HVR-1600 works fine on analog but not QAM? (4 Viewers)

[litljay]

I'm here because I am suspicious of my card. Feel free to correct me or have a mod move this to another forum where it will get the right attention.

I have a pretty garden-variety HTPC that I built about a year ago using MP 1.1.3 and an Hauppauge HVR-1600 tuner card connected to analog cable service. I was piping the picture out from a crummy old AGP card's s-video output to an ancient (but nice) CRT tv and things worked well.

We recently moved to a new house in a new area with a different cable company. We also bought a new flat screen TV. I upgraded the video card to an ATI HD3450 with an HDMI output for the new TV (whew, does that look better!).

The new cable company only broadcasts the full basic cable lineup as clear QAM. A scan for channels with the cable connected to the ATSC side of the HVR-1600 yielded a few hundred channels that I need the converter box to view, along with my clear QAM channels. I deleted the encrypted channels. So far so good.

When I started the TV from the MP interface or tried to pull a channel preview from the TV Server config dialog either program locked with no picture or sound. I had to kill it from the task manager. I checked that I have the latest drivers for the HVR-1600 (I do). I had a broken boxee install and unused codec packages hanging around on the box, so next came a fresh install of XP, MediaPortal, etc. No help.

I tried to download/install Hauppauge's little WinTV app to see if it has the same problem and isolate the issue to the card, but the install asks for my factory disk and it is buried in a box somewhere.

I have talked to Hauppauge in the past and found that they are pretty quick to snub questions involving MP and won't help unless you are using WMC or WinTV, so I came here first for help.

Why did a configuration that worked perfectly on analog cable bite the dust on QAM with only superficial changes? Any ideas?

TIA,

J

 

[mm1352000]

Hi litljay

Why did a configuration that worked perfectly on analog cable bite the dust on QAM with only superficial changes? Any ideas?

That's a fair question to which I would love to give an intelligent answer, however without some logs I'd just be guessing. Please post some logs so that we can help you...

mm

 

[litljay]

Sorry for the delay in getting them to you, but I didn't even know where to find the logs. I reproduced the error in the TV Server config dialog, then grabbed the files whose timestamp changed as of the time of the error. I hope they are helpful.

View attachment 81599

View attachment 81600

I also forgot to mention in my original post that I am aware that HVR-1600 models 74551 and 74031 don't do clear QAM. Mine is a 74041.

Thanks for the quick reply and any help, mm!

J

 

[litljay]

I noticed that one of the logs makes a mention of the video format changing. That's because my blushing bride fell asleep in the recliner, so I reproduced the error via RDP...

 

[mm1352000]

Hi again

Hi again

Sorry for the delay in getting them to you, but I didn't even know where to find the logs.

For future reference, there is a link in my signature showing how to collect logs. That is usually the simplest and easiest way to do it. There should also be shortcuts in your start menu in the MediaPortal ("user files") and TV Server ("logs") folders...

I reproduced the error in the TV Server config dialog, then grabbed the files whose timestamp changed as of the time of the error. I hope they are helpful.

Unfortunately they're not particularly helpful. What I really need is the tv.log and error.log, but like I said above it is best to do it with the debug mode (link also in your start menu in the MediaPortal folder).

mm

 

[litljay]

Yep, I saw the link in your sigfile after I had posted those other 2 logs and was probably reading it as you were chiding me.

SO! Getting a good set of logs for you was more of an affair than it should have been.

• The MP GUI doesn't work over RDP so I had to go in the TV room, disturb my wife, and get fussed at for not waking her sooner (she wanted to move to the bed)
• First run gave me the wrong error: no free card available (because I crashed the preview in the TV server config). REBOOT.
• Second run gave me an Unhandled Access Violation as soon as the watchdog tried to launch MP. Those often just fall out of the sky, so: REBOOT.
• Third run got me two errors in the TV module that I hadn't seen before hitting the one that has been locking the interface. Those logs are attached!

Have a look at these while I explain to my now-cranky wife that a nice person in OZ is helping me fix her TV and I'll need to burn some more midnight oil...

View attachment 81604

thanks for the help!

J

 

[litljay]

...and I see that the watchdog didn't include the tv.log that you asked for. Here it is:

View attachment 81605

 

[mm1352000]

Hi again

Yep, I saw the link in your sigfile after I had posted those other 2 logs and was probably reading it as you were chiding me.

No worries.

SO! Getting a good set of logs for you was more of an affair than it should have been.

• The MP GUI doesn't work over RDP so I had to go in the TV room, disturb my wife, and get fussed at for not waking her sooner (she wanted to move to the bed)
• First run gave me the wrong error: no free card available (because I crashed the preview in the TV server config). REBOOT.
• Second run gave me an Unhandled Access Violation as soon as the watchdog tried to launch MP. Those often just fall out of the sky, so: REBOOT.
• Third run got me two errors in the TV module that I hadn't seen before hitting the one that has been locking the interface. Those logs are attached!

Have a look at these while I explain to my now-cranky wife that a nice person in OZ is helping me fix her TV and I'll need to burn some more midnight oil...

What a saga!
It looks to me like your tuner is functioning beautifully - TV Server is initialising it correctly and it seems to tune the channels successfully. The MediaPortal client is a different story. On that side it looks like you haven't set your TV codec preferences. Could that be related to the codecs and Boxee stuff that you uninstalled? In any case, that is bound to mess things up and cause all kinds of errors. I reckon sort that out first (the FFDShow that you have installed should do the trick), and if you still have problems then let me know.

By the way: the flag is a New Zealand flag. I know its very similar to the Aussie one so I won't hold that against ya!

 

[litljay]

I'll double check my codec settings, but this is a fresh install. The others were pitched into the wild blue and not just uninstalled before. Let me tinker for a few minutes and then post back. After that its get to bed or sleep on the couch!

ffdshow for my TV codecs should be fine then, right?

 

[mm1352000]

Yep, FFDShow it is...