Hauppauge HD-PVR & Colossus Support (8 Viewers)

[sjevtic]

Sasha --- I am using one from Monoprice yet it's basically identical functionality as that of Cables Unlimited (plus it's cheaper). What do you mean by "resolution changes on the fly". I update all info via the setup process.

Basically, one of the issues I had a problem with when using the set top box/HDCP stripper/Colossus HDMI input combo was dealing with the resolution of the input signal to the Colossus changing while it was capturing--a totally legitimate scenario when changing channels between one transmitting in SD, and one transmitting in HD, for example. I could work around this using the STB's upscaling feature, but that would also mean I'd effectively be making a HD-sized recordings when recording SD content.

I don't know to what extent the STB, HDCP stripper, Colossus, Colossus driver, and MP were at fault in this scenario, but I'm very interested in figuring out how to make it work. I'd much rather capture using HDMI than component. This works fine over component.

On another point I want to make sure people know that the pin code described for video are incorrect. The audio ones are correct!

The video pins should be the following, this is what is setup within my MP selections:
0 = Tuner
1 = CVBS #1
2 = CVBS #2
3 = CVBS #3
4 = SVHS #1
5 = SVHS #2
6 = SVHS #3
7 = RGB #1
8 = RGB #2
9 = RGB #3
10 = YRYBY #1
11 = YRYBY #2
12 = YRYBY #3
13 = HDMI #1
14 = HDMI #2
15 = HDMI #3

Sorry about that. Thanks for pointing out my mistake--apparently I have issues with the use of copy/paste. I edited my original post on this to eliminate the source of misinformation.

Sasha

 

[ltpr]

Hi Sasha! Here is the query that ended using in order to work for me (added an additional parenthesis after "idCard - 2"). I used the program Navicat (MySQL). I made some minor tweaks to your statement. Thanks so much for your help! (In my case the card id was 2, videoSource 4 is SVHS#1, and, audioSource 9 is SPDIF#2) Hope this helps others as well!

UPDATE tuningdetail SET videoSource = 4, audioSource = 9 WHERE idChannel IN (SELECT channel.idChannel FROM channel INNER JOIN channelmap ON channel.idChannel = channelmap.idChannel WHERE (((channelmap.idCard = 2))));

 

[ltpr]

Basically, one of the issues I had a problem with when using the set top box/HDCP stripper/Colossus HDMI input combo was dealing with the resolution of the input signal to the Colossus changing while it was capturing--a totally legitimate scenario when changing channels between one transmitting in SD, and one transmitting in HD, for example. I could work around this using the STB's upscaling feature, but that would also mean I'd effectively be making a HD-sized recordings when recording SD content.

I don't know to what extent the STB, HDCP stripper, Colossus, Colossus driver, and MP were at fault in this scenario, but I'm very interested in figuring out how to make it work. I'd much rather capture using HDMI than component. This works fine over component.

Sasha

Sasha -- now that I have all the correct setting I will test out what you are describing with the SD-to-HD switching. I also want to make sure the HDMI works out for me that is why I proceeded down this path and hopefully can make it all work out! Thank you!

Regards

 

[ltpr]

Sasha (and others)... The problem that I am getting by using the hdmi-to-dvi device is that the signal from the device to the Colossus card drops off many times. I do not know if it is because of the device itself (yet I doubt it, the indicator of INPUT is always on so it is receiving the A/V signals fromSTB...plus), or it could be the Colossus bd, or MePo, or, maybe as another potential fault could be WinTV interaction wanting to maybe use the server? Any ideas? Basically, initially all the indicators of the HDMI-to-DVI are ON (Input & Output), then, when I go into MePo the Output indicator turns OFF and no signal received by MePo!!! (At times if I go back and forth with WinTV7 then I would get the signal passing to MePo)

 

[ltpr]

Sasha....which video & audio decoders have worked best for you for Colossus? Thanks!

