Impressive results from Hollywood Plus Decoder Card

[Beelzebub]

Just got done setting up a Hollywood plus decoder card, and I have say quality wise Sage is as good as my Tivo. The best part is the Sage interface works with it. I've tried just about every software decoder, and they come close, but the motion is still crappy, and the image is blurred. With the H+ the motion is near perfect, and the video is sharper. These cards are cheap, I payed like $5 on ebay, and it was easy to setup. Just follow these intructions. This would be a perfect solution for slower computers, since I used about 3% systems resources, when watching TV. The video card doesn't matter either. For people who need S-Video just get a VGA to S-Video scan converter. There are several on ebay for around $50.

Hollywood Plus setup

Problems so far
When you first open SageTV (not from sleep mode), and use the Guide, you will get a error say the decoder isn't present. If goto to main menu, then Channel Guide

H+ overlay color was set to black,which screwwed up the menu text. Easily fixed by changing in the H+ Configuration program

Haven't been able to get to work in DVD mode.

[heffe2001]

You say the menu's work, but does the OSD? If it does, I'll buy one ASAP . Wonder if the old DXR2 Creative board would work as well? (I got one somewhere around here, not sure where tho).

[insomniac]

or you could buy this cable made specifically for the card

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...495820179&rd=1

[heffe2001]

But does that allow the OSD to be overlayed on video playback? My understanding so far is that it won't do the OSD, just the video on teh screen. If it did the OSD, then I bet you'd not see ANY of these available on ebay . All us Sage users would snap 'em up quick .

[insomniac]

Wish I knew that answer...im ready to click "buy". Someone confirm this with a yay or nay!

Originally posted by heffe2001
But does that allow the OSD to be overlayed on video playback? My understanding so far is that it won't do the OSD, just the video on teh screen. If it did the OSD, then I bet you'd not see ANY of these available on ebay . All us Sage users would snap 'em up quick .

[gplasky]

Originally posted by mattc
Notes: Most of this information was found by searching this forum I don't assume to be the first one to do this I just thought someone should write down the step by step procedure for people with this hardware config to try it out. There is no OSD so I use the H+ on my TV and navigate the menus on my monitor. I really hope Frey implements support for OSD on these cards in the future as the TV output (at least on SDTV) is far superior to anything I was able to do with my vid card and software decoders. Sometimes SageTV gives an error message about not finding the mpeg decoder on start up but it goes away if I put Sage to sleep and then restore. Hopefully all of this hasn't been said before and someone will find this useful. Sorry for the long first post.

-MattC

From the Original posted instructions. It says the OSD does NOT work.

Gerry

[insomniac]

Im glad somebody reads directions

Originally posted by gplasky
From the Original posted instructions. It says the OSD does NOT work.

Gerry

[Beelzebub]

Originally posted by heffe2001
But does that allow the OSD to be overlayed on video playback? My understanding so far is that it won't do the OSD, just the video on teh screen. If it did the OSD, then I bet you'd not see ANY of these available on ebay . All us Sage users would snap 'em up quick .

Yes all the OSDs work, thru the VGA port not s-video. So you will either have to hook it up to a PC monitor or buy a VGA to S-Video scan converter.

Something like this
SVGA to TV/Video Converter

Just remeber VMR9 will not work, so you can't use the transparent OSD. So all the menu's, channel guide, etc are solid.

[Beelzebub]

Originally posted by heffe2001
You say the menu's work, but does the OSD? If it does, I'll buy one ASAP . Wonder if the old DXR2 Creative board would work as well? (I got one somewhere around here, not sure where tho).

I know the DXR3 will work, cause It is a Hollywood Plus. Actually I think thats what I'm using.

[heffe2001]

Well, I ordered one, we'll see how well it works when it comes in .

If it doesn't work how I want, I can always use it on one of my low-powered PC's as a DVD player or something .

[SHS]

One thing I like point out min of the of old hardware decoder lack ture directshow support that the key thing of make this work.
I know the WDM Driver for DXR2 I seem to recall some Unofficial DXR3 one to.

[heffe2001]

So is there a directshow driver for the DXR2? Wonder if that would work then...

[SHS]

I didn't see one in the drivers

[Gemini1706]

Originally posted by insomniac
or you could buy this cable made specifically for the card

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...495820179&rd=1

will this cable convert VGA to S-VIDEO for this card?
I wonder if it scales resolutions ...etc. to fit TV monitor...

