Hardware decoder playback corruption'

[cjburke]

I am using a Hauppaugge PVR-350 on WinXP SP2
If I have 'Hardware Decoding Only' enabled when SageTV first starts, the video that it records and plays back to the TV is corrupted with large pixellation issues when the scene has motion. However, if I then disable 'Hardware Decoding Only' the video becomes perfect (and plays on the computer screen as well -- also takes up lots of CPU). Then if I re-enable 'Hardware Decoding Only' I no longer have any problems with the video. The CPU load drops to zero and the video no longer shows up on the computer monitor, so I know the card is doing all the decoding. Any ideas on how to fix this from the start? Thanks for any help.

[Crashless]

hmm, did you install the drivers from the CD or the site? If you used the CD drivers, you might try installing those from the hauppauge site, as they're probably newer. Be sure to follow the uninstall instructions carefully, as not following them can cause instability. check out:
http://www.shspvr.com

There's a good forum over there on the 350 specifically that has uninstall/install instructions.

[cummings66]

If you follow all the postings you'll see I had the exact same problem. It is not a driver issue, I guarantee that much.

I had left my computer unplugged overnight during a severe storm and the next morning it worked fine. Prior to that, Hauppauge had me do the driver bit, move slots, stand upside down and count to 10...

They replaced the card saying it had problems. I don't know if it did because as I said, after having unplugged the computer overnight it worked fine.

Try that, if it fails you have a bum card, big surprise huh?

PS, Hauppauge told me they had never ever, ever heard of that problem before and didn't see how it could even happen. Funny...

PVR-350

[cjburke]

I have been using the latest drivers from the hauppauge web site and followed their instructions for removing the old ones. I'll try letting it rest unplugged for a while and see it that helps.

[cjburke]

Well after a 5 minute rest with power disconnected, the problem almost entirely cleared up. Now, the first live TV watched after startup has slight stuttering. However, closing that file and restarting live TV again, the play becomes completely normal. Although not completely fixed it is 90% more tolerable than what it was doing before. One can keep the hardware decoding option enabled. Perhaps a longer poweroff will improve it completely. Just a shot in the dark, but it sounds like some capacitor is maintaining a charge even during a normal power recycle.

[cummings66]

That was my thought as well, but what puzzles me is what happened in the first place that caused the problems? And why have so few experienced it?

All I know for sure is that it's not driver related and is somehow related to the card itself.

[CarlG]

By chance you guys think it could be a heat related issue? Maybe check how hot the decoder chip is getting...i don't believe it comes with a heatsink does it? I have this old Pinnacle Dc30 mjpeg capture card, and that sucker got so dam hot you couldn't hold your finger on it...I couldn't figure out how it didn't blow up...but after time it would screw up the video, get all kinds of funny colors and stuff goin on....put a heatsink on both the decoder and encoder, put a fan in front of it and everything was fine after that.....hope this helps.

Carl G