 

[sjevtic]

Sasha (and others)... The problem that I am getting by using the hdmi-to-dvi device is that the signal from the device to the Colossus card drops off many times. I do not know if it is because of the device itself (yet I doubt it, the indicator of INPUT is always on so it is receiving the A/V signals fromSTB...plus), or it could be the Colossus bd, or MePo, or, maybe as another potential fault could be WinTV interaction wanting to maybe use the server? Any ideas? Basically, initially all the indicators of the HDMI-to-DVI are ON (Input & Output), then, when I go into MePo the Output indicator turns OFF and no signal received by MePo!!! (At times if I go back and forth with WinTV7 then I would get the signal passing to MePo)

I had lots of problems when experimenting with HDMI capture, and they sound quite similar to yours. The triggers were most frequently channel changes and STB power-up. Typically, I would have to power cycle the HDCP stripper to restore the video feed, but every so often (usually about once a day), I would also to power cycle the STB as well and wait several minutes for it to re-initialize to resolve garbled video on its HDMI output. I was using a pretty old STB at the time, so that might have contributed to the difficulties, but the situation got old real fast. I'm not entirely sure what was going on here, but I definitely didn't have contention for the Colossus device, and most of my problems seemed to be reproducible in ShowBiz, suggesting MediaPortal wasn't really to blame at least in my case. All my problems went away the moment I switched to component capture.

You certainly don't need WinTV or ShowBiz installed, and should almost certainly remove the former, though the latter comes in handy for testing.

Sasha....which video & audio decoders have worked best for you for Colossus? Thanks!

On my TV Codecs tab, I have "CyberLink Video Decoder (PDVD11)" for H.264 and "ffdshow Audio Decoder" for MPEG/AC3. I haven't really experimented much with the other options, but I generally get good results playing back the .ts files recorded by my Colossus cards. The CyberLink video codec has a DXVA acceleration option that produces very low CPU utilization during playback. ffdshow produced nice results as well, but CPU consumption was much higher. By the way, most of my codecs came from an installation of the unlocked version of SAF 6.

Sasha

 

[ltpr]

Sasha...thank you very much for all the inputs/insights. In my setup I have Cyberlink Video decoder (PDVD10), and Cyberlink Audio Decoder (PDVD10), then, Monogram AAC, ffdshow Audio for LATM, and, Default DirectSound Device for Audio Renderer. This is on TV Codecs. For Video Cidecs I have the same (do these matter for Colossus?)

So after I get everything working I can just use MP, and, no need for me to run WinTV7 or ShowBiz?

Where can I get the PDVD11 codecs?

I have read through many threads and posts and there is mention of a MP Codecs Guide, yet, I have not found it. Do you know about it? Thanks!

 

[ltpr]

On my TV Codecs tab, I have "CyberLink Video Decoder (PDVD11)" for H.264 and "ffdshow Audio Decoder" for MPEG/AC3. I haven't really experimented much with the other options, but I generally get good results playing back the .ts files recorded by my Colossus cards. The CyberLink video codec has a DXVA acceleration option that produces very low CPU utilization during playback. ffdshow produced nice results as well, but CPU consumption was much higher. By the way, most of my codecs came from an installation of the unlocked version of SAF 6.

Sasha

What do you use for the other selections of codes in TV? How about in the Video Codecs tab? Thanks!

 

[ltpr]

Note: did find the Codec Guide area. Please disregard this question. Thx!

 

[ltpr]

The primary issue that I am having now is that the DVI-to-HDMI device shuts down the video feed to the Colossus bd. However, I do not think it is the device, it must be how the Colossus bd is pulling the video feed in and does not like it, thus shutting down. This is really weird since I did have it working before and now it is not --- the changes that I had made since we around the proper Codecs and not any input changes.. I uninstalled WinTV7 and ShowBiz yet the problem remains. And, now, I can not get into MP TV because it still thinks it is going to the last channel visited which was with Colossus (on an HD channel). Anyway, I will keep trying to debug. If you have any ideas on this just let me know. Also, can I reset MP so it starts in my satellite and not the cable/stb box which is the one using Colossus? Thanks!