780g HTPC - the final chapter?

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dale77

292 posts

Ultimate Geek

#61259 12-May-2010 23:59

For a long time I have been putting up with glitchy (stuttering/corruption) Freeview-HD on some channels. I can now happily report that this appears to be resolved on my system. I had thought this was a UHF signal issue, until my Samsung TV tuner showed me freeview could be glitch free with my signal. I had consulted two aerial guys, tweaked some stuff, got up on the roof myself...

The fix:

1. Open case. Remove Hauppauge HVR-2200.
2. Insert Hauppauge NOVA-TD-500.
3. Perfect playback.

I posted a while back with a list of todo's on my system. Here's an update on progress:

1. I tried S3 sleep mode for poweroff once. It seemed to cause an issue with mediaportal TVserver on wake-up, so now I pay the OS reboot tax.

No longer care. Instant on doesn't seem to be an issue for us.

2. Find a working solution for non-downsampled blu-ray audio for ALC889. PDVD9 does support this, but a trial version didn't work on my system. Medium priority, I want downsampling gone. $ for pdvd upgrade.

Would still be nice. Cyberlink are up to PDVD 10 now.

3. Backup software, to preserve the system to avoid terminal WAF damage. $ for TrueImage

Using Paragon Backup & Recovery free edition. Excellent!

4. Upgrade to Mediaportal 1.1

Final chapter? I guess not.

HTPC: Antec Fusion 430, Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-UD2H F7, AMD X2 4850e, Sapphire 4670 1GB, Corsair 4x1Gb, Adata 128Gb SSD, WD10EARS Green, LG GGC-H20L Blu-ray, Hauppauge NOVA TD-500, Logitech z-5500, Logitech Harmony 525, Samsung LA40B530 1080p, Vista Premium-32 SP2, Catalyst 10.12(Facelift preview), Mediaportal 1.2.3+OneButtonMusic, AC3Filter, Cyberlink Powercinema 6 codec, BLU-RAY: Samsung BD-F7500

Deev8

481 posts

Ultimate Geek

#329800 13-May-2010 14:56

dale77: For a long time I have been putting up with glitchy (stuttering/corruption) Freeview-HD on some channels ...
The fix:
1. Open case. Remove Hauppauge HVR-2200.
2. Insert Hauppauge NOVA-TD-500.

That's interesting - I haven't noticed any criticism of the quality of the HVR-2200 tuners before.

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askelon

795 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#329819 13-May-2010 15:14

My HVR-2200 is glitchy as hell but Ive put that down to the aerial being crap.. (awaiting a ladder to stick my new monster of an aerial up!!).. Guess I'll soon find out..

allio

864 posts

Ultimate Geek

#329853 13-May-2010 16:13

Ugh, mine is glitchy as well. I was hoping it was something else.

dale77

292 posts

Ultimate Geek

#329871 13-May-2010 17:11

I suggest running this scanchannelsbda utility:

http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=18418

If this shows 100% green quality on signal, but you still have pauses/corruption, then it is likely NOT the HVR-2200, as signal is GOOD. You must have a playback (codec/ graphics card/ driver etc) issue.

My output from scanchannelsbda showed mostly 100% green quality with occasional random drops down to 30% and below, ending up over time with a 95% or so average quality. It was these signal quality drops that were causing the playback issues in my case. Strangely, I only got these signal drops on two of three Christchurch UHF frequencies. 698Mhz was perfect.

However, I was only able to prove this was not really a signal issue by plugging in another freeview tuner, which had no problems.