Audio distortion with PVR-150

[jasondragon]

Playback of live TV gives a strange audio stuttering every 3 seconds or so. When I record the show and then play it back, there is no distortion in the playback.

Please advise. Audio in WINtv applications work fine for liveTV.

[Dale Reece]

I know this is a "shot in the dark" but
I can tell you my experience with PVR that I MUST NOT ground my PC. I have had background noise problems with the audio useing these types of cards and I have to put an "adapter plug" on the PC power supply plug going onto the wall outlet. This little adapter eliminates the ground pole which is where I get my audio and video distortion(feedback).Moreover, I must also use this adapter plug on all extra componants attached to my PC. I recently upgraded to a new HP scanjet scanner and noticed that, when I bought up my Win TV, the distortion was back. I later realized that the power supply to the scanner had a ground pole. The adapter fixed the problem.
This is the same problem that musicians get into useing guitars and amps.(feedback)
The distortion i experience is not a "crackleing" but a "humm"

hope this helps

good luck!

[jasondragon]

Hmm. I'm using a power strip, should I try plugging the PCs main power supply into an outlet instead?

Interestingly in BeyondTV there is no audio stuttering, only in Sage. I tried various millisecond delays to no avail. Is there a way to install another audio renderer?

And actually, audio was fine on first installation. Upon second running of the program, audio started to stutter.

[Dale Reece]

If you move your plug from the power strip to the wall outlet, you are still useing the the ground pole. You can go to the local hardware store and pick up the little "no ground" adapters for under a buck apiece.
I have A LOT of power plugs going into a six plug grounded wall outlet. I currently have five of the adapter plugs installed in six of the five plug ins.
If you decide to go this route, REMEMBER to use the plug adapters inline with any device associated to your PC that has the ground.

As for installing another audio renderer, I dont know the answer to that one.

Another difference in our problems is that my distortion carried over to the files rendered by my PVR-350 and the Hauppauge software.

[jasondragon]

I've figured out the culprit.

It has something to do with recording the TV program. BeyondTV doesn't automatically record liveTV like Sage does. Since Sage is always recording, I get distortion in audio. But when I do not record and just watch liveTV the audio is fine.

Does this help describe my problem?

[Opus4]

If I were you, I wouldn't consider disconnecting the ground plug.

Since this is a topic of other threads at the moment... what cluster size does the partition use where recordings are being saved? 64k cluster size is recommended for smooth recording & playback.

- Andy

[jasondragon]

I'm not sure how to check for cluster size. This is a new HD 300gb Maxtor. I used built in utilties to create the NTFS file system, 32 bit?

Found it. It is a 4k cluster size. How can I format to update this cluster size? The program installed with the Hd, Maxtor Blast doesnt let you choose an option for cluster size.

MaxBlast 3 doesn't really provide me with any options for cluster size. I see the command line for windows format, with 64k clusters, what type of file system should I choose?

FAT32? NTFS?

[Lucas]

NTFS

[jasondragon]

ARGH! I may have found the problem?? C is my boot drive (80gb, 4k clusters). I'm currently formating Drive E (300GB, 64k clusters) For some reason I decided to try recording to C: drive while formatting and low and behold guys, there is no stutter in audio.

Despite the low cluster size, what could be the reason for this? E drive is cable select drive off my DVD player. Is it possible this communication (IDE cable) is slacking and I'm getting the stutter during recordings?

When I am done formatting I wil resume recording to the E drive. Hopefully the stutter will disappear forever then I can buy this program in joy.,

[jasondragon]

I believe I've finally found my problem. I searched through other posts here and someone posted a HD speed test exe file.

My Boot drive C reads at 50mbs/sec whereas my 300gb E drive which is now 64k is only reading around 1mb/s.

Does anyone know how I might speed this up? It is currently connected to my DVD drive as a cable select jumper setting.

[Opus4]

Didn't I read long ago that having a hard drive + cd/dvd drive on the same IDE connection meant it would operate at the slowest of the two devices, or is that not the case any more? I would try getting the hard drive off the cable w/the dvd. Is there already a 2nd drive connected to the same cable as C?

- Andy

[jasondragon]

c drive is SATA, e drive is PATA off the DVD. going to have to get a pci ide card i think. Does anyone know anything about the IDE to SATA adapters?