Advice? Colossus, HDPVR or HDPVR2 ?

[graywolf]

May finally get into the HD realm. Currently on DirecTV but may go DISH.

If so, which would be your recommendations between the 3 solutions (or are there others for satellite?)

Pros/Cons between the different devices? Seems to work for some with no issues, others seem to continue to have issues.

TIA

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by graywolf

May finally get into the HD realm. Currently on DirecTV but may go DISH.

If so, which would be your recommendations between the 3 solutions (or are there others for satellite?)

Pros/Cons between the different devices? Seems to work for some with no issues, others seem to continue to have issues.

TIA

I have DirecTV as well. For reliability I would recommend the HD-PVR v1. For the best quality I would recommend the Colossus or HD-PVR2. I own HD-PVRs and 1 Colossus don't own a HD-PVR2. I am recording to the Colossus on a HR21 with HDMI - without a HDCP stripper. I have an NEC based USB controller for my HD-PVRs. The HD-PVR recordings have a softer look and don't look quite as good as the Colossus for the same recording but is hard to tell unless I record the same airing on both - I have multiple servers. I have 1 bad recording on the HD-PVRs about every 3 months. I have a bad recording or two every week on the Colossus. The bad recordings on the Colossus range from just having a listing in sage that looks like it could be bad but the recordings play back fine to recordings that don't playback at all. In SageTV the bad recording either show no sound at all or AAC audio. If no sound is showing at all they are usually unplayable. A picture displays but it doesn't advance but you can skip forward or back and the still picture changes to the new location but never advances on its own. If AAC shows you can get a video that plays back but with no sound or a still picture like with no sound or a video that plays back with audio and appears to be fine. If SageTV shows Dolby Digital the recording is fine and works perfectly.

With all that said I know others are not having the problems I am with the Colossus so it might work just fine for you. The HD-PVR2 is reported to have some of the same problems I've had with the Colossus but I don't own one so cannot say.

[Deacon Crusher]

If I read this correctly you are saying that you can get Dolby Digital recordings through your colussus? When I look at the settings for the colussus inside the arcsoft (or whatever brand it is) software that comes with the Colussus all video settings seem to be AAC only?

Thanks

[KryptoNyte]

If you can get 5.1 channel Dolby Digital with the original HD-PVR 1212 (of course you can), I would certainly hope you could get it from the Colossus in the same fashion.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Deacon Crusher

If I read this correctly you are saying that you can get Dolby Digital recordings through your colussus? When I look at the settings for the colussus inside the arcsoft (or whatever brand it is) software that comes with the Colussus all video settings seem to be AAC only?

Thanks

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

If you can get 5.1 channel Dolby Digital with the original HD-PVR 1212 (of course you can), I would certainly hope you could get it from the Colossus in the same fashion.

Yes. I record Dolby Digital 5.1 off HDMI from DirecTV HR21 STB all the time. According to the SageTV display anyway - and it appears to be true 5.1 to my non-professional ears as I can hear special effects sounds often on movies from the rear speakers. The Dolby Digital SageTV recordings are the GOOD recordings.

If SageTV displays the recording as AAC audio it may be good it may be bad - probably 30-50% are bad.

Some times SageTV shows NO audio at all - over 50% of those are bad.

That is all with the Colossus card which may or may not be overheating some.

What makes a bad Colossus recording is the following:

1. Plays back video FINE but SageTV is unable to find or at least playback an audio track - so silent picture time.
2. Playback of Video is more of a slide show but audio is fine.
3. Playback doesn't happen because the picture and sound do not advance but you can skip to any point in the recording and the still frame at that position displays - obviously no audio either. This only shows up for those recordings that SageTV says has NO audio at all.
4. Playback doesn't happen and no picture is displayed and SageTV displays an error message about video problem '...0005' error displayed by SageTV.

The only problem I routinely get with my 1212 HD-PVRs is the recording gets stuck on and my 1 hour show becomes a 6-12 hour recording and 45+GB in size file. I only get that at most every few months and most of the time it is because I blew another power brick. Or at least it seems to be that. After replacing the power brick the recordings return to normal. I say they average about every three months on a 1212 but what usually happens is that within a month I notice I've had 2 - 4 recordings like that and I finally decide to order or replace the power brick. The problem goes away again for 6 months to a year or more. Occasionally I get other bad recordings but those are fairly obvious it is a signal problem like when the satellite signal get interrupted by weather and I get a recording of "Searching for satellite signal" picture.

[Evil_Attorney]

Originally Posted by graywolf

May finally get into the HD realm. Currently on DirecTV but may go DISH.

If so, which would be your recommendations between the 3 solutions (or are there others for satellite?)

Pros/Cons between the different devices? Seems to work for some with no issues, others seem to continue to have issues.

TIA

My advice is to get the original HDPVR 1212 models, stay with Directv, and use the Directv ethernet tuning plugin (dead simple to setup). I highly advise against the HDPVR2 and somewhat less so with regard to Colossus.

The HDPVR 1212 was the only model to have gotten all (or most) of the bugs out of it, both on Hauppauge's side and on Sage's side. The 1512, on the other hand, came about well after Sage shut their doors and has numerous sound problems (see the threads on this). Hauppauge support refuses to support any problems with any of their products with Sage because it is a "dead" product, so things likely won't improve.

While many have gotten Colossus to work well, there seem to be many others that have occasional issues (sound, Sage not seeing tuning device, etc).