Sounds interesting though

[SHS]

No you need sometime diff which know VGA Converter, VGA Transcoder you can get them in S/Video/Composite, Component.

[stanger89]

Originally posted by Beelzebub
Yes all the OSDs work, thru the VGA port not s-video. So you will either have to hook it up to a PC monitor or buy a VGA to S-Video scan converter.

Something like this
SVGA to TV/Video Converter

Just remeber VMR9 will not work, so you can't use the transparent OSD. So all the menu's, channel guide, etc are solid.

I assume you mean the UI Works via VGA Loopback/passthrough?

What resolutions are supported?

As for the VGA-Component cable, you realize that doesn't convert VGA to YPbPr (what most TVs require of component).

[krutaw]

Originally posted by heffe2001
Well, I ordered one, we'll see how well it works when it comes in .

If it doesn't work how I want, I can always use it on one of my low-powered PC's as a DVD player or something .

\


Actually, what I did was to use the PVR-350 for TV-Out, and the Hollywood Plus for decoding of DVD's and the svideo to input the video into the PVR-350 so that I could watch through the SAGETV. Only problem is that it's got a little delay, but overall, it works well.

[Beelzebub]

Originally posted by stanger89
I assume you mean the UI Works via VGA Loopback/passthrough?

What resolutions are supported?

As for the VGA-Component cable, you realize that doesn't convert VGA to YPbPr (what most TVs require of component).

It will support any resolution your video card supports.

[broman]

I was trying to think up a way to get the osd to work using the s-video out on my hollywood plus. I haven't tried this yet, but here's my theory.


Here's my theoretical configuration using two pc's-

pc1
Hauppauge 250
hollywood plus
sagetv
psexec (remote command line tool to send commands to 2nd pc using sagetv -event X)
remote control receiver (comes with Hauppauge card)

pc2
sagetv
tv tuner card with svideo input (ati or something) and video output (or a vga card with video out)


hook the svideo out from the hollywood plus on pc1 to the svideo input on pc2's tuner card. Pc2 will be running SageTV, but will not use a tuner, instead uses the svideo input.

pc1 will run sagetv minimized and tune in the stations and be the pvr. It will also be conrolled by the remote. The key is that you will have a cmd.exe window open that will recieve commands from the remote. You can edit the irremote.ini to recieve and of the key presses and run any commands you like.

put these example commands in your ini
; First item in this section IS always the default app if no others found
[Applications]
cmd=

;c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe
[cmd]
9=9

They will print out a 9 on a open cmd.exe screen.
Using this we can use the psexec to send commands to both the sagetv on pc1 to change the channel and to pc2 to pretend to change the channel. Pc2 outputs to a tv and displays the input from the svideo and the OSD.

I'm going to try this when I get a chance. If anyone else has time and trys it before I do, let us know the results.

[Beelzebub]

Originally posted by broman
I was trying to think up a way to get the osd to work using the s-video out on my hollywood plus. I haven't tried this yet, but here's my theory.


Here's my theoretical configuration using two pc's-

pc1
Hauppauge 250
hollywood plus
sagetv
psexec (remote command line tool to send commands to 2nd pc using sagetv -event X)
remote control receiver (comes with Hauppauge card)

pc2
sagetv
tv tuner card with svideo input (ati or something) and video output (or a vga card with video out)


hook the svideo out from the hollywood plus on pc1 to the svideo input on pc2's tuner card. Pc2 will be running SageTV, but will not use a tuner, instead uses the svideo input.

pc1 will run sagetv minimized and tune in the stations and be the pvr. It will also be conrolled by the remote. The key is that you will have a cmd.exe window open that will recieve commands from the remote. You can edit the irremote.ini to recieve and of the key presses and run any commands you like.

put these example commands in your ini
; First item in this section IS always the default app if no others found
[Applications]
cmd=

;c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe
[cmd]
9=9

They will print out a 9 on a open cmd.exe screen.
Using this we can use the psexec to send commands to both the sagetv on pc1 to change the channel and to pc2 to pretend to change the channel. Pc2 outputs to a tv and displays the input from the svideo and the OSD.

I'm going to try this when I get a chance. If anyone else has time and trys it before I do, let us know the results.

Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to buy a vga to s-video converter. Since the OSD works thru the vga port.