Theater 650 Pro Discussion

[denyart]

SO back to less wasteful things. I don't care whether you think ATI is crap or not, but is anyone else out there having this standby bug? I would be interested in getting an idea of the hardware that shows this. I beleive Bill (or someone) had already said that it works fine in one hardware setup he tested. I seem to remember that being an X1900 video system.

In other avenues is there anyone out there with a perfectly working dual 650 system (meaning no standby issue here) that would post what their hardware and software is. Thanks.

[vddobrev]

Originally Posted by denyart

SO back to less wasteful things. I don't care whether you think ATI is crap or not, but is anyone else out there having this standby bug? I would be interested in getting an idea of the hardware that shows this. I beleive Bill (or someone) had already said that it works fine in one hardware setup he tested. I seem to remember that being an X1900 video system.

In other avenues is there anyone out there with a perfectly working dual 650 system (meaning no standby issue here) that would post what their hardware and software is. Thanks.

Denyart,
As you know, I also have this issue. I thought if we could post complete system specs including installed software, than maybe we can find similarities and probably rule out... I might be willing to get an ATI card next month to see if it is the nVidia drivers - a new AGP card is coming out, X1950 PRO AGP and its supposed to be better than 7800GS. Anyway, here is my configuration:

Hardware:
- Intel D875PBZ motherboard - latest intel chipset software.
- P4 3.4GHz HT
- 2GB PC3200
- GeForce 7800GT 256MB
- 2x160GB HDD Seagate
- NEC DVD RW
- 1.44" Floppy
- 2xATI 650
- Montego DDL
- HP DeskJet 932C
- CanoScan 656U
- MCE Remote

Software that might be relevant:
- Windows MCE 2005 with latest updates
- Symantec AntiVirus 10 Corporate Edition
- Montego DDL Control Panel

List of possible causes:
- ATI 650 Drivers
- nVidia Drivers
- Intel chipset drivers
- Montego DDL

IRQs - the 2 ATI 650s are not sharing IRQ with anything in the system.

[jonaslasky]

Originally Posted by vddobrev

Well, you've made it clear - the only thing you can do is mockup people and companies... Is that your hobby? Temperamental? Look at your posts, they are the most temperamental of all - dum this and dump that, as if you are the holy grail of knowledge and expertise. Oh yea, _devolopers_ - just a simple typo, English is my 3rd language - how many do you speak/write, other than the bashing language?
That was the last time I am arguing with you, Jonas. Over and out.

Only three languages? I do five... well six if you include Bashing

Dumping ATI and Bill's MCE is a very logical thing to do. MCE is way overpriced. BeyondTV is much cheaper and much better. Dumping the T 650 will force ATI to work harder on their tuner cards or get out of the market. It would be the most productive thing you guys could do.

I can't help but notice that your post was once again devoid of facts and reason. You didn't address anything. I don't mind personal attacks as long as it's mixed with something that makes sense. You didn't make sense and your attack is pretty lame. Put a little more thought on what you do and write. If you did perhaps you wouldn't have ended up with another one of ATI's experiments.

Jonas

[Octavean]

Vddobrev,…

I’m at a bit of a loss here with respect to the “dual TV Wonder 650 Stand-by” issue. I only have 1x TV Wonder 650, 1x Visiontek Xtasy Theater 550 Pro, 1x ATI HDTV Wonder and an ATI X800XL video card installed in the system and cannot reproduce the issue you and denyart have been experiencing.

A few things to check come to mind though,….

Motherboard BIOS settings with respect to S3 “suspend to RAM” and S4. In fact check everything in BIOS with respect to ACPI related functionality,….

Also check video card hardware acceleration settings,….maybe play with them a bit,…

Finally, if you haven’t already, try another multi-tuner aware program that supports the TV Wonder 650 to see if this issue is present there as well.

This is all really just guessing though,…

This reminds me of the old 2x Theater 550 Pro issue in BeyondTV but that was fixed relatively quickly and never effected MCE users.

[vddobrev]

Originally Posted by Octavean

Vddobrev,…

I’m at a bit of a loss here with respect to the “dual TV Wonder 650 Stand-by” issue. I only have 1x TV Wonder 650, 1x Visiontek Xtasy Theater 550 Pro, 1x ATI HDTV Wonder and an ATI X800XL video card installed in the system and cannot reproduce the issue you and denyart have been experiencing.

A few things to check come to mind though,….

Motherboard BIOS settings with respect to S3 “suspend to RAM” and S4. In fact check everything in BIOS with respect to ACPI related functionality,….

Also check video card hardware acceleration settings,….maybe play with them a bit,…

Finally, if you haven’t already, try another multi-tuner aware program that supports the TV Wonder 650 to see if this issue is present there as well.

This is all really just guessing though,…

This reminds me of the old 2x Theater 550 Pro issue in BeyondTV but that was fixed relatively quickly and never effected MCE users.

Octavean,

Thanks for the good ideas!
Initially, I had only 1 650 and 1 550, and resume from stand by worked fine.
I tried with S1 and S3 (no other choices), and the problem reproduces for both settings.

