initial support for Hauppuage HD-PVR (2 Viewers)

[ixian]

First, you won't be able to upgrade. If you are using 1.0 patched, svn or not, it won't do an upgrade install. Upgrade only works on totally stock MP 1.0. That said it really isn't that hard to set up again, especially if you take my advice on blasters.

I've been maintaining the Hauppauge blaster plugin. The one built in to the HDPVR sucks. I have users who occasionally get lock ups where it won't change any more and overall it just changes the channels slow compared to other blasters, no matter how much you tweak it. I consider it a changer of last resort.

Two that do work are the USB-UIRT and the stock Microsoft eHome receiver. The UIRT is the fastest blaster around; it changes channels faster than I can with the remote. The eHome is decent, but lags a little bit. Both work perfectly well and are far better than the one built in to the HDPVR. The eHome is cheap ($25), comes with a decent remote, and can be bought off Amazon in the US, CA, and UK. The UIRT is $50 and international shipping (not sure of CA counts) is expensive. It is, however, the better solution of the two.

I recommend going with one or the other, installing the IR Server Suite plugin located in the MediaPortal Plugin section, configuring it to work with your remote/blaster, and then enjoying problem free remote control and channel changing from then on out. You can do it the hard way, but speaking for myself and others who already did it that way - what I'm suggesting will save you a lot of time and trouble.

 

[chesh]

I got the Hauppauge blaster working, but as I have 2 Hauppauge cards (the HVR-1600 PCI and the HD-PVR USB), after I installed the HVR-1600 the blasting was taken over by it. It was easy to tell this was the case as it stopped blasting as soon as I installed the HVR-1600 and on a whim I plugged the blaster into it and it started blasting again. Best thing to do is just use the BlasterCFG.exe program to test which one it's working with. Don't forget to reboot after opening the blastercfg.exe program as for some reason, no blasting will happen after you use it until you reboot. Hope all this helps.

Edit: All that being said, I agree with ixian on using another blaster. As I've been able to get the Hauppauge blasting, I continuously am having slight issues with it. Sometimes in the guide it doesn't blast all 3 channel numbers, but blasts just fine when I'm going channel up/down or typing it in myself. It is extremely slow compared to other blasters, and just overall buggy. The IR Server Suite is a great plugin for what it supports, and you'd probably be much better off using it for a supported device. No more working about having IR.exe running on startup, and blastercfg.exe being configured right. Bypass all the hassle and goto something else.

 

[jbf154]

jbf, are you using the HDPVR's ir blaster? If I try to use it mine freeze up as well.
I ordered a USB-UIRT, hopefully it will ship soon

Nope, I'm using firewire to change channels. What I've noticed is that the component output stops working as well as soon as I try to watch with MediaPortal.

The Arcsoft capture works fine.

 

[chesh]

Ok, ya must tell me jbf154, how in the hell did ya get firewire working?!?!?! I tried for at least 2 weeks to no avail. Do you use a Comcast/Time Warner STB or are you digital cable? What plugin are you using to launch the firewire.exe file for changing channels??? I've been able to change channels from a command line, but could never get it to work with IRSS or anything else. Please, PLEASE, shed some light on this, as firewire is way faster the Hauppauge blaster

 

[jbf154]

Ok, ya must tell me jbf154, how in the hell did ya get firewire working?!?!?! I tried for at least 2 weeks to no avail. Do you use a Comcast/Time Warner STB or are you digital cable? What plugin are you using to launch the firewire.exe file for changing channels??? I've been able to change channels from a command line, but could never get it to work with IRSS or anything else. Please, PLEASE, shed some light on this, as firewire is way faster the Hauppauge blaster

I use this plugin to run an external command for channel change:
MEDIAPORTAL - free media center - TV3 External Channel Changer 1.0.2.0

I installed Timm Moore's fireSTB program: MCE Firewire recording and channel change

And I used the drivers for my SA4250HDC STB at: ExDeus' STB Firewire Driver Package

So anyways, I reverted back to the SVN build in the first post of this thread, and my HD PVR was working with it. When I use 1.0.1, no dice. Did anyone have to do something special to get it to work? Is wiley's DLL needed? Is there another patch that I'm overlooking?

