350 & OSD - What's the status

[Ralnee]

All,
I've just purchased a 350 for my sage client (Sage v. 2.0.20), and the OSD is very flakey.

My original client was a Powerspec (with SIS chipset), which didn't work at all with the 350. After reading through the posts on the board, (yes, i know SIS sucks), I decided to try a machine I had laying around, an old Compaq (with Intel 4xx chipset). The OSD seems to work for about 10 minutes (after a reboot) and then goes away. I've loaded the latest drivers (1.18) from SHS' site (great site) and now the OSD ONLY appears on my VGA display.

Does anyone have the OSD working on the 350??? If so, what's your MB/Chipset configuration.

Thanks in Advance

P.S.
The PD on the 350 is awesome.....The best I've seen.

[krutaw]

Originally posted by Ralnee


Does anyone have the OSD working on the 350??? If so, what's your MB/Chipset configuration.

Thanks in Advance

P.S.
The PD on the 350 is awesome.....The best I've seen.

Ralnee,

Yes, I've got the OSD on the 350 working very nicely. I have problems about once a month now, which isn't that bad IMHO since I feel that Windows XP Pro needs to be rebooted about that often anyway.

Okay, down to the specifics.. here's what I'm running:

MSI Nforce II (K7N2G) motherboard
AMD Athlon 1ghz chip
512 mb ram
PVR-350
PVR-250

BTW, at one point I was running an older i815 chipset with almost as succcessful results.

Those are the only major pieces that are relevant to the stability based on previous experience. HTH!

[Ralnee]

krutaw,
I see in your configuration that your using the 350 in the server. I have my 350 in my client so I may not need that much horsepower.... (The client is attached to my RP and is only used for watching Sage. The server is in the closet).

I'm think of upgrading my client's ram (only 128MB). I know that doing this will make my system more stable, but will it have an effect on the OSD.

Which driver versions are you using? I just noticed the combo drivers. Perhaps I'll try them.... Just looking for a ray of light in the darkeness of OSD's.

Thanks for your reply.

[Crashless]

Bringing this back from the dead...

Which version drivers are you using krutaw? Mine crashes once every couple of days right now, I'd love to only have to do it once a month!

I have roughly the same hardware as you, but I'm running windows 2000, though that shouldn't be that big of a deal.

Also, how do you use it? Is it on all the time? I just pause playback and leave sage at the main menu, turning my TV off. I have hardware only enabled too.

Any other information you could post would be very helpful.

Thanks

[krutaw]

Originally Posted by Crashless

Which version drivers are you using krutaw? Mine crashes once every couple of days right now, I'd love to only have to do it once a month!

I have roughly the same hardware as you, but I'm running windows 2000, though that shouldn't be that big of a deal.

Also, how do you use it? Is it on all the time? I just pause playback and leave sage at the main menu, turning my TV off. I have hardware only enabled too.

Crashless ~ (or not so crashless as the case may be.. ehehe)

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Anywho.. Okay, so I recently (when I had a hard drive die due to heat problems... long story) updated my system to version 1.8.22170.

How do I use it... hmmm... well... it's on all the time, but is usually only used when I'm home. I have found though that it doesn't like being paused for long periods. When I'm not actively watching, I close the file. That's not to say that it *ALWAYS* locks up when I pause, just that it's not super-reliable when I do.

Also, as far as configuration goes, I'm using Malore's Commercial Advance STV (OH HOW I LOVE IT!) and I have a client connecting to the server that isn't using a PVR-350 YET!

As far as the OS mattering, I'm not so sure that there's not a big difference there. I realize that for most uses that would be true, however, I've found that Windows XP is much more dependable for PVR uses. I used Win2k for awhile, but couldn't get the darn thing to behave well, so I fought and fought and finally ended up with WinXP. To be completely honest though, I'm not so sure that Win2k vs. WinXP had that much to do with it because I was upgrading the motherboard to the nForce II board I bought specifically beause of the problems.

*sigh* Sorry I can't give a more definitive answer there.

[Crashless]

Originally Posted by krutaw

Crashless ~ (or not so crashless as the case may be.. ehehe)

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Anywho.. Okay, so I recently (when I had a hard drive die due to heat problems... long story) updated my system to version 1.8.22170.

How do I use it... hmmm... well... it's on all the time, but is usually only used when I'm home. I have found though that it doesn't like being paused for long periods. When I'm not actively watching, I close the file.

Yeah, I feel like such a poser right now...

So first order of business will be to update the driver. I've always been skeptical to update since that one update almost a year ago now that broke stuff. Whatever version I'm using now, it has been for a long time. Kinda "If it ain't TOO broke, don't bring out the sledgehammer."

So if you don't pause it when you turn off your TV, what do you do? I can't get the GUI up if I put it to sleep. Maybe that's a driver problem? When your TV goes off, do you just put sage to sleep, or do you do something else. Closing the file for me turns off the GUI and I get color bars. maybe that's another driver thing...

