server room.

Jesse

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Rico66

For me it works perfectly fine on WMC. The quality should be better than through s-video, though probably not that much (and depending on the quality of the source channel)

My issue seems to be with the AAC audio. Every recording that has AAC has playback issues. Even in external players. All of my HD recordings use Dolby digital and have no issues at all.

[SteveD]

Originally Posted by Jesse

Hey Steve,

I see I am not the only one to find it useful to have a hot water heater in their server room.

Jesse

Helps keep them warm in the winter.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Mesh

The only advantages of the device I see is its internal and it has HDMI input (which does not work with HBOZHD channel).

Thanks for posting that I had no clue. Wonder why ONE channel would have hdcp encryption (or is it 1080p or something?). Very strange. I'm now thinking I have to check all of my channels to make sure they actually work. I'll plug in the component and spdif and create a lineup with one channel I guess. At least I know now.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Mesh

Colossus vs. 1212 HD-PVR

I'm at a point where I can select between these two devices. I have both and both are still within its return window (Colossus only about 3or 4 days). It will be my 4th device with the others being two 1212 HD-PVRs and one HVR-1600 using Directv and OTA. So, I have had colossus installed for about 3 weeks with Component + SPDIF input.. So far it's worked “Okay” – I have had a couple crashes (blue screens) and sage 7 locking up. It seems I have to reboot daily. The recordings have are been good – some times I get freezing at video at play back.. The only advantages of the device I see is its internal and it has HDMI input (which does not work with HBOZHD channel). My concern is the reliability of this device with sage (Google?). Where as the 1212 HD-PVR seems to be very stable.

I really want to stay with colossus thinking it will become more stable in time (I sure that the 1212 was a this point at some time) and that HDMI input that may become useful. However I keep thinking “stay with what works” – meaning the 1212. I have read many of the other posts and nothing is clear about colossus. What are some of the other experience with this configuration? I would appreciate some input.

Thanks,
Mike

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Thanks for posting that I had no clue. Wonder why ONE channel would have hdcp encryption (or is it 1080p or something?). Very strange. I'm now thinking I have to check all of my channels to make sure they actually work. I'll plug in the component and spdif and create a lineup with one channel I guess. At least I know now.

FYI: 08/22/2011 8:53pm CDT Ninja Assassin Live from HBOZHD DirectTV with HDMI and AAC audio. Plays fine on PC server but not on extenders. Just thought I would try it. Looks like it works but would have to convert the container after it is done to MP4 to get it to playback on extender - at least I think it will. The next program on HBOZHD that I actually want I will setup to record and check to see if it is AAC as well. If it is I'm going to try converting it to MP4 to see if extenders play it back. But the recording itself is working from playback on my server from HBOZHD anyway.

[tvmaster2]

theoretically, you can run the HD-PVR on a lower-powered system, such as a laptop.
That equates to big energy savings over a year (my 380w HTPC box eats up $17 month where I live)

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by wbarber69

I really need to run a colossus and an hdpvr on the same system and cannot seem to find any relevant information as to whether or not this is a feasble solution. My cable provider recently digitized its entire catalog and an stb is my only option now. All I need to know is should I go ahead and purchase a colossus or just more hdpvrs

I run both in my system (Win7 64-bit, Sage 7 in Service Mode). The Colossus did make things less stable, but not unusable.

I had the HD-PVR by itself for over 6 months with no corrupted recordings and no regular re-boots (only when needed for software upgrades, etc.). During that time, I never power-cycled the HD-PVR (even when re-booting the PC, I left the HDPVR powered-on and connected to a UPS). My STB is locked to 720p and I use analog stereo audio only. I have not needed extra cooling (but my server is in the basement of an air-conditioned house, so ambient temp is always less than 72F, even on the hottest summer days).

Once I added the Colossus, I started to see weird problems and crashes - some of them happened when the HD-PVR was recording and the Colossus was idle.

The first weird problem I had was that suddenly all my Colossus recordings had a greenish tint - upon closer examination I saw that it wasn't capturing anything that was red at all. I thought maybe I had a loose or bad component video wire, but that was not the problem. I tried re-starting my Sage client, and then re-starting the Sage service, but this did not help either. Re-booting the PC solved that problem and I haven't seen it re-occur since.

Anyway, I discovered that a weekly reboot has solved all my problems. At the moment, I just do this manually on the weekends.

Oh, my Colossus is configured the same way as my HD-PVR (using component video, analog stereo audio, and STB locked to 720p).

I'm not at home right now and don't remember which driver versions I am using, but I know they are not the latest for either HD-PVR or Colossus.