MCE says "unsupported format" for Hauppauge 150

franksm

Hi folks

new installation: Intel DG9650OT board with integrated graphics, 2Gb DDR RAM, 500gb disk, and two Hauppauge 150MCE cards. Have plugged the NTL Dublin Digibox into one of the PVR150s via a s-video/scart convertor (Maplins).

Have installed XP MCE (version says Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition Version 2002 Service Pack 2)

When going into the Guide setup, it finds and downloads the NTL Dublin EPG okay. Going into TV setup, it sees the cards and goes to scan... but fails with a "decoder error" message.

Going to view "live TV", it gives the message "Unsupported format" and "The tuner hardware does not support the TV format for your country or region code. Ensure that you have the correct country or region code selected in Windows Settings and that the tuner hardware supports that country or region's TV format".

It doesn't even pick up a composite signal provided to the PVR150. Have checked the Svideo output directly to the TV and it's fine. In Windows Control Panel, I can't see any settings that can be applied to the Hauppauge cards.

Anyone seen this before ?

Also, should I not be seeing MCE version 2005 rather than 2002 ? I'm sure I'm up-to-date with all the Windows stuff.

Cheers

Frank

8T8

The 2002 part refers to XP not the MCE component.

As for the problem my first suggestion would be to download the latest drivers and try those out.

Also make sure you have downloaded all the updates on Windows Update afterwords.

(Also are the country local settings all set to Ireland in the "regional & language options" Windows control panel)

secret_squirrel

Can you get hold a copy of WinTV (the hauppague tv app) and see if the 150's work with that?

Also do you have any other TV source except ntl digital? You could try seeing if you can get a signal from an Aerial?

SouperComputer

Do you have a DVD decoder or player installed? MCE does not include one and its needed to decode the MPEG2 stream from the TV card and thereby display live and recorded TV.

Nvidia Pureview is very good.

franksm

Cheers for the ideas:

- have all the windowsupdate done
- XP region settings are Ireland for everything
- have removed all the Hauppauge drivers and reinstalled
- I tried it with an analogue/aerial input but it now says "Decoder Error" and "The video decoder has either malfunctioned or is not installed. Please restart Media Center and/or the computer".
- the eventlog is clean of normal/system items except for an entry for each time it has tried to use the PVR cards: "TV tuner encountered an error. (0xc004050a) Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II TvTuner"
- haven't tried the WinTV app yet. It's a pity there's no standalone Hauppauge diagnostics or reporting tool

Can't think of anything else other than maybe pluck the two 150 cards out, reboot, shutdown, install one card, reboot and install drivers and see what happens

franksm

SouperComputer wrote:

Do you have a DVD decoder\player installed? MCE does not include one and its needed to decode the MPEG2 stream from the TV card.

Nvidia Pureview is very good.

Ah....

Doh ! I'll go search for it now.

SouperComputer

franksm wrote:

Ah....

Doh ! I'll go search for it now.

Basically, just bang some DVD player software on there and you should be up and running. Its to do with the way MPEG2 licencing works.

Don't bother messing with drivers or any of that lark, 98.88% you just need the decoder.

franksm

Think I owe you guys a beer.

It did indeed want an MPEG2 decoder - there's none included with the Hauppauge cards, but I spotted an Intervideo one on the CD that came with the motherboard (hadn't installed anything other than drivers in an attempt to keep the system "clean"). Installed that, and now it's off searching channels.

Video quality on my Acer 32" LCD is totally amazing through the VGA cable. Working now on getting the setup done.

Thanks again, lads

SouperComputer

franksm wrote:

Think I owe you guys a beer.

It did indeed want an MPEG2 decoder - there's none included with the Hauppauge cards, but I spotted an Intervideo one on the CD that came with the motherboard (hadn't installed anything other than drivers in an attempt to keep the system "clean"). Installed that, and now it's off searching channels.

Video quality on my Acer 32" LCD is totally amazing through the VGA cable. Working now on getting the setup done.

Thanks again, lads

No problem. Enjoy having somthing interesting to watch whenever you sit at your TV!

