Hauppauge Beta Drivers for IVAC15/16 Combination

[carlgar]

finally, I have found a procedure that works for me untill a reboot. I have to install the drivers, run prv250_18_22037 and then run ir32_235_21315. I no longer get the "Failed to initialize Infrared Remote Hardware" error and everything seems to be working as expected.

Now the bad news, the first time I tried the above and did not get the error message I did a reboot. I then got the "iVac Driver Not Found" followed by the "Failed to initialize Infrared Remote Hardware" error. so I just repeated the above procedure with no reboot. I believe that if I have to reboot I will have to reinstall everything again.

Has anyone else using these drivers with the Hauppauge remote rebooted since installing everything?

[carlgar]

Originally posted by Jack_PVR
If you have a 350 and a 250,
can you ouput livetv from the 250
over the 350's tv out
while the 350 is recording something else?

While I have not tried the above, I have found that whatever you are viewing in Sage TV goes to the 350 TVout. What you viewing is really being read from a file so the source of the data does not matter.

[Llamas]

Originally posted by carlgar
I believe that if I have to reboot I will have to reinstall everything again.

Urg! I hope this is not the case. If so, the current, beta cure is worse than the disease.

--Mike who just spent a week recording corrupt video...

[carlgar]

I just had a full system lockup again. When I rebooted I did get the Ir remote related errors. I have now gone back to the Client/Server model.
Btw: When I went back to previous drivers I do not get the IR remote related errors when I reboot.

[insomniac]

Why dont you just axe the hauppauge ir proggy and use Girder?

I.

Originally posted by carlgar
I just had a full system lockup again. When I rebooted I did get the Ir remote related errors. I have now gone back to the Client/Server model.
Btw: When I went back to previous drivers I do not get the IR remote related errors when I reboot.

[carlgar]

Originally posted by insomniac
Why dont you just axe the hauppauge ir proggy and use Girder?

I.

Because the Hauppauge remote was working fine. Although Girder may be the greatest software ever written I have no desire to learn a new language. I spent 27 years as a programmer and much of that time required me to learn a new language about every 3-4 months. I think SageTV is going to hard a hard time making to the mass market because is appears to be just one layer of software on top of another. I think I have about as simple of setup as possible and I still have way too many problems. Adding Girder to the mix will just give Frey another direction to point their finger when things go wrong.

BTW: Right now I completely blown out of water with SageTV. The server gives me an "unspecified native null error" which does not allow me to skip or position the timeline. The client is dead becanse the Hauppauge remote is not working although I am not getting any errors. I think the IR connection in the 350 may now be broke.

[insomniac]

hmm...Im thankful that i received a driver from jeff and sage that finally works with multiple cards. A 5 minute workaround with girder wouldnt be out of the question to me. Expecially when all the hard work has already been done with a hauppauge ir pluging readily available from the girder site or from links in this forum.

I must admit that ive been extremely pissed off at sage at times, but when you do get all the kinks worked out, its a great product which can not be compared to any other windows based app.

I used to get the "unspecefied null error ". I fixed it by completely uninstalling drivers and apps including java(not likely necessary) and reinstalling clean.

The beauty of sage is that it is just an application. It has no hardware requirements and few limitations. If a complete sound and limited function is what you want, i suggest Tivo. Always the same hardware, always the same limitations(some unsupported hack mods, but better not void your warranty).

GL and hope things go better for you. Ive been exactly where you are right now quite a few times. Luckily I made it out of it with a good clean setup now running a client/server/network encoder w/ controlling 2 different satellite boxes w/ 1 USBUIRT & 4 cable encoders on a different lineup. Man did it take time, patience, and a whole lot of ignoring my bitching SO for killing her smallville episodes.

I.

Originally posted by carlgar
Because the Hauppauge remote was working fine. Although Girder may be the greatest software ever written I have no desire to learn a new language. I spent 27 years as a programmer and much of that time required me to learn a new language about every 3-4 months. I think SageTV is going to hard a hard time making to the mass market because is appears to be just one layer of software on top of another. I think I have about as simple of setup as possible and I still have way too many problems. Adding Girder to the mix will just give Frey another direction to point their finger when things go wrong.

BTW: Right now I completely blown out of water with SageTV. The server gives me an "unspecified native null error" which does not allow me to skip or position the timeline. The client is dead becanse the Hauppauge remote is not working although I am not getting any errors. I think the IR connection in the 350 may now be broke.

[kny3twalker]

sorry I knew I should have went and just out and got this but all you need to do is

"Failed to initialize Infrared Remote Hardware" IS the diagnostic code

You need at least hcwI2C32.DLL and hcwUtl32.DLL for the IR app to work.

They are normally installed (on the PVR-250/350) with the driver update, so might be missing if you did an INF-only install. You could extract them from the driver update (PVR48xxx.exe) installer with Winzip and put them in windows\system or system32

you do not need to install the driver update if you do this and can get the remote to work
but with every other set of drivers you could run the driver update so I thought it may be easier
I know no one is probably willing to go through it again

I zipped the files and attached them

[Deadbolt]

What is the colorbar registry setting Mikejaner refers to?

Thanks

[carlgar]

I am now conviced that the drivers in post #1 do solve the problem that they were intended too. To get the Hauppauge remote to work properly you have to copy hcwI2C32.DLL to the properly directory. See the kny3twalker post above for file and details. I am not sure if required but I rebooted before installing the IR remote application. I then rebooted again to make sure I no longer got the errors I was getting. Everything came up clean and works properly.