Thanks so much for your help. I really appriciate it.

OT, have you been able to only have comskip run between certain hours of the day? I've tried wading through that massive thread and have only found a 'play nice' parameter that makes it run low priority, nothing to only run certain hours of the day. I don't like having it run all the time because 1. I play games on this system, and comskip kills the fun. and 2. I feel just navigating sage while comskip runs I get major slowdown. and 3. I got messed up recordings that resulted from missed frames. I think it was related to scanning files on the same drive that is being recorded to. Any help here would be great too, I loved having commercial skip, but it just wasn't worth the slowdown.

Thanks again.

[krutaw]

Originally Posted by Crashless

Yeah, I feel like such a poser right now...

So first order of business will be to update the driver. I've always been skeptical to update since that one update almost a year ago now that broke stuff. Whatever version I'm using now, it has been for a long time. Kinda "If it ain't TOO broke, don't bring out the sledgehammer."

So if you don't pause it when you turn off your TV, what do you do? I can't get the GUI up if I put it to sleep. Maybe that's a driver problem? When your TV goes off, do you just put sage to sleep, or do you do something else. Closing the file for me turns off the GUI and I get color bars. maybe that's another driver thing...

Thanks so much for your help. I really appriciate it.

OT, have you been able to only have comskip run between certain hours of the day? I've tried wading through that massive thread and have only found a 'play nice' parameter that makes it run low priority, nothing to only run certain hours of the day. I don't like having it run all the time because 1. I play games on this system, and comskip kills the fun. and 2. I feel just navigating sage while comskip runs I get major slowdown. and 3. I got messed up recordings that resulted from missed frames. I think it was related to scanning files on the same drive that is being recorded to. Any help here would be great too, I loved having commercial skip, but it just wasn't worth the slowdown.

Thanks again.

Crashless ~

Okay, so umm... let's see.. what do I do when I turn off the tv... umm.. not much? lol Seriously though, when I turn off the tv, I leave the menu on the screen. Specifically, after having closed whatever file I was watching, it returns to the main menu (I wonder if that's just in Malore's STV... hmmm). Now, when I say I close the file, I mean I'm hitting the yellow (sorry, don't remember the sage name for it) key on the remote (silver hauppauge) and selecting "Close File".

Anywho, as far as the commercial skip stuff... I have a slightly modified setup. I've setup a batch file to run at a specific time (a time that I know my sagetv will not be recorrding anything or be being used) that runs through each of the shared folders and performs a comskip against any file that doesn't already have a .txt file. I did this by assigning the batch file via a scheduled task in windows.

Oh yeah, I just remembered something else.. I *do* have a bug that I absolutely HATE, however, I've been able to work around it. When I'm watching a video via the Sage Recordings, when the file finishes, the CPU pegs out at 100% utilization.

Now for the workaround... I set SAGETV to run at "AboveNormal" via the command that it's start with in the registry:

start /ABOVENORMAL <path>\sagetv.exe

Once I'm done watching a video, I open another, and then close it. This backs the processor back down to normal levels.

Anywho, this also helps to where if I *HAVE* to use (yeah, right.. have to. lol) the SAGETV when it's running through the comskip shuffle, it works flawlessly. The menus are snappy, and new recordings work properly too.

Btw, I forgot to even ask about your hardware specs, but it's worth asking about. Specifically, are you providing any cooling for the PVR-350?

I have a PCI-Slot blower pulling air directly off of the PVR-350 to cool it down. I had forgotten about the heat problems I had with it, but it's definately worth the money to find out if you're not cooling your PVR-350. I picked my slot blower up at CompUSA for $9.00.

[Crashless]

Thanks for all the tips! Here's what I've done (am planning)

I updated my drivers, everything works, though can't see much difference.

I tried changing the reg file to get sage to start abovenormal priority, but can't get it to stick or work. Could you post the exact way your reg key is for that entry? Also, if you could post its path in your registry, that would be helpful too. I may be modifying the wrong one.

I'm going to order a slot fan for my 350, I've been thinking of this for a while because my overture is a little hot with 3 7200rpm drives in it, so this should help a lot.

I can't get the file to close w/o killing the 350's out to color bars. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I've rigged the stop command to the stop button on the remote. Is that the same? I can't get the menu to 'close file' with any button. Could you tell me the exact command that is linked to the yellow button on your system? I'm not using the default hauppauge setup. You can have Sage tell you what command is linked to the button in the detailed setup.

Last thing, could you post your bat file for running comskip? I don't know how to make it only run on files without txt files to match. Also, how are you cleaning up the txt files? I couldn't understand the thread that covered it. If you could post that too, it'd be great.

If you'd prefer to PM me the files that would be great too.

Thanks SO much for your help!