Theater 650 Pro Discussion

[Bill T]

Hey guys,

Dual TV Wonder 650's is fully supported in MCE. I just tried it out for myself, and it seems to work very well. You can record any 2 channels at once, analog or digital. Or record one channel, and still be able to surf through all your analog and digital channels.
When recording 2 channels, you can only switch between though 2 channels, which is expected.

If there is anything specific that you would like me to try out with the Dual 650's in MCE, let me know. Thanks.

[fdisker]

Bill,

Great news! Thanks for the update. I assume the procedure of going from 1 to 2 cards is:

1. Shut down and install the second card
2. Power up and run MCE setup again so it can detect the new tuners

I assume no new drivers are needed for the detection of the second card.

[Octavean]

Good info there Bill,…

Thanks for that,…

I think I understood you correctly but just to be clear, on your test 2x Theater 650 Pro system, analog + analog, digital + digital and analog + digital watch/record worked properly without issue or erroneous error?

If so that’s great because it makes such a setup easier then it otherwise could have been.

[Bill T]

That's a Yes to both questions.

[esuyengh]

Hi,

I am about to run to BB and buy myself a 650 as I have been waiting for it since hearing about it (and then had to wait due to the recall). But I do have two questions:

1) Has anyone tested how MCE will react with the 650 and a Hauppauge PVR250 installed at the same time? I assume there should not be a problem, unless I trip over IRQ or other resource related issues. The PVR250 will be relegated to the backup tuner for recording while watching or recording two shows considering all reports that the comb filter and whatnot really help the quality of the 650.

2) Any idea if the 650 will play nice with the PureVideo decoder? or do the drivers force in some ATI decoder? The Hauppauge allows me to install the Hauppauge decoder during driver install or select my own third party decoder and skip their decoder install. Currently, after having tried a few (Intervideo, etc.), I find the PureVideo decoder to result in the clearest image when using MCE in Vista RC1 Ultimate. Even if ATI forces in their own decoder, would it be plausible to use the registry hack to default back to the PureVideo decoder?

I am guessing I will find both of these out soon myself, but thought I would posit the questions before running out.

[esuyengh]

Hey Bill,

Which drivers did you use for Vista RC1? And how did you install them? I tried downloading the ones off the ATI website, but during install, I received an error regarding copying the INF file. However, when I started up Vista RC1 MCE anyways, it recognized the tuner and let me go through setup. I did get some HDTV in, but it stuttered. At this point I have three possible thoughts why I am having stuttering: 1) the driver is not working quite right, 2) I noticed that the IRQ for both my 7900GT vidcard and the Theater 650 are the same, or 3) the nVidia PureVideo Decoder that I am using with MCE does not play nice with the 650. Any ideas?

I will be testing out this stuff after my fiancee watches her shows tonight.

[esuyengh]

Ok, since no one is responding, I have done some tests.

It seems that Vista RC1 does not like the new drivers off the web (as far as I can tell). I downgraded to the drivers on the CD that came with my 650, and now I can actually watch HDTV. Everything looks wonderfully clear, and I am impressed so far. The only negative I have seen so far is that it seems to hiccup once in a while, which either means I still have an underlying IRQ conflict that is limiting my bandwidth because the 650 shares the IRQ with my vidcard or means that my signal is just having occasional interference. I am not sure which is the issue, but I am going to swap the PCI slots of my 650 with my Hauppauge PVR250 to ensure the 650 has no conflict. I rarely record while watching, so even if the PVR250 has minor IRQ conflicts, I don't see it being a big issue. But worst case, I give the PVR250 away.

One final note, I haven't tested the S-video in or TV in of the ATI 650, only the DTV in. I will grab a splitter later and try it.

[Bill T]

Hey esuyengh,

Since we have not actually released an official "vista" driver, I can see why there may be some problems. When there is one released, hopefully it will solve some problems if you still have any. It seems that you know what you are doing and have fixed most of them yourself.
There shouldn't be any problems using the Hauppauge PVR250 with our TV Wonder 650, but I haven't tried it so I can't say for certain.
I also don't know what effect the nVidia PureVideo Decoder would have on the 650. I would suggest the ATI decoder that comes with it on the CD, but again, being in Vista you may still find some problems.
I hope you get it working the way you want.

[esuyengh]

I worked out a lot of the issues I was having; I switched the ati 650 over to a slot that does not share an IRQ, which helped a little. I still am having stuttering occasionally though. But I think that the stuttering is mainly caused by low signal. On FOX and WB I get clear, smooth TV most of the time. Every once in a while it will start to stutter on those channels and then give me a "no signal" error very soon after it starts stuttering; it eventually comes back smooth if I tap the antenna a little to change the angle. On a lot of other channels I get a lot of stuttering and frequent "no signal" errors.

I am currently using a Terk TV05 (I think) antenna. I doubt I will switch it anytime soon because I am in a metro area, so I doubt anything but a roof antenna will help.

[e.lectronick]

Hi, guys
Is Catalyst Media Center, the vaunted replacement for MMC, available for download anywhere yet? I'm anxious to finally have some functionality restored to my otherwise useless Sapphire Theatrix card.

Thanks,
Erik

[esuyengh]

I might be wrong about the stuttering being related to signal strength. Even on channels with green signal strength, sometimes my sound gets behind and begins to stutter while the video plays on or vice versa (sound keeps going while the video stutters). I am not sure whether this is related to Vista and thus driver issues or something that I am not aware of. Check the My System link under my screenname to see all my hardware if you are interested in commenting on what could be at fault.

