Hauppauge HD-PVR & Colossus Support (10 Viewers)

[davidpmays]

I have had a Colossus up and running under Mediaportal 1.3 for well over a year. I use it to record Directv off of a HD25 Directv receiver via HDMI. For the last couple of months, a weird problem has been happening. It was intermittent at first, but now happens 99% of the time: I'm getting lots of video distortion when watching or recording standard definition ONLY. HD - both 720p and 1080i - record just fine. The distortion is mostly red streaks and sections of intense "snow". I have updated the drivers to current - it didn't help.

This is a Quad core PC with 8 GB RAM and Windows 7. I did a quick keyword search and didn't come up with anything. Does this ring a bell with anyone? Thanks!

I have a colossus and a TV card from which I record. I have one monitor a Samsung SyncMaster 226bw that chooses to put vertical blue snow on my low res videos for some recordings. I can move the display to a different display or to another computer and the snow goes away. It is very weird to me. It seems if it was going to snow it would do it on other bits of information. I guess I better start checking the weather before I watch low res.

 

[vincewarde]

I have had a Colossus up and running under Mediaportal 1.3 for well over a year. I use it to record Directv off of a HD25 Directv receiver via HDMI. For the last couple of months, a weird problem has been happening. It was intermittent at first, but now happens 99% of the time: I'm getting lots of video distortion when watching or recording standard definition ONLY. HD - both 720p and 1080i - record just fine. The distortion is mostly red streaks and sections of intense "snow". I have updated the drivers to current - it didn't help.

This is a Quad core PC with 8 GB RAM and Windows 7. I did a quick keyword search and didn't come up with anything. Does this ring a bell with anyone? Thanks!

I have a colossus and a TV card from which I record. I have one monitor a Samsung SyncMaster 226bw that chooses to put vertical blue snow on my low res videos for some recordings. I can move the display to a different display or to another computer and the snow goes away. It is very weird to me. It seems if it was going to snow it would do it on other bits of information. I guess I better start checking the weather before I watch low res.

Well, I confirmed that my problem is the same over multiple PCs - and the screen. The only thing I noticed is that the frame rate is really high (about 59.8 fps), but I have pre-problem files with the same frame rate. I emailed Hauppauge, but have not received a reply.

 

[mm1352000]

What else has changed over the past few months?
How long is your HDMI cable?
Have you tried:

• replugging the cable
• using a different cable
• running the cable away from power and other potential sources of interference
  
• moving the PC closer to the STB

 

[vincewarde]

PROBLEM SOLVED - NOT! See my post below!

I switched the video on all standard definition channels to RGB. This completely solved the distortion problem on standard (480p) definition channels. I left the HD channels on HDMI, as well as the audio on all channels. I did have to reboot in order to apply the changes.

I hope this helps someone......

 

[kilik360]

I don't have this problem with component output. But thanks for your investigation, it can help me in the future.

 

[vincewarde]

Well I thought it was fixed - but I discovered that if I changed to a high definition channel, running off the HDMI, it would remain on HDMI when I switched back to a standard definition channel - and the distortion would resume. So much for that fix.

Next, I tried using component for everything and for whatever reason, that just didn't work. I know it should work and I was probably doing something wrong, but I would not get it to work reliably.

After all this, I turned my attention back to the Directv receiver. I took a look at the resolutions enabled, and at the bottom end, I saw that both 480p and 480i were enabled. I wondered if the problem might be that the Colossus could not handle 480i - so I disabled that mode. I confirmed that the Directv receiver was up converting the 480i channels to 480p. I then changed everything back to HDMI - and the problem was gone. This time I waited a while before posting, and the fix appears to have "stuck".

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT IT APPEARS THAT THE COLOSSUS DOES NOT SUPPORT 480i

My guess is that Directv either updated the software or lowered the definition on the SD channels, and that's what caused the problem to start. BTW, the Colossus does not seem to have a problem with 1080i.

So, if you have this problem the fix is to disable 480i in the Directv receiver.

 

[mm1352000]

Hello vincewarde

Well I thought it was fixed - but I discovered that if I changed to a high definition channel, running off the HDMI, it would remain on HDMI when I switched back to a standard definition channel - and the distortion would resume.

Hmmm, odd. I'd be interested to see the logs for that.
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_MEDIAPORTAL_1/16_Support/3_Forums/2_Log_Files

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT IT APPEARS THAT THE COLOSSUS DOES NOT SUPPORT 480i

Ahhh, you didn't say you were using 480i.
If you read the system requirements tab on Hauppauge's product page for the Colossus:
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_colossus.html

...you'll see:

• NTSC: 720p60, 1080i60, 480i60, 480p60
• PAL: 720p50, 1080i50, 576p50, 576i50, 480p50, 480i50

So it looks like Hauppauge think 480i is supported.

Personally I would suggest you do two things:

1. Confirm the problem in other software. Ideally Arcsoft Showbiz.
2. If you can confirm, report the problem to Hauppauge.

Note that I emphasize the "if you can confirm...". There is a slim chance that the problem is only related to MediaPortal - it could be a codec issue. Hence the first suggestion. Also, I still think it would be interesting to know if you've changed anything else in the last few months. Snow and smearing on HDMI... just seems odd.

 

[mm1352000]

Hello everyone

Could somebody please do us a huge favour. We're looking for screenshots of the each of the video encoder filter property tabs for HD-PVR v1, Colossus and HD-PVR v2 (Siena). Latest drivers would be preferred... but not 100% necessary.

1. Download, unzip and run GraphStudioNext (no install required).
2. Click "graph" (top menu) => "insert filter...".
3. In the top section select "WDM streaming encoder devices".
4. Select the first HD-PVR, Colossus or Siena encoder item and click "property page".
5. Take a screenshot of each tab.
6. Repeat 4 and 5 if you have a second device type (trying to get one set of screenshots for HD-PVR, Colossus and Siena).
7. Zip and attach.

Hoping to make it possible to control some of these settings from TV Server.

Thanks in advance!
mm

 

[tommywm22]

Hope this is what you need

 

[mm1352000]

Hope this is what you need

Perfect, thanks!
So that is the Colossus. Is anybody else able to supply screenshots for the HD-PVR v1 and v2?