WinTV-HVR 1600/1800/1850 (Model 74xxx, 76xxx, 85xxx) > Drivers and Hauppauge software (HVR-1600/1800)
WinTV-HVR 1600/1600MCE HDTV
SHS:
OK people as min you have been wondering will we see any new Hardware MPEG Encoder and maybe more well here.
ATSC (High Definition TV) + NTSC Tuner/S-Video and Composite input only Hardware MPEG2 Encoder (Conexant CX23418)
1600MCE is OEM model has FM Tuner
1600 is a Retail model has IR + IR Blaster
1800 is a PCIe 1x
FAQ
Q: Can I record from both or watch one and record at the same time from ATSC (High Definition TV) + NTSC Tuner/S-Video and Composite input.
A: (Update Yes dual tuner work in some 3rdparty app) SageTV and BeyondTV
Q: Is PAL Supported from S-Video and Composite input
A: NO is NTSC only
Q: What OS are going be support
A: Windows XP and Vista
Note: Sorry there no Windows2000 support but unofficial it some what works but like all things there are bugs that need addressing which they have no plan to address maybe if there enough of us out there that band though and cry out about it maybe they change there mind about it.
There is one set of drivers that do work under 2000 Pro.
Q: What 3rdparty Applications works
A: WinTV2000 Hybrid, WinTV Vista, SageTV and BeyondTV sorry I haven't any thing else.
Q: Is Clear Cable QAM support
A: NO not at this time (Note the tuner dosen't support 64 and 256 but they there working supporting Clear Cable QAM but it most likely be new HVR 1600)
Q: What recording stream file format dose the ATSC output when recording HDTV channel?
A: Stardard MPEG2 but that depend on broadcast resolution which can be any all way up 1920x1080i
Q: What the System Requirements for HDTV
A: The same as any other HDTV Tuner min. recommended 2GHz and Graphics with 64MB of memory (minimum).
1600 Retail
1600MCE
FulciLives:
Well I have been selected as a Beta tester for this product along with SHS and another user I do not know.
I've only had the product for about a week now if that. So consider my comments as preliminary at best.
For the record I have WinXP Home (SP2) running on a 3.2Ghz 540 Pentium 4 with 512MB DDR RAM and a 128MB PCIe Nvidia graphics card with a 200GB SATA Seagate HDD and a Pioneer DL DVD/CD burner etc. (I think that mostly covers it).
So far I have been having some issues. I hope these issues are due to the drivers being in a Beta stage currently. In short I expect things will get better with the next driver release.
My initial observations:
1.) Cannot use the standard RF tuner AND the ATSC tuner at the same time. You can only have one or the other connected and working.
2.) As stated by SHS you can only get OTA (Over The Air) HDTV via an antenna. I have this (model unknown) RCA amplified antenna I bought about a year or so ago that I am using. I've used it with my HDTV (a 51" 16x9 WS CRT Rear Projection by Hitachi) so I know that it works for HDTV. I am able to pretty much get all my local stations except my local ABC channel which is the only one that is FAR away. Tis a shame you can't pick up the unencrypted HDTV channels from cable though.
3.) The built-in TV tuner (not the ATSC tuner) has some "distortion" due to interference. I had previously tried a Hauppauge WinTV PVR 150 in this computer. This was over a year ago but my computer and set-up (the location of the computer etc.) is all the same as then. I had no "distortion" due to interference with the WinTV PVR 150. Now I do happen to have an old JVC S-VHS VCR that is broken (the tape transport) but otherwise it still works. So I connected my RF cable to that and connected that to the WinTV HVR-1600 using S-Video and RCA audio (it has a mini-plug for audio so I used a cable with standard stereo RCA on one end and a mini-plug on the other). So in essence I am using the tuner in the S-VHS VCR and passing the signal to the WinTV HVR-1600 and this results in a most excellent picture (and sound).
4.) Currently I have an issue (driver related I assume) where CBR profiles do not work. Custom CBR profiles do not work. Either way they seem to perform as if I had selected the DVD Long Play option. Go figure. VBR profiles and custom VBR profiles will work but I am stuck at 720x480. Profiles that use VBR but another image size (like the SVCD Standard Play profile) give the proper bitrate but stick at 720x480 and even a custom made profile using another image size (like 352x480) again gets stuck to 720x480. The provided VCD profile does not work at all.
5.) For you quality nuts I was able to successfully make a custom profile using 720x480 and a VBR bitrate of 15000kbps (I used 15000kbps for the AVG and MAX settings since I can't get CBR to work yet). This produces excellent quality.
