Getting my HD-PVR up and running

[flavius]

I have had my HD-PVR (rev F2) sitting in a box for month, couldn't get myself to give it a shot. I almost sold it a few weeks ago.

However, today I did give a shot - on a Windows 7 system (32bit) handling a Motorola DCH3200 via USB UIRT. I did a lot of channel changing and it didn't fail once. So far, so good. Channel changing is slow, though. Firewire is supposed to be a lot faster. Maybe later.

Problems:

1. Low audio level - fixed using the input level boost in the Arcsoft recording software

2. A very distinct hum - well I had put the HD-PVR on top of the cable box, directly above the power supply. How stupid was that?

3. I notice a band of purple tint slowly scrolling upwards when the screen is really dark. I haven't fixed that yet, but I have an idea what to do after reading this:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48402

I have set the cable box to 1080i and record to .ts at the highest bit rate. The HD300 that I use for playback (mostly) plays nice, the windows client that I run in my Windows 7 VM on my mac has some problems - I guess I need to install the ArSoft stuff in there?

[KryptoNyte]

When you say that you're recording at the highest bitrate, did you force this by changing the Sage properties file as I don't think you can max out the HDPVR bitrate (Sage controls this) in any GUI.

[flavius]

Well, it's the highest bitrate that Sage lets me pick.

[darcilicious]

See this thread http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33407