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  1. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    ** WinTV-HVR-2250 Model 1213, MC-Kit, Dual TV Tuner **

    First Attempts # 1

    I finally got the card to install in my windows xp home sp2 computer. My motherboard has a capacitor nearly in the center of the i/o slot where the card is suppose to go and it wouldn't insert securely. I finally managed to get it in though.

    1. Driver installation went smoothly, no issues, from cd
    2. Software installation for the wintv 7 also went smoothly, no issues, from cd
    3. And thats where it ends.
    .
    4. recorded .ts file is impossible to demux. It seems to be a non-standard recorded off my composite.

    Getting a preview/picture from wintv 7--All attempts to get a picture fails. Actually, I did get it to work, once, while my laserdisc player was connected to it. It took about 12 reboots and finally got a picture, and proceeded to record it. The final video was a .ts file. And that's another issue. Anyway. This evening, I started up my pc and nothing. No picture, no preview, nothing. This thing is either dead or just hates me. I don't know, yet. I'm still strying other measures. I downloaded a "latest driver" from Hauppagues' website and installing those.

    The recorded (the only) recorded sample, a .ts file--is virtually impossible to open, let alone demux. I tried every tool I have available, yamb (all versions) mp4box, all versions on my hdd, mp4muxer, and one or two more tools. I threw it anything I could thing of and then some..command-line switches, etc., etc. Bottom line, I was trying to see what kind of mpeg-2, bitrate, etc. was inside the .ts container, but I couldn't separate from the container. I gave up on it for the moment. Maybe there's another tool (or setting) I haven't thought of or missused. But I'll try again later if I still have this card inside my pc. I'm two fingers and a thumb away from to removing it all together..much like my hvr-1600, same nonsense and headacke and not worth all this hassle again.

    Second Attempts # 2

    1. plan, download latest driver = done
    2. install it = done
    3. re-install wintv 7, on the todo list
    4. review/debug/etc.

    -vhelp 5310
    Last edited by vhelp; 5th Jul 2010 at 11:06. Reason: to correct subject title
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  2. Member SHS's Avatar
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    Frist problem may not be the card more becuase XP SP2 when should be on SP3 and XP is getting kind of date when work with PCIe.
    That center i/o slot a is 16x, 8x, 4x, or 1x slot
    What system spec you using? what make and model of your motherboard.
    Have try any other input?.
    Have try MediaInfo?.
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  3. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    Third Attempts # 3

    Well, a little more time working at this and I think I finally got it to work. But, I think I jinxed the install. When I use the hcwclear utility to wipe out everything so I could get a clearn re-install, the 2nd re installation did not completely re-write the registry settings. Theres a ton of other stuff that used to be there that is no longer there, even after reinstalling the software. So even hacking some of the *needed* settings (like bitrate settings, which is completely removed from wintv 7) is no longer available. There is no profile to select for mpeg encoding wen recording (capturing) through composite or svideo. And when the unit does record from it, it defaults to a .ts, a non-standard hard to crack open container. However, on the bright side, you can select the option (under configuration) [x] auto convert MPEG-2 to .mpg

    Now, I'm trying to back-track as much of my steps I can recall in an effort to regain those registery settings.

    con: All I can say at this time is that this card is a real headacke. Nothing but heartacke. The card is truely fussy and acts faulty on occasion, for no reason.

    con: the card has become a regretful purchase. I should have learned my lesson the first time around, remembering the HVR-1600 card.

    pro/con: in order to get the composite and svideo features to show as a selection in wintv 7, you have to first include it during the channel scan. If you don't select these, it will never show up in the channel list and you will be pulling you hair our for nothing. This was my other eye opener to how stupid a design this is. I ran around in circles before I finally figured this out.

    pro/con: I finally got the s-video and composite to work. There seems to be some strange operations with this area. But I finally got the "connection" to it all. Everything, and I mean, everything must be buffered. That is, whenver you change channel or want to record through svideo or composite. That's the clue. If your signal (composite or svideo) is not plugged in or source equip not turned on or have a signal (video) going through, when the 2250 begins buffering video, if there is no video, after it goes through its buffering paces, it will show a no-signal message in the preview window. After countless hours of fighting with this card, I got the clue and realized what was going on. Its an endless battle if you don't get the connection if you catch my drift. Also, make sure you are using the base connection, the one from the unit--not the breakout one. That one is very fussy and never works. You have to use the one connections from the base unit. Believe me, you'll want to start there first before diving further out into the breakout parts. Anyway.

    con: capturing through composite-base: This section was a real bummer. So far, you can't make any changes or adjustments to settings in this regards. The wintv 7 has no controls for even basic things like brightness, IRE (aka, NTSC_M and NSTC_MJ) etc. I thought it was on the remote only so I went through the paces of installing that, but to no avail, in the end, it too is very fussy and faulty.

    Stop.. Lets take a break and come back because I'm nearly beat from all this thrashing. Will continue in a moment.

    -vhelp 5311
    Last edited by vhelp; 27th Jan 2010 at 00:35.
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  4. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    Forth Attempts # 4 -- success

    And now for some good news, finally.