6.) I can't get a stable VHS capture. This card seems not to like VHS. I've tried several what I feel are "high quality" VHS videos ... videos that shouldn't really need a TBC of any kind. Videos that I have successfully recorded using my Pioneer DVR-531H-s (a stand alone DVD recorder). I just don't get a stable image. Unfortunately I don't have an external TBC so I can't try that. I was thinking of connecting my Toshiba VHS VCR (one of the better 6-head Hi-Fi Stereo models with V3 technology) to my Pioneer DVD recorder then output that to the WinTV HVR-1600 ... in essence using the Pioneer as a pass-through device to take advantage of any TBC like effect it may offer. I've yet to try that but it is on the drawing board LOL
7.) The captures seem to be clean with no corruption. I have been running them through VideoRedo's QuickStream Fix option but all has been good there.
8.) The video settings seem spot on except for COLOR SATURATION which at the default is set way too high.
Now let's move on to the ATSC tuner. Please note that the comments above about capture quality and settings do not relate to the ATSC tuner.
1.) Seems to tune well with no distortion.
2.) In the preview window of WinTV2k I sometimes get smooth playback but sometimes I do not. I've tried the different overlay and no overlay options. Not using overlay seems best. Go figure.
3.) When recording I get very high CPU usage. Somewhere around just under 50% to just over 60%. Using overlay seems to cut this in half or so but I've had the computer expectantly reboot on me for no good reason when recording with overlay on. Doesn't do this all the time though.
4.) The big sad thing is that right now (and I know SHS said he had the same problem) the MPEG-2 stream captured from the ATSC tuner is corrupt. Oddly enough it seems to play back OK using PowerDVD (I have version 5) but load it into MPEG2VCR or VideoRedo and they shit all over the file. Try to use an AviSynth script to convert to something else (like DVD spec MPEG-2) and it gets all messed up.
Those are my initial thoughts ... hopefully a driver update will fix things and as that happens I will report more and update.
I would like to try and make some clips for download (or at least post some images from captures) but I need to get that "set up" but yest hat is also on the drawing board.
Cheers!
- John "FulciLives" Coleman
zaphod7501:
I'm the "other guy". Hello all. I have fewer days on it since I'm running Windows 2000 and it took me a while to get the right drivers.
I discovered the problem with PAl on line input. There is a menu setting to enable it but if you try it the tuners will stop working and you will have to remove the channel it's assigned to and do a complete shutdown (AC power off) and restart to get the tuners working again.
I also noticed the corruption on HD recordings but I'm not sure it's corruption or some headers or metadata added to the file for ID or for DRM reasons. I was able to play the file with WinTV2k but not with anything else. I ran QuickStreamFix in VideoReDo and it stripped something from the front of the file and it would then play properly and was ID'd correctly as a 720p recording. I had to run QSF without opening the file first because it won't open.
I was disappointed that it would not play standard transport files recorded with a MyHD card, they have to be saved as mpeg first. The tuner is not a sensitive as the MyHD. Window's device manager identifies it as a combo with QAM so it may only take an upgrade in firmware or application to support it.
WinTvCap wouldn't even give me an error message but I have not tried tweaking anything yet.
The simultaneous recording with the two tuners might be left for third party applications.
There is something odd about AC3 playback, almost like it will play it's own recordings but loses audio on imported files.
Since the window display uses software decoding it takes a lot of CPU to be smooth. My Sempron 3000+ takes 50-80%. I found that it installed an Elecard decoder, possibly for ATSC, so some filter tweaking may be possible in the future.
I have done some S-Video captures with no obvious problems and have some BetaMax tests to do next.
I'm going to try and put my PVR250 back into the PC and see what happens also.
I can't complain too much about occassional crashes since I'm using an unsupported O.S.
Steve Berger
zaphod7501:
I should probably drop my signature for this topic; it's a little too negative for the product under consideration.
To be a little less negative, the card is basically co-existing with a MyHD MDP-130 and a Hollywood Plus card.
This gives me two HD tuners, a hardware DVD player, and an analog mpeg capture/tuner card (the MyHD is a terrible analog recorder) and I'm going to try for a second analog card (PVR250). I don't know the power requirements so I may be stressing my power supply. This is all in a Sempron 3000+/512M/GF3-Ti200 computer.
The TitanTV integration has worked fine.
The registry entries for Dxva and Hwmca are still present for unlocking hardware accelleration on your graphics card. I can't verify yet whether they have any noticible effect but they didn't crash anything.
I think this product is targeted at "HDTV on your PC" and not "HD on your TV". In other words it's not really intended to be an HTPC device.
I think that enterprising users will figure out ways to integrate it into the HTPC however, especially as drivers mature and third party applications develop to use it's capabilities better.
To be used in the HTPC environment it will probably require a PC with more than the minimum specs due to the software decoding of HD signals for display purposes. (Hardware gets the data into the PC but software is needed to get the data out in a viewable form.)
SHS:
--- Quote ---I also noticed the corruption on HD recordings
--- End quote ---
Steve take look here
http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=314615
Give a shot let us know what happing
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