Black screen nightmare!!!!

[SilverBullet]

I'm just about to give this thing up, it's driving me crazy. Clean install of Windows XP Pro, all service packs/updates. Pop the PVR-250 in, gets detected, point it to the latest .inf, installs, tells me it's ready to use.

Install the latest driver update, then the latest WinTV 2000, then the latest docoder.

The darn thing won't show me a picture whatever I try! WinTV2000 has the black picture on every input (i.e. no snow on coax in, etc). Needless to say SageTV is no better.

It's as if the codecs were not registered. Under Sage, I only see the "default" under mpeg decoder, I can't get it to list Intervideo Non-CSS (or something like that).

Can anybody help, I'm going crazy over here. Had everything working, reinstalled and now I feel I'm a complete moron!

[carlgar]

Under Add or Remove programs do you see "InterVideo FilterSDK for Hauppauge" installed?

[kny3twalker]

also when you uninstall everything to reinstall use hcw.clear.exe and put an additional check in the search for conflicting infs

but this does sound like you have not installed everything like the hauppauge decoder

[SilverBullet]

I did install everything yesterday. More than once!

This morning, after fiddling with powerstrip to get my resolution > 640x432, I tried reinstalling the decoder. Automagically, everything works.

I think the hauppauge installer didn't like the resolution but was silently exiting without saying anything. Many other things I tried to install complained they needed 640x480 or greater.

Bloody thing! Let me Ghost it while it works!

[mls]

If you don't mind, I'd kind of like to know how you would ever have anything less then 640 x 480 to start with?

That's pretty much the lowest resolution windows will even install or run with by default.

Most people would be running at least 800 x 600.

Your situation sounds a bit odd?

[SilverBullet]

Originally posted by mls
If you don't mind, I'd kind of like to know how you would ever have anything less then 640 x 480 to start with?

That's pretty much the lowest resolution windows will even install or run with by default.

Most people would be running at least 800 x 600.

Your situation sounds a bit odd?

My situation is a bit odd, but IT IS my situation. Keep in mind I'm not using a monitor, I'm using a TV with a component adaptor. Anything other than 640x432p is either flickering like there is no tomorrow, or overscanning to the point I'm missing half my display. Not much I can do. I had found something around 720x480 but everything was blurry. I can't say that this ATI component adaptor is the best 40$ I've spent.

I'm pondering going back to s-video.

[mls]

I take it you are only using a SDTV (standard def TV) and not an HDTV then.

800 x 600 would be the best choice for SageTV then. For the video playback you would have to do some adjusting with the ATI display settings to resize that part.

For the SageTV OSD, you can resize that in SageTV...

Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Multimedia -> Overscan Settings

However, if you're trying to use the Windows Desktop out to an SDTV... ya that will be a bit blurry at 800 x 600.

You can make things more readable by changing the Windows font size. For web browsing you can change the web browser's font size also.

It can be pretty difficult to get things set up if you are only using just the TV. That's why I have dual out video cards

[kny3twalker]

control + mouse wheel also makes most text bigger in IE

[SilverBullet]

Well it looks like I've found a 720x480 setting that works acceptably. Still overscans but it's a bit more reasonable.

Originally posted by mls
I take it you are only using a SDTV (standard def TV) and not an HDTV then.

Not by choice! I have a component adapter and an HDTV. I just can't get any HDTV res. to work properly.

Originally posted by mls
However, if you're trying to use the Windows Desktop out to an SDTV... ya that will be a bit blurry at 800 x 600.

The 720x480 I can get is not blurry at all, it's crystal clear. But for other resolutions, there's so much overscan I can't use any windows application without guessing where things are!

I'm working my way up with the resolutions... ah well, who sait it would be easy!

[SilverBullet]

Originally posted by SilverBullet
I did install everything yesterday. More than once!

This morning, after fiddling with powerstrip to get my resolution > 640x432, I tried reinstalling the decoder. Automagically, everything works.

I think the hauppauge installer didn't like the resolution but was silently exiting without saying anything. Many other things I tried to install complained they needed 640x480 or greater.

Bloody thing! Let me Ghost it while it works!

Ok, another update. The faq on Hauppauge website tipped me on what might have been wrong. I reformatted and reinstalled (in the name of science) and sure enough, that was it... Black screen gone. Still have a crappy res though!

"The main causes for black screen are "Decoder Issues", no sound card installed in the system, and video cards that do not support "Overlay"."