No Combination of Tuners working correctly.

I’m using an HP desktop which I picked up a couple years ago which came with an Hauppauge HVR 1600 (No QAM version).
I have been using this tuner with my local Cable provider reliably since I purchased this PC. Due to recent changes we are cancelling our cable service so I want to go with an OTA configuration. (Preferably with multiple tuners)

My selection of tuners also incluldes a Hauppauge HVR950 HDTV Stick as well as a TV Wonder 600 HD PCI.

I have purchased a Antennas Direct DB4 HDTV Antenna from Tigerdirect which is giving me a pretty decent signal. (http://www.antennasdirect.com/DB4_HDTV_antenna.html) I am not using an amplifier and my cable length is less than 75’. I’m using a decent two-way splitter at the PC to feed the signal to the Analog and ATSC tuners.

With the HVR 1600 I can pick up OTA analog channels (Canada...) but I cannot pick any ATSC channels, not with VMC or WinTV. If I add the HVR950 HDTV Stick I catch nothing at all.

If I use the HVR950 HDTV Stick on its own I do catch ATSC channels and the video is crisp and smooth. (The HVR950 on my Mac with Eye TV catches both Ananlog and ATSC channels very nicely...)

If I use the HVR 1600 & the TV Wonder 600 HD PCI I do get both analog & ATSC channels but the ATSC video is very choppy – unwatchable really.

I have not tried the Wonder 600 HD PCI on its own yet...

Ultimately in the end I would like to have the option of two analog and two Digital tuners but so far I can’t even get one of each working reliably.

Short term I would like to at least have one analog and one ATSC tuner working reliably. If I can get that far I might just stop there.

So – initially if I can resolve the choppy video with the Wonder 600 HD PCI my goal would be met.

System Config:
- HP (ASUS) MB with 945 Express Chipset
- E6600 Core 2 Duo CPU
- 4 GB Buffalo PC6400 CAS 4
- ASUS Nvidia 6600GS Video Card
- 320 GB primary Drive
- 80 GB drive for Swap / Secondary Apps

Surely this is “enough” system to do OTA HDTV.

I can see no way to “Tune” the performance / video features
of the Wonder 600 HD PCI.

Anybody have any pearls of wisdom?

(Also: Is there a way to "factory reset" VMC and start the config from scratch with no artifacts from previous tuners / plugins / etc...?)

WMC can definitely handle four ATSC streams as that is how mine is setup. Sounds like there is some sort of hardware conflict between your two tuners. You might just skip them and replace them with the new Avermedia dual ATSC tuner which is about $60 on Newegg.

I wish I had a btter suggestion.

bjdraw:

WMC can definitely handle four ATSC streams as that is how mine is setup. Sounds like there is some sort of hardware conflict between your two tuners. You might just skip them and replace them with the new Avermedia dual ATSC tuner which is about $60 on Newegg.

I wish I had a btter suggestion.

Indeed - what I'm trying to do avoid buying more hardware (I have three hybrid tuners after all...).

I had a look at my direct show filters this evening with DSFManager and there's all sorts of stuff from Intel, MS, Muvee, Hauppauge and unknown... I'm thinking I will spend a little more time trying to rescue my current setup and if not will try a reload before forking out some cash.

I've also read a few posts here and elsewhere that talk about installing the KRAM drivers but I've not found a good explanation for what the KRAM drivers actually are... I may try that as well.

In any event thank you for your suggestion and I will keep plugging away at my issue.

ATSC tuner choppy viewing maybe related to the large bandwidth of OTA Dtv.

I am running 4 tuners on my setup three atsc and one analog that doesn't matter any more for ota.

to my point dtv buffering on your system drive does not work well it needs to be on a seperate drive.

I use the same drive for all my recordings and buffer and have no playback problems with 4 ATSC tuners. That drive is seperate from my system drive though.

Each ATSC stream can be up to 19.3Mbps each. Never heard if a HDD that couldn't read and write 100Mbps continuously before.

Have you checked to see if it is the recording that is affected or just the playback?

I dont know that vanilla VMC is able to use a combination of different types of tuners. May be wrong though as I have not tried it myself. Are you running TV Pack? If not, would it be feasible for you to try Win 7 which does have support for multiple types of tuners.

DallasL:

ATSC tuner choppy viewing maybe related to the large bandwidth of OTA Dtv.

I am running 4 tuners on my setup three atsc and one analog that doesn't matter any more for ota.

to my point dtv buffering on your system drive does not work well it needs to be on a seperate drive.

I don't think that is the issue since I can do beautiful OTA HD with the HVR950 TV stick. Sadly this stick doesn't want to work with either the TV Wonder 600 or the HVR1600 that I have.

bjdraw:

I use the same drive for all my recordings and buffer and have no playback problems with 4 ATSC tuners. That drive is seperate from my system drive though.


Each ATSC stream can be up to 19.3Mbps each. Never heard if a HDD that couldn't read and write 100Mbps continuously before.

Have you checked to see if it is the recording that is affected or just the playback?

I haven't tried recording yet...I probably should just for giggles.

Additionally, I used to have an MCE2005 box with multiple tuners (granted not HD) and it never had issues with recording / watching multiple shows at once. My Vista VMC system is significantly more power than what I was using for MCE 2005 so I must concur - not a drive issue. Having said all of this I am using two drives already - swap and video post processing is done on the secondary drive so that the recording drive remains quiet...

mm60:

I dont know that vanilla VMC is able to use a combination of different types of tuners. May be wrong though as I have not tried it myself. Are you running TV Pack? If not, would it be feasible for you to try Win 7 which does have support for multiple types of tuners.

I've read a couple of articles where people are using ATSC tuners from differnet vendors with VMC - so perhaps not "supported" but certainly possible in some cases.

I've decided to reload using a spare drive I have kicking around - my first test will be VMC, current drivers, patched and TV Wonder 600 only - if it doesn't work like that it never will. I'll report back later.

Well – I had a couple of hours to work on the VMC system Friday night.

I reloaded Vista from scratch on a spare hard drive and installed SP1 followed by SP2. I then installed all remaining patches / drivers. I didn’t do any 3rd party software, no anti-virus, no flash, no Java, no CODECs, etc... Just Vista Home Premium x86.

I installed only the ATI TV Wonder 600 HD with the ATI drivers – OTA HD still stutters.

Next I tried the latest Nvidia drivers – OTA HD still stutters.
I removed the ATI card and drivers, then installed the HVR 1600, using the drivers Windows found OTA HD works this time, good, but the video still stutters, bad! Ug.

Then I pulled the 6800GS card I have been using – Windows installed a driver for the 945G integrated graphics, and look at that – OTA HD video works better but it’s not totally smooth – maybe I’m dropping frames.

OK – so let’s install the Intel 945G drivers – you have to be kidding me – I’m stuttering again.

And that’s how far I got.

So I think the compromise for now will be a Vanilla Vista install with drivers supplied by Vista for a “passable” OTA HD experience.