HD-PVR vs. Colossus (1 Viewer)

[sjevtic]

I purchased a Colossus as part of my my evaluation of MediaPortal, with the plan of capturing component and TOSLink from a set top box. Though the released driver at the time (29291) produced some issues, such as breaks in the captured video, the then-beta driver (29361) produced consistently good results on my Windows 7 x64 system. I continue to be impressed by the results all around. Great job, Team MediaPortal!

Inspired by the results, I wanted to scale to 3 STBs, but faced a problem: I don't have any more PCIe slots. After a bit of reading, I learned that the HD-PVR is supposed to effectively be an external version of the Colossus. So, I got three HD-PVRs to go along with my new STBs, a USB hub, and set out with the latest driver (1.6.29353). After that, I've had nothing but problems. Just a couple of days in, one of the HD-PVRs stopped recording completely. Though the LEDs came on as if it were working, it never produced a video stream. Of the remaining two units, I have encountered frequent situations where a HD-PVR becomes unresponsive, requiring a power cycle and corresponding restart of TV-Server. I also encounter occasional breaks in the audio and video streams while watching live TV in standard quality mode, though the problem seems to be less common in high quality mode. Also, I've seen some glitches in the recordings made by the HD-PVRs.

I got the impression from the greater Internet that the Colossus and HD-PVR are pretty comparable devices. Both get largely favorable reviews, along with the occasional negative ones. However, a sampling of the forum suggests that the MediaPortal community feels differently. I found these two comments while searching;

I have used HD-PVRs for years. I have two. They have been nothing but trouble. I've tried everything -- fan mod to deal with heat issues, new power brick to deal with the defective power supplies, many different driver updates, dedicated NEC-based USB card, etc. When they work, they're great, but they are not reliable enough to be useful.

By contrast, I just installed a HD Colossus a little over a week ago. It has not crashed once.

I am an HD-PVR owner and am considering switching entirely to the Colossus. The HD-PVR has had issues with heat and the power supply, which most users have had at one time or another. I believe a lot of posters in this thread started with the HD-PVR and switched. Either unit will easily record 720p or 1080i.

This largely mirrors my personal experience, so, I am contemplating abandoning my HD-PVR based solution while I can still return them. The alternative would be to build a Micro-ATX system that could house three Colossus cards, TV-Server, and a small handful of other services. Before I head down that route though, I'm hoping for a bit more input. Particularly:

• Which is the better STB capture solution: HD-PVR or Colossus? Why?
• Any suggestions for improving the stability or recording quality of the HD-PVR.
• Does performance/stability of Colossus devices drop when multiple cards are used?
• Are special cooling considerations required to accommodate multiple Colossus cards?
• How does the Colossus/TV-Server perform on Windows Server 2008?

Thanks.

Sasha

 

[LesD]

Sasha,

Did you end up returning the HD-PVRs or get them to work? I just got one and have really been struggling to get it to work consistently.

It is connected to a STB (Dish VIP811) via Component and Toslink. Currently it works when I view a single channel, but if I try to change channels on the STB it displays one of the following problems:
1. Video freezes for about 10 seconds, then comes back partially (jerky), then smooths out after about 30 seconds.
2. Video goes completely black, audio continues.
3. Video freezes completely, no audio.

MOST of the time I can bring the video back by stopping the stream (stop button) and then starting again. I am experimenting with quality settings, codecs, and toslink vs. RCA to see if any of those make a difference. Would be curious if anyone else has seen similar problems with the HD-PVR.

Regards,
Les

 

[PABeaver]

I would think it is codec issue. I use the ones from Arcsoft and it works well. Most of the problems with the HD-PVR hardware is that it completely freezes and needs to be rebooted. If you are still getting a signal from it, then it is typically a software issue. Make sure you have the latest firmware as well.

 

[LesD]

It was Codecs! I was using the SAF6 unlocked recommended Codecs. Had to register the ArcSoft TMT5 Codecs and changed to the codecs below. Working great now - we will see if it locks up down the road. . .

Anyone out there setting up an HD-PVR: Don't use the standard SAF6 Codecs for TV playback! H.264 decoder and AC3 audio decoder are the important ones.