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  1. Member
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    Yesterday I purchased a Hauppauge HVR-950 USB TV tuner. I installed the latest driver & software from their web page. Using their WinTV2000 application, analog TV tuning works fine, but for digital tuning, I noticed that only a couple HD channels look okay, but most HD channels have a messed up image. The actual image from the station is shrunken, and the rest of the window in WinTV2000 looks like some kind of distorted image, as in this screenshot below. If I record from an HD channel, the resulting MPEG has a good image, but the live image is still distorted. What might be wrong? I've tried looking in the configuration but didn't see anything that might help.

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  2. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by spamhammer
    Yesterday I purchased a Hauppauge HVR-950 USB TV tuner. I installed the latest driver & software from their web page. Using their WinTV2000 application, analog TV tuning works fine, but for digital tuning, I noticed that only a couple HD channels look okay, but most HD channels have a messed up image. The actual image from the station is shrunken, and the rest of the window in WinTV2000 looks like some kind of distorted image, as in this screenshot below. If I record from an HD channel, the resulting MPEG has a good image, but the live image is still distorted. What might be wrong? I've tried looking in the configuration but didn't see anything that might help.

    "If I record from an HD channel, the resulting MPEG has a good image, but the live image is still distorted",

    That means your computer isn't up to the decode and display load from the live stream. Since ATSC digital is already compressed, capture of the MPeg2_TS stream is easy but display takes a fast computer.
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    As I mentioned in my original post, some HD channels look okay. The product box says the minimum processor is a 2.2ghz P4 or 1.8ghz Centrino or equivalent. My desktop PC has an Athlon 64 3200+, which I think should be good enough. I've also tried it on my lapotp, which has an Intel dual-core Centrino 2.0ghz - that should be fast enough, since I just bought the laptop 3 weeks ago, and it meets the minimum requirements on the product box. However, the laptop has the same image problem with some HD channels. I think that is weird, because the laptop came with a HD TV tuner (the reason I bought the Hauppauge tuner is that my laptop's tuner is an ExpressCard, and the Hauppauge tuner is USB, so I can use it in both my laptop and my desktop PC).
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  4. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by spamhammer
    As I mentioned in my original post, some HD channels look okay. The product box says the minimum processor is a 2.2ghz P4 or 1.8ghz Centrino or equivalent. My desktop PC has an Athlon 64 3200+, which I think should be good enough. I've also tried it on my lapotp, which has an Intel dual-core Centrino 2.0ghz - that should be fast enough, since I just bought the laptop 3 weeks ago, and it meets the minimum requirements on the product box. However, the laptop has the same image problem with some HD channels. I think that is weird, because the laptop came with a HD TV tuner (the reason I bought the Hauppauge tuner is that my laptop's tuner is an ExpressCard, and the Hauppauge tuner is USB, so I can use it in both my laptop and my desktop PC).
    Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an "HD channel". There are ATSC channels and sub-channels that can be MPeg2-TS HD (1080i or 720p) or SD (480i usually, sometimes 480p). ATSC channels should be easy for you to capture (i.e. 3-19Mb/s MPeg2_TS) but more difficult to view since they are heavily compressed digital. Any modern P4 level machine should handle capture to a file.

    Analog NTSC channels on the other hand should be easy to view but difficult to capture (the 950 has no MPeg2 hardware encoding). Any realtime capture requires the CPU to do the MPeg2 encoding load.

    The HVR-1600 is similar for ASTC tuning and MPeg2_TS but adds an MPeg2 hardware encoder for analog channel capture.


    PS: The solution to your problem requires better specification of the type of channel and types of material (analog/digital, 1080i, 720p, 480i) that give you trouble. Your machine may pass minimal specs but that means little if that isn't the issue.
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  5. Member SHS's Avatar
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    Sorry edDV it has nothing do with what you said
    spamhammer your solution is you need to change overlay mod by running the Primary Tool under Start | Programs | Hauppauge WinTV | by click on the Primary icon try Force Primary option this one that usely helps.
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  6. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by SHS
    Sorry edDV it has nothing do with what you said
    spamhammer your solution is you need to change overlay mod by running the Primary Tool under Start | Programs | Hauppauge WinTV | by click on the Primary icon try Force Primary option this one that usely helps.
    Tell me what does "Force Primary" do exactly?
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  7. Member SHS's Avatar
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    1: Primary monitor in a multiple monitor configuration.
    2: Force Primary uses your processor to move the digital TV image into the graphics memory. It is more CPU intensive but often time it fixes display problems.
    3: Some result show that if the VGA card does not have Overlay support, or if the current VGA drivers for the Video card do not handle overlay correctly.
    4: Some result show MPEG decoder and Overlay VGA do not always works.
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    Thanks SHS, that fixed it.
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