I still get total lockups but believe that is related to my motherboard (server)and using the TVout from the 350. I encountered this problem in early Feb. but forgot about it, my other system (client) does not have this problem. The problem is that if you play a file to the end the system will lockup. The work-around is too stop playing before you get to the end of the program. You also need to avoid shows that have been broken into multiple files, just reaching the end of a file will also lock up the system. I was told by Frey customer support that this would be fix in 2.0 and would not be fixed in 1.4 which I am still running. I believe if I switch computers again it would solve the problem, but that is a lot of work. I would prefer Frey fix the problem concerning using the 350 TVout with certain Intel motherboards with 2.0, so I can stay current.

[zz5]

Originally posted by justme
zz5

What's your hardware cofig for your Sage machine? Specifically your motherboard and it's chipset. I checked your profile but didn't see anything there.

I have a PVR350 setting around that I've been holding off on due to possible issues with the motherboard of the system I want it in. For me to install this would currently take me a lot of time/energy. So I'd like to see some encouraging news about the PVR350s in particuliar. Calgar's results make it look like the issues are still there, so you setup would be usefull info in the data set.

TIA
/justme

My motherboard is an Epox 8KRA2+. It has the VIA KT600 chipset. I'm using Windows XP. I'm not having any problems with 350 output/OSD, but I am having a problem with local machine software playback when recording with the 350. The software playback is choppy, but only when recording with the 350. I didn't notice this at first because I wasn't testing software playback. I don't plan to use software playback if 350 playback works well, but it could a sign of a problem with these drivers. With the drivers I had been using, I don't have this problem. I can record from all 4 tuners and play something using software without any problem.

During my testing with beta drivers, I was able to record 4 things and play 2 things (via the 350 and a client) at once without any problems. I have the computer in our living room now, and it will be on for a week or so unless something goes really wrong. During that time, I should be able to tell if it's stable. Even if you have the same chipset as me, I would wait a few days if it's not convenient to try. I will report back here.

[carlgar]

Has anyone with one of problem Intel chipsets tried these drivers yet? I am thinking about giving 2.0 another try with these drivers and this computer. I am just wonding if I should have any high hopes that it might work.

[carlgar]

I just tried SageTV 2.0 with these drivers, I did manage to view a previously record program to the end. When it got to the end it locked up my system just like the 1.4. It looks like the bug was not fixed in 2.0 like I was told. Seems to me like this should be easy for the Frey programmers to track down, assuming that they have access to a D865GBFL motherboard. This problem is 100% reproducible, I can avoid it most times, but real pain if I get distracted or doze off during a show. I have now gone back to SageTV 1.4 since I know what the issues with it are.

[insomniac]

yes, im running an intel 865PERL mobo. Works great.

I.

Originally posted by carlgar
Has anyone with one of problem Intel chipsets tried these drivers yet? I am thinking about giving 2.0 another try with these drivers and this computer. I am just wonding if I should have any high hopes that it might work.

[carlgar]

Based upon the post from insomniac above it may be the problem I am now having may be limited to just the D865GBFL board. The SageTV 2.0 did seem more stable but I was also taking a more conservative approach to the test. It was not my intent to test the TV out, but turned on my TV half-way though the program just to check if TV-out on on or off. It was on so then I decided to test the one bug that I knew was suppose to be fixed. I did not attempt any testing of the UI using TV-out. So if the problems I encountered in my first test are related to that then I have no new information concerning that with these drivers.

[carlgar]

Another issue I am seeing since installing the drivers and a third card in the system. I think this may be related to using the skip, but sometimes the SageTV server just hangs. Only SageTV is hung not the entire system. This could be related to all 3 cards recording at the same time as I am trying to view another on the screen. This seems to be the only time I encounter this problem. I do not recall seeing this during the day when only 1 card at most is recording. When this hang occurs I can use the client for a while but then it will say it lost connection with the server. This forces me to restart SageTV which clears up the problem.

[zz5]

Here is my report back. I had my system up around a total of 10 days or so with these drivers (22077). During this time, it got lots of use. We pretty much used it whenever we were watching TV.

During this time, I had 5 350 output lockups. I had a Sage Instance time of 3 days once and another time for 2 days, 6 hours, without any 350 lockups. The computer went down each of these two times due to thunderstorms causing power outages. When I had the 350 output lockups, a couple times I was able to get it working again by adjusting some settings in Sage without rebooting. One of the times, after making some settings, the computer froze, forcing me to push the power button. One or two times, the 350 output wouldn't quite work right after changing Sage settings, even though it didn't lockup. When I tried to go back to the menu, the output would freeze again and I'd have to disable/enable 350 output again. If I wasn't trying to use the 350 output, I think this setup would be perfectly stable, since this is the only stability problem I had.

There were also some quirks with the 350 that are not related to stability. A recording must be played at bootup to activate the 350 output (the color bar test pattern appears until then). When I delete the currently playing file (or file last played by Sage), the 350 output is lost and I have to play something again to get the output back.

I know there are newer beta drivers out now. Now I'm planning to see if the new drivers fix any of these problems.

[justme]

Thanks zz5

From what seems like encouraging news about the new drivers at SHS's, I think I might go for it. With SHS's newer drivers.

[GrayGh0st]

Originally posted by zz5
All you have to do to get this to work is install using the current inf and exe files from Hauppauge, and then update your cards to the beta drivers. Do not run hwclear in between. Just update the drivers for each card manually in Device Manager. Then reboot and everything should work.

So this is indeed an ok method to update the drivers? Hwclear doesn't need to be called before the beta drivers are installed?

Justin