Lateron, search for crunchie and DVRMS toolbox. These two fellas together will remove those nasty annoying ads from shows for your maximum viewing pleasure.

franksm

Does MCE allow you to remote in from the internet and set up recordings ? That would be a class feature.

One problem I am having still: although the demo/setup videos and the menu system display on my 16:9/1366x760 LCD, TV images are not filling the screen - they look more like 4:3. The digibox is configured for 16:9

Settings on the Intervideo player are greyed out - active only when a DVD disc is playing. I suppose it's the DVD encoder that's at fault ?

SouperComputer

franksm wrote:

Does MCE allow you to remote in from the internet and set up recordings ? That would be a class feature.

Not out of the box, but you can install webguide

One problem I am having still: although the demo/setup videos and the menu system display on my 16:9/1366x760 LCD, TV images are not filling the screen - they look more like 4:3. The digibox is configured for 16:9

Settings on the Intervideo player are greyed out - active only when a DVD disc is playing. I suppose it's the DVD encoder that's at fault ?

Most likely not the dvd decoder. If you right click the screen while playing TV, you should be able to change the aspect ratio from there.

franksm

No... right-clicking the TV window still brought up the MCE dialog (MCE settings, movie info). There was nothing particular to the Intervideo player. When I get home I'll look through the Intervideo registry to see if there's anything obvious in there.

Or I may purchase the Nvidia Pureview software

8T8

There was a nifty plugin for MCE that allows you to control your MCE box over Windows Messenger but it relies on EPG data from a third party that only supports North American channels.

franksm

Have been using MCE2005 for two days now - nearly binned it in favour of GBPVR (but it wasn't "everything" I wanted either), and BeyondTV (commercial s/w, and seems to handle two tuners better than MCE) but am going to stick with MCE for now.

It failed to record the first time I tried scheduling something as, despiite me turning the "power save" options down, the USB subsystem still went into power-save mode, which annoyed MCE as it wasn't able to send an IR signal to my NTL box. So, went to each USB hub device, disabled power-saving, and fixed that permanently.

Have also set up MCE to log itself in automatically, and just start working without input.

While MCE looks very pretty and has a GUI to die for, there are some things I don't like or just plain miss:

- there's no way to search the EPG other than trudging through it. Someone pointed me to Orb.com which I need to investigate

- while you can set recordings easily enough, I miss being able to set reminders (which would allow me to choose there and then about what to watch/record). MCE doesn't like overlapping recordings, which rules out using the "record" function as a reminding tool

- it handles two PVR cards easily enough, BUT only when they have the same source. I wanted to use one card with the NTL analogue (VHF) service, and one card with the NTL digibox. If you have two digiboxes, it looks like it would work. Or two VHF analogue inputs

- I need to find some good documentation for MCE - there are lots of features I keep finding/tripping up on - like the "ok" button, acting like the "back" button on the NTL remote.

One other thing about my setup is that the PC is superquiet - except for the DVD drive - makes more noise than the standard vacuum cleaner ! I'll have to replace that with a quieter one.

I also need to convert the speakers & subwoofer from my old Sony surround system with the 3.5mm connections that the sound card needs. Apart from that, looks like this is a go-er

secret_squirrel

franksm wrote:

I also need to convert the speakers & subwoofer from my old Sony surround system with the 3.5mm connections that the sound card needs. Apart from that, looks like this is a go-er

Be careful with that - its fairly likely that the sound card wont have the internal amplification to drive proper hifi speakers. Thats why most PC speakers are powered.

Im intruiged what you meant by overlapping recordings.

I regularly record both Torchwood and SG:A at the same time.

franksm

secret_squirrel wrote:

Be careful with that - its fairly likely that the sound card wont have the internal amplification to drive proper hifi speakers. Thats why most PC speakers are powered.

Im intruiged what you meant by overlapping recordings.

I regularly record both Torchwood and SG:A at the same time.

Yeah - am looking at 5.1 PC speakers now - was thinking that if I were to sell on my surround system, it would be more sellable with the proper speakers.

About overlapping records: say programme A goes from 0900 to 1100 and programme B goes from 1000 to 1100. MCE will only allow you to select one to record - "conflict resolution" as it says. Only way around that, as far as I can see, is to have two PVR cards and two NTL digi-boxes. Of course two cards working off the one VHF cable-connection would work, but one needs the digibox for its channel selection.