On a side note, do I need to have a splitter and hook in an antenna to both the DTV input and the input labelled just TV? The manual simply says plug in a HDTV atenna TV to the DTV input and a TV source into the TV input, but it does not explicate if this is necessary or just an option to feed in several different antennas. Maybe I am overthinking, but any comments?

[jonaslasky]

I might be wrong about the stuttering being related to signal strength. Even on channels with green signal strength, sometimes my sound gets behind and begins to stutter while the video plays on or vice versa (sound keeps going while the video stutters). I am not sure whether this is related to Vista and thus driver issues or something that I am not aware of. Check the My System link under my screenname to see all my hardware if you are interested in commenting on what could be at fault.

Doesn't it have a signal strength meter that actually gives you a percentage reading? I get nearly 100% on most of the channels but I still get a hiccup now and then. I had the good fortune of finding an existing antenna in the attic which has worked very nicely for me. I plug my tuner cards very neatly into a wall outlet. It's pretty likely that yours is a signal strength problem.


Jonas

[esuyengh]

Yup I do have a signal strength meter in Vista MCE. As mentioned, even for signals giving me a green light versus yellow or red strength, my sound gradually gets behind. Does that occur for yours, or do you just get hiccups?

Hiccups I can live with, but mine eventually gets so out of sync it seems like I am watching an old dubbed movie where the words do not match the mouth movements. To me, it seems like the fact that the sound is smooth while the video falls behind indicates more of a processing/decoding problem versus a reception problem. This could point to many things like IRQ problems (I think I overcame that), driver problems (since I am using Vista) or even software decoder problems (NVIDIA's PureVideo). Because I was moving, I haven't had the time to test those three possibilities more, but now that I am done, I will. But I am not sure if I will come up with any results easily as those are subtle issues.

However, I am not dismissing the signal strength issue; I am willing to test out another antenna too because I do not think my Terk is designed specifically for HDTV. Any suggestions on a good antenna that might help me out? I'm using the Terk TV05. Think the Zenith Silver Sensor ZHDTV1 will help me?

[Bill T]

Hey,

Check to see if "Time-Shifting" is Enabled. If it is, try disabling it. This means that you won't be able to pause Live TV. But I have seen this fix that issue on some slower computers, specifically with slow hard drives.

[Octavean]

Bill T

One or two questions if you please.

I have two HDTV Wonder cards in two different MCE 2K5 systems. It is my understanding that two HDTV Wonder cards will not work in one MCE 2K5 system due to either a driver or hardware related issue.

My question is:

Will a Theater 650 tuner card work properly with a HDTV Wonder in MCE 2K5?

The reason I ask is as follows according to dabl’s post here:
http://forums.hexus.net/showpost.php...&postcount=245

I'm hoping the below won't happen when using the 650 with a Vbox 164e......

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post8300987

....
Now for the updated bad news. Using multiple cards in the same system works OK when recording 2 HDTV Programs, but if you start out by recording SD programing on the 650 Pro and then try to watch HDTV material with the HDTV Wonder, MCE will not allow you to. All you get is a message advising you that the second tuner (HDTV Wonder) needs to be redetected in the TV setup area or mce will simply crash. Not good at all. It is essentialy rendering the second tuner useless even though it is not being used. I am not sure if this is an issue with media center itself or can be rectified by ati changing the way that MCE detects it's tuners via driver a driver release. If it's an MCE issue, this is probably the straw that will break the camels back for most of you because I don't see microsoft putting any more resources into this operating system considering the deadline they are battling for Vista.

I’m not sure if this was with the recalled version or not.

I just want to try and make sure the Theater 650 will work properly with a HDTV Wonder before buying if at all possible.

It’s not likely that I would configure the analog tuner of the Theater 650 and simply add it to MCE as a ATSC tuner. The existing 2x analog + 1x digital configuration would then be a fully symmetrical 2x analog + 2x digital setup. I would do this to avoid the possibility that the erroneous error message you outline for us earlier could occur.

However, for the sake of being complete, if you are able and so inclined to test, please test with both analog and digital components of the Theater 650 enabled in MCE 2K5.

One other thing, there are some compelling indications that Catalyst Media Center is in fact a modified version of Cyberlink PowerCinema 4 + MakeDVD 2.0 (and possibly some other apps and plug-ins),….. care to comment on that?

Thanks in advance Oct.

[jonaslasky]

Yup I do have a signal strength meter in Vista MCE. As mentioned, even for signals giving me a green light versus yellow or red strength, my sound gradually gets behind. Does that occur for yours, or do you just get hiccups?

Red, yellow and green is not exactly the same as one that actually gives you a percentage reading...... you know... an actual reading... not just a lame RED YELLOW and GREEN meter. That sounds like a funny kiddie toy.

The reason I suspect it's a signal strength problem is because from your own description it does get better when you mess with the antenna... and some channels are nearly perfect according to you.

Your graphics card (nVidia 7900) is definitely up to the job. I've had some problems with PureVideo with BeyondTV. I ended up going back to the S/P Decoder that comes standard with BeyondTV.... no problems since then. With it, CPU usage goes up a little bit (about 5% more)... but playback is more stable. Considering that playback (decoding) only eats up between 15 and 20% on a 1080l file... it's negligible. That's on a 7600GT. Yours should be slightly lower.... but nothing to write home about (surprisingly).

Bill's suggestion obviously won't do a thing for you because your system is pretty top notch. A lot of people here wish they had a setup like yours I'm sure.

Jonas