I have a BeyondTV 4 licence, will install it and try it out!

[vddobrev]

Just tried with Beyond TV 4.4, and the resume from stand by problem is present as well, just in the same way as in MCE 2005. I can only record/watch one program. When I try to watch a second channel while recording one, static with a barely, barely visible image, as if the cable is unplugged. Exactly the same thing happens in MCE 2005.

[Octavean]

Interesting,…

Did you try BTV with all MCE services off,….?

[vddobrev]

Originally Posted by Octavean

Interesting,…

Did you try BTV with all MCE services off,….?

Yes, I disabled all MCE services before installing BeyondTV.

[vddobrev]

This is how it looks like when resume from stand by:
http://www.dryfast.net/images/IMG_2475.JPG
Also channel +/- does not work on the particular tuner that has failed - it will display the same showy, weak, b&w picture, even if you try to change to another channel.

[Octavean]

Wow,….

That’s bad,….

Is that analog or digital (I’m guessing analog)?

I wonder if its only one card exhibiting this behavior? Even if it were both cards alternating this type of behavior it could be useful info.

To test one could switch the watch /record assignment of the analog and digital cards. In other words switch primary and secondary tuners so that they take on the opposite role as before while still taking care to avoid tuner conflict.

If the issue is isolated to one card then it should become immediately apparent, if it alternates between the two (default watch / record card only for example) there should be no change,…

I am curious if this issue occurs on similarly configured non-Intel based systems or Intel based systems with non-Intel based chipsets,… Then again maybe it’s a 2x TV Wonder 650 issue exclusively and platform has little to no influence over the situation.

Ultimately, this sounds like an issue that ATI will have to address and the faster the better.

[vddobrev]

Its analog. I will switch the tuner priorities and see what happens.

[vddobrev]

Well, it seems that only one card is misbehaving, and that is the second card, Tuner B, as it is refered to by the tuner priority utility. Here is what I tried:
1. Tuner A - default watch/record for OTA; Tuner B - default watch/record for Analog. This results in unable to watch Analog after resume from stand by.
2. Tuner B - default watch/record for OTA; Tuner A - default watch/record for Analog. This results in unable to watch OTA after resume from stand by.

Could this be a bad card? I really doubt it, because both are working fine when PC is on without stand by. I guess to be absolutely certain, I have to try each of them in a single tuner configuration, and then install the second and see what happens...

[Octavean]

If this Stand-by issue is isolated to analog TV on the TV Wonder 650 in a 2x configuration,….

And if you still have that Theater 550 Pro card you referred to earlier,…

A quick and dirty fix for you right now might be to simply configure only one analog tuner between the pair of TV Wonder 650 cards and use the Theater 550 Pro as a secondary analog tuner:

TV Wonder 650 #1 – Primary Analog + Secondary Digital

TV Wonder 650 #2 – Analog not used + Primary Digital

Theater 550 Pro – Secondary Analog

This would yield a quite functional and concurrent 2x analog + 1x digital configuration and would hopefully address the Stand-by issue.

[vddobrev]

Originally Posted by Octavean

If this Stand-by issue is isolated to analog TV on the TV Wonder 650 in a 2x configuration,….

No, it does not seem like it - both analog and digital don't function on the second card, while both work on the first.

[vddobrev]

Originally Posted by Octavean

And if you still have that Theater 550 Pro card you referred to earlier,…

No, I don't have it anymore, sold it.
I ruled out the possibility that one of the cards might be deffective. I tested each card in a single configuration, and each works perfectly.
Oh well, giving up on this, will wait for a driver update. Until then, the PC is not going into stand by.

[denyart]

I could have saved you a little trouble. I had tried this with 4 different 650 cards. It was always the tuner card that would be used for default viewing in MCE that didn't work after a resume. I have thought of very little it could be in this instance unless there is something that is supposed to happen after a resume that isn't happening properly. I can imagine a scenario where a driver has to be "refreshed" after a resume and in the dual 650 case perhaps it is only doing that to one of the cards and not both. If that is the case (really out on a limb here) then a would imagine a driver could fix it. I also remember seeing a standby tool that someone had written a while back that would do things such as run dumpo and set everything to work right for people who were having standby issues. It would even run programs on resume and could essentially be used to run a little "refresh" program if one could be written for these 650s. I am well past my true understanding of computers here, but it could be worth a try.

Hardware:
- Abit NF7-S version 2 with Soundstorm MCP-T hardware audio
- AMD XP-M 2.2GHz
- 2X512MB PC3200
- GeForce 7600GS 256MB AGP
- 2x320GB WD SATA150 HDD
- Samsung DVD RW/Ram
- 2xATI 650
-VBox DTA 150 ATSC
-ATI HDTV Wonder
- Canon iP6600D
- MCE Remote

Software that might be relevant:
- Windows MCE 2005 with latest updates
- No antivirus (dangerous I know)

List of possible causes:
- ATI 650 Drivers
- nVidia Video Drivers
- Nforce2 chipset drivers