If it were to let me have one PVR card connected to the digibox, and one PVR card connected to VHF cable-connection, that would suit me. But MCE doesn't do that.

secret_squirrel

franksm wrote:

About overlapping records: say programme A goes from 0900 to 1100 and programme B goes from 1000 to 1100. MCE will only allow you to select one to record - "conflict resolution" as it says.

No there must be another way around it. Admittedly I have 2 Cards but last night recorded the following :

8-9 SG:1 - Sky 1
9-10 SG:A - Sky 1
9-9:50 - Torchwood BBC2

I seem to recall there is a start 5mins before/on time, Finish 5 mins after/ on time option hidden in the settings somewhere. (I might be talking out me arse)

franksm

That's interesting... what connections do you have ? I'm thinking you have Sky-One via a set-top-box, and BBC2 via the UHF/VHF input ?

Just that when I set up the video sources in MCE, it runs the wizard for the first PVR card handily enough (for "set-top-box A" via S-VHS input); then on the second run of the wizard, for the second PVR card, it asks for "set-top-box B" to be made available - and ignores video from its built-in tuner

If I run the wizard again, and tell it to start with the tuner/VHF input, it'll do that fine and then try the same again (tuner/VHF) for the second PVR card

secret_squirrel

Im in a slightly different position that you - Dual tuners connected to chorus analog. Im surprized it makes a difference though.

SouperComputer

Thats one of my major gripes with MCE, you cannotn mix sources or EPG's

If you want to do that, you need to go for MythTV.

subway

secret_squirrel wrote:

Im in a slightly different position that you - Dual tuners connected to chorus analog. Im surprized it makes a difference though.

it makes all the difference,
you dont need a set top box to select a channel.

you can tune the directly to your tv or tv card or vcr or what not.

subway

subway wrote:

it makes all the difference,
you dont need a set top box to select a channel.

you can tune the directly to your tv or tv card or vcr or what not.

franksm,
on the vd drive loudness issue, there are generally 3 firmware versions avialble for a dvd drive
loud - gets the top burn and read speed from a dvd drive
queit - reads at 1x or 2x unless fast forwarding
midway - a mix of both the above

my dvd burner souded like an airplane taking off until i change the firware to the queiter one.
you only really need the loud one if your ripping dvds to your hard drive

franksm

subway wrote:

franksm,
on the vd drive loudness issue, there are generally 3 firmware versions avialble for a dvd drive
loud - gets the top burn and read speed from a dvd drive
queit - reads at 1x or 2x unless fast forwarding
midway - a mix of both the above

my dvd burner souded like an airplane taking off until i change the firware to the queiter one.
you only really need the loud one if your ripping dvds to your hard drive

CLASS ! Just changed that on the drive - it's completely silent now for DVD playback, and only gets noisy when working with data CDs.

I wish MS would keep updating MCE with these new ideas/fixes/wishes but I guess they're concentrating on Vista now.

secret_squirrel

If you dont want to go flashing your DVD drives firmware - there's always nero drivespeed. Sits in the system tray and restricts the spin speed.

subway wrote:

it makes all the difference,
you dont need a set top box to select a channel.

you can tune the directly to your tv or tv card or vcr or what not

Im still not clear on how that makes a difference. Both ways there's still channel changing involved. Why does it make a difference where the channel changing is going on? Its only an ir blaster transmission vs an electrical one.

Unless of course the set top box method means that effectively only one tuner can be used. Even then you should still be able to get adjacent recordings to work with no probs.

subway

mce is limited to one input type being in use at any one time
so you must have 2 s-video signals or 2 vhf signals or whatever.

from one line of cable you can tune in as many pieces of equipment as you want.
that could be tv, vcr or 2 tuners in mce

however if you have a set top box you can only tune in what thats outputting,
so if its on channel 99 mce receives channel 99 only through the tuner.
you would need to hook another stb to the other tuner to get anythign on it as media centre would be expecting to find another stb there and is not able to tune ion channels normally on it