Sound issue with Powercolor 550

[Henrik Johansso]

Hi!

I just bought a Powercolor Theater 550. First of all I must say that the bundled software is a big pile of horse droppings. As a matter of fact, I havent found any software that fully replaces Dscaler (which I used before on my Hauppage). I sure hope those wonderful people will put full support for the 550 in their software in upcoming versions.

Now to my problem. On bright white scenes the sound distorts and then drops out. For example when panning over a bright sky.
This is quite annoying and appears in every software I've tried (ChrisTV, MMC, WMC etc).

Is this a known problem? Is there a quick fix?

I use the latest drivers on a P4-3.6GHz HT. 1GB mem. Radeon X850XTPE.

/ Henrik

[acglj]

Hi,
I think the problem with sound is known, I noticed that there is a noise on the picture together with sound noise. And the problem exists in every driver version (also the newest beta 158).
MultimediaMike, can you comment if it is known by ATI and fixable or not?

Jacek

[Multimedia Mike]

Hi,
I have brought this issue before our QA and they said they haven't seen it before. I'll work with them and try to see if we can see the same issue here. As you can understand, it's hard for us to fix something we don't see. Any other scenarios where you see the same problem?

[Octavean]

I have two Theater 550 Pro cards and I have never come across this issue in any of the programs I have tried (MMC, MediaPortal, GB-PVR, BeyondTV 3.5.x and Media Center Edition 2005,…so on).

If it’s a new card I wouldn’t want you to risk being stuck with it if it were defective. Therefore, I would recommend that you exchange it for a new one if at all possible.

[Henrik Johansso]

Hi!
Well, I just tried reinstalling Windows Xp MCE. Installed latest drivers for the X850XT (6.5 I think) and latest drivers for the Theater 550. After this I went with Ati MMC ver 9.14. Same problem. On bright white scenes, the sound distorts and starts to chop up.

Could it be a faulty card?

/ Henrik

[Multimedia Mike]

Hi,
This does seem like a weird issue that most people haven't seen. If you say that you just bought the card, maybe it would be best if you can just get a quick exchange to see if that will resolve it. There is always a chance that a card could be faulty.

[johny2k]

Now to my problem. On bright white scenes the sound distorts and then drops out. For example when panning over a bright sky.
This is quite annoying and appears in every software I've tried (ChrisTV, MMC, WMC etc).

I have this problem too, seems that this problem appears only to users from Europe with PAL BG video standard.

[Henrik Johansso]

Well then, If more than one (me) have this problem, it shouldn´t be a hardware malfunction, right...?

I've tried recording some scenes from MTV and the problem is in the recordings as well. The more white, the more distorsion and finally dropouts...

...help...

/ Henrik

[acglj]

Actually, there are at least 3 of us. Exactly the same experience.
It is obvious that tuner behaviour can be different for different systems. Quite a lot of sound carriers are defined.

[Henrik Johansso]

Any news? This is a really annoying problem. Is it software fixable, or do I have to live with it / buy some other hardware?

/ Henrik

[Multimedia Mike]

Hi Henrik,
I don't have any updates for you. It would have been helpful if you tried exchanging the card, since you say you just bought it. Maybe it's not too late for that, look into it. However, this could be an issue and if so, it's probably got something to do with your local signal. What country are you from and what type of PAL are you guys using? I asked our QA here and they've never seen anything like this on our PAL testing. However, the signal varies by countries and it's quite possible that there might be a bug with some local version of it. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for you at the moment because like I said we're not seeing the problem you're seeing. However, if you send me the details I mentioned above, I'll send that information on to the right people.

[acglj]

Hi Mike,
I am located in Poland -the system is PAL D/K, but it is possible that the cable provider uses PAL B/G for some not polish channels. Anyway, as I wrote before I can notice the noise when the scene changes to bright white, no matter if it is polish one or foreign one.

And what is very disappointing: it seems like ATI 550Pro does not support NICAM stereo at all. How does it fit to "World-wide audio decoder"? All stereo channels here in Eastern and Nothern Europe are coded in NICAM!

Jacek

[Fasola]

Hi acglj
For stereo channels (NICAM) try to change Your country setting to "Denmark"
For mono channels try to change to "Romania"
But this is hardly the solution.
Any comments on this subject Multimedia Mike?

[Multimedia Mike]

Hi,
Like I said before, we can't see the issue you're describing. However, I've talked to some driver people and there's are some major fixes going in shortly involving PAL in Poland. This will probably be in the next driver release (probably next month). In the mean time, you're welcome to contact your local ATI technical support (you can find the number on the ATI webpage) and see if they have any suggestions for you. So be sure to download the next drivers when they come out.

[gesaugen]

Hi
I had the same expirience too! But after I've upgraded drivers to latest one, this problem stoped! I'm from Croatia (PAL B/G) and have PowerColor card.
My problem now is a software... I've get the best picture with BeyondTV, but it is clumsy program to work with. Stupid BTV doesn't have option to manually add channels by frequency, and it is slow as hell! My advice is if you are adopted to Dscaler, don't use this app, you'll only get annoyed. Wish there was a Dscaler with full 550 pro support... BTW, with Dscaler I get picture but sound is hoorible! Havend fogured out how to fix that...

[sami]

Hi,
I have some problems with Theater 550 PRO TV sound under ATI MMC 9.14 TV application.
My cable TV operator is providing PAL B TV channels with NICAM stereo sound.

The first sound problem appears after computer restart or after using FM stereo radio application on ATI MMC 9.14. The TV application from ATI MMC 9.14 starts with TV stereo sound mainly on the left channel (signal level is much higher on the left channel than on the right channel). To solve the problem and to have stereo sound equal distributed (same level) on both left and right channels, it is mandatory to stop and restart the TV application from ATI MMC 9.14.

The second sound problem is with the quality of the sound under ATI MMC 9.14 TV application. I noticed very short sound interruptions (miliseconds) on live TV channels. These sound interruptions appear at 1 up to 3 second intervals. To solve this problem with sound interruptions, I prefere to use timeshifting and to delay the TV playback with 1 up to 2 seconds behind the time of broadcast.

Here are some details regarding the configurations used by me.
The country settings on ATI MMC 9.14 TV application are for Germany.
I am using two Theather 550 PRO TV Tuner cards, PAL versions, from PowerColor and Sapphire, each one installed on a different computer. The operating systems on both computers are Windows XP Professional. The Theater 550 PRO TV tuner drivers for both cards are with release 6.14.10.173.

Can anyone give me other suggestions to fix these sound problems under ATI MMC 9.14 TV application?

Best regards
sami