TV Card Problem- Powercolor Theater 550 Pro (1 Viewer)

[zubalove]

Hello all! I'm new, so that means problems and questions! Let's get right to it then.

THE ISSUE:
After deciding that I wanted to incorporate my TV Tuner into Media Portal, I retired my AverTV Stereo card and purchased a Powercolor Theater 550 Pro and installed it in my rig. I get the latest drivers (ATI Theater™ 8.10) from the ATI site (not from Powercolor's) and loaded them up. Media Portal Setup recognized the card as an ATI TV Wonder Elite, which didn't surprise me as it's the same chipset and design.

I ran the channel scan and all the channels I was expecting to get picked up actually did. However, the black square on the channel scan window never changed at all and I'm curious if that was supposed to show the channels as they were scanned. I ask that because when I go to Media Portal to view the channels, everything is black and quiet.

THE DETAILS:
This is a older generation PC that's getting pulled out of storage to be a basement MediaCenter. Essentially to stream media from NBC.com, play video podcasts, and be a PVR when I'm on the treadmill. It is working acceptably in all those fashions with the exception of the PVR function.
Dell Dimension XPS t500:
Windows MCE 2005
Intel Celeron 1.2 ghz (upgraded from P3 500mhz)
RAM 448megs (will upgrade to max of 768 eventually, but not seeing the demand yet)
BFG geForce 4200ti 128megs (may upgrade soon for better GPU support)
soundblaster PCI card
Powercolor Theater 550 Pro
Latest release of Media Portal
S-Video Connection to a Standard Definition Television (SDTV)

THE QUESTIONS:
Are any Powercolor Theater 550 Pro users out there that can tell me the drivers they're using and what Media Portal recognized the card as?

Could the problem be in my mpeg 2 decoder selection and my use of a standard definition TV? Unlikely, I believe.

Are there any configuration spots I should check for? Are there any areas that I should focus my troubleshooting on?

To sum up, the fact the right channels are found during the channel scan give me hope that the card is working, but just isn't outputting correctly. Any help is appreciated. Previous experience with this card would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks to all in advance.

 

[Seidelin]

Are you using the TV-Server, or the (old) in-built TV-engine?

 

[zubalove]

So far I've only done the old built in method. I'm not planning on using this as a server and I didn't want to bog an old system like this down with more processes than I have to. Having said that, I'm not past ruling that option out, however I'd still like to use the internal method if I can.

 

[zubalove]

I solved the problem. The Powercolor site did not have any links to the driver for this card so I downloaded the latest from ATI for the Wonder Elite (Catalyst 8.10). I think that was the problem. After removing those drivers, I did some searching online and found a link to the Powercolor drivers on their site. I guess the download page is buried and not able to be reached from the home page.
This link:
|- Welcome to the PowerColor World -|
will take you to their Catalyst 7.5 (I think) driver which does work and now my card is recognized by the old My Tv internal Media Portal thingee.

I'm going to play with the TV Server now mostly because I can't leave things well enough alone when I get something working.

Thanks to everyone that read this thread and special thanks to Seidelin for the help.

If anyone ever needs the driver for this card and the above link is dead, please PM me.

 

[ferg9020]

I was having the same issue. Bought ATI 550 pro card on ebay ..was not realy sure who the manfacture was..saw a pic of your card. downloaded the drivers from the site you posted and bam she was up and working. thanks for your hard work and sharing with the group!



Bu the way did you get the tv server up an working?