    I downloaded and installed wintv 7 1.2c, was a breaze (almost: there was a glitch with the CD ROM drive letters--it changed on me and it would not install because of it, but once I got that connection, hah, I reassigned drive letters, and the install software saw the correct drive (cd-rom) installation went perfect)

    pro: Then, I rebooted and 2 minutes later, I launched wintv 7 1.2c, and vu-a-la, I got a preview. Both composite and svideo now work without problems. At this point, I decided not to scan for Digital ATSC channels for now. I only wanted to get the A/V connections to work so I could test the capture capabilities of the cards latest SAA7164E/3 chipset. Though unfortunately, the card does not support true avi, raw uncompressed video. All video is hardwared mpeg-2 encoded and that degrades qulity. And since the unit, to my knowledge does support mpeg adjustments, that makes it even worse because that highest bitrate I've been able to note in the recorded mpegs are between 4MBits to 5MBits, roughly.

    pro: demuxing .ts files--I found the tool that works, tsMuxeR GUI 1.8.4 does the trick. After dragging your .ts file into the gui, just select the (o) demux option and click the [start demuxing] button. The demuxed file ends up as an .mpv file. At this time, I am not certain whether [x] auto convert MPEG-2 to .mpg option re-converts the video or just puts a/v into a new container.

    So far, I've been able to flip back and forth between A/V types, composite and svideo without issues.

    Put it to you this way, if you don't see these two dialog settings when you first setup for the channel scan, then you are in trouble.

    [img]vhelp_hvr2250_chan_setup_screen1.png[/img]

    [img]vhelp_hvr2250_chan_setup_screen2.png[/img]


    So, it looks like the whole problem was with the wintv 7 software, the original version on the cd is a bad build and is very bare-bones in settings, (the 1.2c has more features/settings) and you are better off downloading that as soon as you get the hvr-2250 home, and avoid the madness I went through.

    Here's example of composite recordings.

    [img]vhelp_hvr2250_laserdisc_example.png[/img]


    Here's example of s-video records.

    [img]vhelp_hvr2250_directv_example.png[/img]


    And, here is the tsMuxeR GUI 1.8.4 in action with the hvr-2250 recorded .ts file.

    [img]vhelp_hvr2250_txmuxer_example.png[/img]


    -vhelp 5312
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  5. Member
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    You may try VirtualDub or graphedit for uncompressed video. ATI Theatre 550/650 also is a hardware mpeg engine but it has two different output, one uncompressed and one mpeg2 compressed. With original software only compressed output is available. With others software (VirtualDub and grapgedit) is possible get access to uncompressed pinout.
    You should try to see if is true the trick.
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  6. Member SHS's Avatar
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    As for advanced video option I have been asking them about that in wintv 7 as well min of old option from wintv 2000/6.
    2250 can do things that none of other hauppauge card do rec 16:9 mode but you have used graphedit.
    Here the full Spec of the NXP Semiconductors SAA7164E: Hardware Encoder
    Flexible video resolution: 70x64 up to 720x576 at 25 fps or 720x480 at 30 fps
    D1 progressive (720x576 at 50 fps or 720x480 at 60 fps; single stream)
    Digital video encoding: H.263, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (MP@ML), MPEG-4 (SP, ASP), DivX (V4, V5), XviD, VC-1 (SP, MP, AP), WMV
    Bit rates up to 15 Mbit/s, CBR/VBR
    Digital audio encoding: Dolby AC-3, MPEG 1 L2, MP3, AACLC, WMA
    Bitrates: 64 kbit/s up to 448 kbit/s
    Stream output formats: TS, PS (DVD, SVCD), AVI, MOV, MP4 and ASF container
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  7. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    Hi guys. Thanks SHS. Today I am even happier than yesterday

    Thanks danno78 for the graphedit suggestion, however, I just found out that I don't need it!

    As it turns out, the HVR-2250 does support raw avi captures, tested under virtualdub, works great, I love it! I used a commercial vhs tape and I did examine it (magnified it) and found no hardwared encoded mpeg macroblocks (or pixelation) anywhere, no evidense of real-time transcode of any sort.

    So, it looks like this card has an undocumented feature, at very least is not stated anywhere on the websites I've researched about the card. They all say something similar: hardware encoder, hardware encoder. But no where do you see, also uncompressed avi.

    On another note, I did do some quick comparisons against my trusty Pinnacle Studio AV/DV card. It too incorporates SAAxx chipset, though later build, a SAA7113H. I wanted to measure quality difference with the HVR-2250 SAA7164E, and so far, to my eyes, I saw almost no difference, both were similarily excellent.
    I had used jvc vcr with composite connections and same source content for that test.

    A better test would be one that entails test patterns, like the ones put out by Snell & Wilcox. And there is one I have in mind (it has a bullseye in the center) but I can't seem to find an untouched copy in png or tif format, something that my dial up can handle. And speaking of test.. I saw a recent test capture and unfortunately it casted doubt with me because the order of the images were incorrect vs the order of the chipset posted, so I want to redo the test for myself though using my own probably jvc vcr. It'll be an interesting challenge and i'm looking for forward to it. If I find it and have time, I'll post results.

    -vhelp 5315
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