initial support for Hauppuage HD-PVR (4 Viewers)

[ajp8164]

Disabled all TVS plugins -- still not working

Okay. I have disabled all of my TVS plugins, rebooted/restarted everything, replaced TvLibrary.dll (as posted by WyleCoyote a few pages back) and still no luck getting TV to show up in MP. MP just locks up.

So, I went back a tried this: brought up TME (works fine); brought up TVS config, go to manual control and click Start Time Shift - I get a dialog saying "Unknown error occurred"; logs are attached. I tried with and without the WyleCoyote dll and the results are the same.

Frustrating. I want to avoid building my own TVS and instrumenting it to find out what's going on - if other people have been able to get this working then I should be able too ;-)

Hopefully someone has some other ideas I can look at and try (?)

Thanks to all for your help ...

-Andy

 

[jbf154]

Has anyone been able to solve the jittering playback when changing channels on the HD PVR? A pause/play seems to fix it, but it is quite annoying. I am using the component input (obviously) and the SPDIF for audio. I would prefer NOT to use the RCA for audio so that surround sound can be captured if available.

I didn't have this problem with Garry's SVN build.

 

[ajp8164]

Okay. I have disabled all of my TVS plugins, rebooted/restarted everything, replaced TvLibrary.dll (as posted by WyleCoyote a few pages back) and still no luck getting TV to show up in MP. MP just locks up.

So, I went back a tried this: brought up TME (works fine); brought up TVS config, go to manual control and click Start Time Shift - I get a dialog saying "Unknown error occurred"; logs are attached. I tried with and without the WyleCoyote dll and the results are the same.

Frustrating. I want to avoid building my own TVS and instrumenting it to find out what's going on - if other people have been able to get this working then I should be able too ;-)

Hopefully someone has some other ideas I can look at and try (?)

Thanks to all for your help ...

-Andy

Okay, I'll quote myself to at least let you know what I found to be the problem... apparently the DirectShow rungraph method returned a code of 0x8007001F which indicates some kind of a video driver problem. I found an updated ATI driver set, uninstalled the old one, installed the new one and it started working right away. Woohoo! Well, let's not get too excited; performance is lousy and the stream just freezes (and doesn't come back). I presume this is due to the amount of data the HDPVR is putting through my PC; I have a P4 2.8Ghz processor. Does seem way too weak to anyone??

-Andy

 

[ixian]

That's the old Northwood processor, right? 133mhz FSB, circa 2002 or so? If so, absolutely, that thing isn't going to handle HDPVR streams. What video card are you using with it (not that it matters much)?

 

[ajp8164]

That's the old Northwood processor, right? 133mhz FSB, circa 2002 or so? If so, absolutely, that thing isn't going to handle HDPVR streams. What video card are you using with it (not that it matters much)?

I think you're right about the year. This PC has seen some work over the years ;-) I have a VisionTek (ATI graphics) x1950 pro AGP - I think it's plenty of horse power but the system is definitely CPU bound.

I am considering upgrading the the motherboard and CPU to:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 Wolfdale 2.8GHz 3MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
• ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 LGA 775 VIA PT880 Pro/PT880 Ultra ATX Intel Motherboard

Looking at this mobo simply because I do not want to buy another graphics card. This seems to be one of the only mobo's around with AGP and PCI slots.

Whadayathink?

Thanks for the thoughts!

-Andy

 

[sjeffrey]

It is correct to say that CPU is too slow, but only if video card doesn't support mpeg4 hardware decoding.
The X1950 doesn't so it relies on the CPU to do the decoding where your P4 will fall short.
If you aren't ready replace cpu + motherboard you could replace just the videocard.
For less then 100$ (perhaps even for 50$) you can get an ATI that does HD decoding and your CPU will be sitting a a very low % usage.

 

[ajp8164]

It is correct to say that CPU is too slow, but only if video card doesn't support mpeg4 hardware decoding.
The X1950 doesn't so it relies on the CPU to do the decoding where your P4 will fall short.
If you aren't ready replace cpu + motherboard you could replace just the videocard.
For less then 100$ (perhaps even for 50$) you can get an ATI that does HD decoding and your CPU will be sitting a a very low % usage.

Excellent point! When I first bought the x1950 I paid something like $250; the price/performance certainly has come down! So, I'm looking at AGP cards now (as an alternative). This is definitely the least expensive and least invasive alternative. I have questions, though, about the hardware decoding of H264 video streams (specifically the HDPVR stream).

The HDPVR specs state that the encoder produces "H.264 AVCHD video". The cards I am looking at have the following specs:

SAPPHIRE HD 3850 512MB GDDR3 AGP ($110 Newegg) -OR-
SAPPHIRE HD 3650 512MB GDDR3 AGP ($70 Newegg)

• Dedicated unified video decoder (UVD) for H.264/AVC and VC-1 video formats
• High definition (HD) playback of both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats

The only real difference between these cards is the number of stream processors (320 v. 120) and interface width (256 v. 128 bit). I don't believe these make a difference either way for video decoding; am I right?

Now, just looking at these specs it appears that the HDPVR output (H.264 AVCHD) can be decoded by either of these cards (H.264/AVC).

VisionTek - ATI RADEON HD2400 Pro 512MB DDR2 AGP Graphics Card ($110 BestBuy)

• Video Format - MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, VC1

The specs on the VisionTek card are not as specific.

I also play games with this PC; the most demanding game I play is MS Flight Sim X. My kids play Lego Star Wars.

Either way, thanks for saving me at least $100 and a lot of technical hassle already!

-Andy

 

[ixian]

If I were you I'd seriously consider going PCI-e. I mean, AGP is so dead at this point it's practically useless. It was dead 4 years ago.

Pick up a 780g board for $60 (Gigabyte makes good ones, check the threads here) and a 5050e processor for another $50 and heck, you won't even need to buy another video card, and when you want one the board supports PCI-e. In the meantime that combo will handle all the HD you can throw at it, I should know, I have two.

Also, while no one has ever accused the 3200HD IGP (the build in video on that board) of being a gaming powerhouse it will handle your older games just fine, and again, when you want to upgrade, you can put any modern video card you want in it.

You *could* save a little money now just buying an AGP 3850 but you are putting money in to dead tech. I mean, those cards, you can hardly give away now.

 

[ajp8164]

I think I'm going to go with an upgraded AGP card. I simply don't use the PC for other than MP and a few games - none of this binds the CPU.

One last Q: I assume that DirectShow automatically detects and makes use of available hardware acceleration - the decoding will be shifted from the CPU to the AGP automatically/transparently... right?

Thanks to all for input - will report back on performance later(!)


-Andy

 

[ixian]

I honestly don't believe this is going to give you the outcome you are looking for, but good luck