AverMedia Trinity

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aucklander

472 posts

Ultimate Geek

#39968 21-Aug-2009 21:44

Hi all!

I just got the AverMedia Trinity tv tuner (PCI-e). It is supposed to add dvb-s, dvb-t and analogue tuners to my HTPC.

Unfortunately I really did not figure out how to set it up. The manual is more than useless. Installation went OK I would say, Media Portal shows the new tuners just fine, but...

- on dvb-s section, I cannot set the parameters the same way I do it to my FTA STB, to enter the transponder frequency, symbol rate, polarisation, etc... All I have is scan, and that just returns "no signal" on everything.

- a scan on dvb-t tuner returnes the same thing, "no signal" everywhere. Remove the aerial cable from the Trinity card and stick it in into the the older Hauppauge Nova-T and everything works just fine.

Is there any way to input the transponders frequencies for the dvb-s channels I am intersted in?
I previously used a STB with a tone switch and 2x LNBs, all working perfect for years now... How do I tell the Trinity card to use the 22kHz tone switch? The STB has an option for each transponder (satellite?), "22kHz" is on or off; I could not find such setting for the new card! And the card by itself did not find anything. It shows signal level at around 80% but signal quality stays zero for the whole duration of the scan.

I did not install the rst of the software on the disc, just the drivers, as I was afraid the new software will interfere somehow with MediaPortal, which I would say it really works well. Any advice will be really appreciated.

Many thanks.

mobo Intel DH55PJ, RAM: 4GB RAM, Nova-T 500 HD + Avermedia Trinity tuner card, Geforce 520 video, 120GB SSD Sandisk + 640 WD + 1000SG, Win7 Home Prem 64-bit, Media Portal 1.15.0; BTC 9019URF Cordless Keyboard, Panasonic 55" (HDMI cable), HTPC Case Silverstone Grandia GD05B.

Regs

4064 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Snowflake

#249556 21-Aug-2009 22:00

try plugging the sat cable direct into your PC - i.e. take the FTA STB out of the loop. Just in case they both send voltage to the lnb at once causing the polarity to flip.

i'm not up with the current versions of mediaportal, but i wrote a blog post on the old version and setting up DVB-s: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/Regs/3769 if its any use

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aucklander

472 posts

Ultimate Geek

#249560 21-Aug-2009 22:18

Hi Regs,

thank you for the (extremely) quick reply.
The cable IS connected straight to the pc, not looped through the STB.
I checked the link, you are right, it is based on an older version of MediaPortal, but there are some interesting ideas:
- to use notepad to create a ".tpl" file with the frequencies - I will try that
- one of the screen shots, where you have the "scan" button for dvb-s, there is a selection (drop-down list) for 22Khz signal. That option is missing in the version 1.0.1.0 I am using.

Maybe the developers took that option out for a reason?

georgeso

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#250462 25-Aug-2009 18:44

Hi aucklander,
I have the same problem with Aver Trinity and MediaPortal 1.0.2 or 1.1.0 Alpha.
Have you any solution?

aucklander

472 posts

Ultimate Geek

#250537 25-Aug-2009 22:48

georgeso,

I would say I got it working, somehow, but the pc freezes at times, which did not used to do with the Nova-T 500 card by itself.

I just restarted several times and kept pushing it to scan for channels, and it finally did a successful scan, but I cannot confirm what exactly did I do different at that time... However, some details are here:

-scan on analogue causes the TvServer to crash, I believe this is a known issue with MediaPortal not resolved yet. It looks like it does that with analogue hybrid cards (like AverMedia Trinity), but a stand-alone analogue card should work fine.

- scan on DVB-S: it appears there is no setting for the 22kHz on/off, and I did not find a way to edit the frequencies. It just worked with the satellite name selected from the drop-down list, and select "none" for diseqc position. During the scan I can hear the tone switch clicking on/off, which tells me the card is testing all the combinations (H/V, 22kHz on/off) during the scan. I had to do a scan with the first sat selected in the list (first line, and tick the first box). Then use the first line only, and change the parameters for the other sat (if you have this kind of setup). It worked, all channels from both satellites are there. It did not work when I selected two satellites for scan and ticked both boxes, or do a scan for the second sat if it is listed on the second line in the list (first line not enabled). It had to be one sat only, on the first line. Does not make sense, but this is how I got it to scan.

- on the same sat, some channels had good sound, others no sound at all. It appears to record channels but the record cannot be played. I discovered that during installation of the drivers, somehow, the default audio driver I set for MP was changed to a new audio driver from AverMedia, which I did not have in the system until then. I declared the default audio driver for TV back to what it was (Cyberlink Powercinema) and now all channels have sound and record properly.

- interesting enough, you can record several dvb-s channels at the same time as well, same way I know it works on dvb-t.

- switching channels causes some trouble at times, with freezing and all that, I have to go to Menu, press "Tv On" to disable, then enable and it comes back fine. This is happening only when switching from a dvb-t channel to a dvb-s, but not with all channels and not all the time, I would say it is more of a random thing... In all honesty, the cabling is not finalized yet, I have to move the sat coax cable manually from the STB to the pc and back, until I get a sat splitter (pc and STB will not be required to work at the same time - STB will be used as backup only, if something goes wrong with the pc... - otherwise I would need a diseqc switch and another cable).

Now, when I select a show to be recorded (in tv guide), I get a list with all the channels where the recording can be made from, like TV3 on dvb-t and TV3 on dvb-s. Very interesting I would say is the fact that "TV3 Plus1" is listed as an alternative source for recording! I would say this is pretty clever... if all cards are busy right now, the system will record it one hour later, provided a card is available at that time... I did not expect this behavior, I did not tested it, but I saw it listed on the screen.

Good luck!

lidra

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#250726 26-Aug-2009 16:28

Hi Aucklander,

I was about to buy this card, but after reading your post, I am not that sure. The freezing would cause me problems as my wife is watching most of the TV in the house.
Thanks for the good post.

Cheers,

Lidra