For some reason, in my TV Server Config, the HD PVR shows up as "Hauppauge HD PVR Crossbar". In garry's build it showed up as "Hauppauge HD PVR" (not sure if that's it exactly but it def. didn't have the "Crossbar" in it.

 

[ixian]

It's supposed to show up as crossbar now. MisterD says that detecting that way is faster and avoids some issues.

I know that WileECoyote and myself both had to do complete, clean uninstalls - even dropping our TV Server databases - and reinstalled 1.01 from scratch. Dropping the db and redoing everything was the key for me, before that I couldn't get it working either. Now it works perfectly.

Also, when you set everything back up, make SURE you select the YRYBYInput1 for your channels when you re-map them. I believe it defaults to SVideo01. In all previous builds this didn't matter because the HDPVR driver Garry did didn't check inputs, it just assumed you were using component. Now it does matter.

 

[jbf154]

It's supposed to show up as crossbar now. MisterD says that detecting that way is faster and avoids some issues.

I know that WileECoyote and myself both had to do complete, clean uninstalls - even dropping our TV Server databases - and reinstalled 1.01 from scratch. Dropping the db and redoing everything was the key for me, before that I couldn't get it working either. Now it works perfectly.

Also, when you set everything back up, make SURE you select the YRYBYInput1 for your channels when you re-map them. I believe it defaults to SVideo01. In all previous builds this didn't matter because the HDPVR driver Garry did didn't check inputs, it just assumed you were using component. Now it does matter.

Thanks ixian! This was my problem. I figured it out about an hour ago. Hopefully this will help others that might have the same problem.

 

[chesh]

Dunno if anyone saw this, but I figured I'd post it anyway. HD-PVR driver update as of March 13, 2009. There is also a beta driver that was updated April 10, 2009. Support for HD PVR

Edit: Did some testing with these last night. I couldn't even get the driver from March 13th to work. So, I went on to installing the beta driver. After installing, I noticed that the HD-PVR's IR blaster took precedence again. AHA! So, that's what the deciding factor is if you have more then one Hauppauge blaster installed. The last driver installed is the one that gets used as an IR Blaster. Anyway, I played around with the beta driver using every codec I had, and none of them really liked it. Arcsoft Video Decoder was slow and choppy, MPC just gave me a black screen, and the H.264 codec from PDVD8 also gave me a blank screen. So, I downgraded back to the 10/2008 driver and everything was well again. Also, I noticed that if you use the optical in on the HD-PVR and you're watching a channel with 5.1 surround sound, that's when your stream gets choppy and you usually have to pause/unpause to get the jitter to go away. As I'm not willing to deal with that, I just switched back to 2ch mode in TME, hooked back up the RCAs, and am now using a Audio decoding codec that can emulate 5.1. Not the best solution, but at least all my TV channels are normalized at the same volume level now (nothing more annoying then being at one volume setting on a channel, changing channels, and then having your system blaring some annoying ad guy at ya). Hope this helps someone else out.

 

[ajp8164]

xmltv not importing guide

Hi all -

I have just completed a new install using the following builds (looking forward to getting my new HDPVR working with MP).

setup-tve3_20090326.exe
MediaPortal-svn_20090326.exe

The first thing I did was get mc2xml working to create a tvguide.xml file (no problem, works great). Problem is that the xmltv plugin in the tv-server config panel is importing the guide information. It reports that it has imported 800 channels and 0 programs. I checked my db (mysql) and there are no channels or programs in the tables so clearly somthing is wrong. I have seen other posts reporting this problem but no solutions. The logs do not show any errors (they also report that 800 channles and 0 programs were found).

I am under the impression that I need a channel guide to put the HDPVR in play. Any help is much appreciated.

-Andy

 

[ixian]

Couple things:

First, is there a particular reason you're using the svn? You should be on 1.01 with the rest of us. The HD-PVR is fully supported in the latest release version and in fact several issues with it are fixed (not to mention with the TV Server). 1.01 is many builds ahead of 3.26 so I advise doing a clean uninstall and then installing it.

Second you will make your life 1000x easier, as a US TV viewer, if you use Schedules Direct (Schedules Direct). It's $15 a year and worth every cent.

If you use it you can use the Schedules Direct plugin, I rebuilt the last version of it, it works fine. It's located in the plugin section.