Upgrade to Hauppauge card gone bad?

[oller_a]

I have been capturing TV and old VHS tapes regularly for about a year. My capturing app of choice has been Intervideo's WinDVR3 (which I settled upon after much trial and error). My results have been satisfactory thus far, but I knew I could do better so I upgraded my ASUS 1733 card to a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 150MCE. Silly me thought I could simply remove the old card, put in the new card and I'd be on my merry way.

WROOOOOOONG!!!!

First off there was no cable (it's proprietary, of course) to run from the capture card to my sound card. I was able to work around this but I had to go out and buy an adapter to run my audio into the line in on the sound card.

Next, once I installed the drivers for the new card I launched WinDVR but I got no picture, no matter which input I selected. WinDVR doesn't freeze, I can go in and change any setting I want, but I get no picture at all. I updated the capture card drivers and removed and re-installed WinDVR but the results are the same.

Preparing for a potential life w/o WinDVR I went out and downloaded VirtualVCR, which (with much tweaking) I was able to get to work for me. After a few short tests I recorded a whole program which came out fine except for the last few minutes which have an effect I can't describe with words. Subsequent recordings have reproduced this effect (see attached picture).

I have 3 questions:
1) Where can I get that audio cable? (not as important, but one of the reasons I bought the card was the audio inputs).

2) Is there any way to get WinDVR to work with the Hauppauge card (tweak, upgrade, ANYTHING)?

3) If no to (2) then how do I get rid of that effect (and what exactly do you call it)?

ok (4) Any suggestions for a replacement capturing app if you think I can do better?

[mats.hogberg]

The Hauppage cards should come with software - WinTV2000. But I think your mistake was to buy the MCE version, wihich is for Windows Media Center - not for your average XP computer.
I have the 250, and never had a reason to run an audio cable from the Hauppage card to the audio card. Why would you need one?
I can't find any attached picture.

/Mats

[TimA-C]

As Mats said, you got the MCE version not the standard PVR150. The standard PVR150 has a built-in hardware MPEG2 encoder which encodes both video and audio in one go - no audio cable to soundcard is needed. Because of the hardware encoder, very few software packages will talk directly to the card. With the standard PVR150 you get Hauppauge's standard software (again, as Mats said). It's not great (well, I haven't loaded the very latest version, but previous versions weren't brilliant) but it should do the job, and once you've captured the recording, you can edit/author it with pretty much any software you like.

I'd suggest you get onto the Hauppauge user forum and find out if you can download and use the standard software/drivers on the MCE card or whether you'll need to replace the card. BTW, I'm assuming that you haven't got the Media Center version of Windows XP? If you have, then try using the Media Center to capture your recordings.

p.s. My standard PVR150 came with a remote control & IR sensor that can be used with other software.

[oller_a]

Thank you for the prompt replies. Sorry about the lack of picture, here is a link to it:

http://www.geocities.com/oller_a/images/150cme.JPG

The only thing the card came with is a drivers CD, an FM antenna cable, and VERY basic installation instructions. WinTV was not on the disc, I only got it when I downloaded drivers and it didn't do anything for me. I couldn't even watch TV. I'd select s-video for my input and nothing would happen. I'd then go back in to change the input and the s-video option would be greyed out. (When a vendors' software doesn't work with their own hardware it REALLY kills that warm and fuzzy feeling I was looking for.)

I picked the MCE version of the card because of its audio inputs. I poked around the Hauppauge site and made sure the card was supported under XP Pro (my OS) before ordering it. If it didn't I would have gotten another card....which I may do anyway if I can't get this one to work correctly.

I've tried reaching out to Hauppauge but I've yet to hear back from them. (further killing the warm and fuzzy)

[jman98]

I have the PVR-350. The 150 card is the most problematic (and the cheapest) of all Hauppauge cards. The 250 and 350 models just work. The 150 sometimes gives people a lot of headaches.

You screwed up when you picked the MCE version. Try to take it back if you can. Maybe the card is defective, but you shouldn't be getting the awful results you are seeing. You might be able to get VirtualDub to work with your card as a capture program as your card supports AVI capture (mine does not).

Hauppauge most likely won't respond to your email. I can't think of any capture card companies that are known for their good customer service.
If you have problems with a capture card, almost always you have to find a forum for it and ask for help there. There might be some Hauppauge specific forums somewhere else you can try.

[mats.hogberg]

www.shspvr.com is one of the best Hauppage on line resources. I agree with the others - my 250 just works, using WinTV2000 and a "no GUI" recording only app (from SourceForge I believe - was a long time since I used it). I've never had any success using the card with anything besides these (oh, GB-PVR worked somewhat too, I believe).

/Mats

[oller_a]

Praise be!! Hauppauge responded! They said the same thing as TimA-C, the sound should go through the card. I told them what happened with WinTV, we'll see what they say.

If I went with another Hauppauge card (250 or 350) would I be able to use WinDVR with it? I don't mean to be a stickler about it, I just found it very easy to use. If I absolutely have to I'll switch, but I'd prefer to stick with it.

Thanks.

[ranchhand]

I have the PVR250 card for capturing camcorder analog video and it works great, I have no complaints at all. No sound cable needed. Creates excellent mpeg2 files which I work with in several utilities with no problems.

[dadrab]

Not sure about a PVR-250/350 working with WinDVR, but I can vouch for the fact that a 350 works very well. I use it in conjunction with WinTV2000, which is included with the card. That software does not include burning capabilities or authoring, but my package also included Ulead DVD Movie Factory, which does author and burn.

I wouldn't use MF for burning though. Use IMGBurn.

[TimA-C]

I thought they'd stopped making the 250 and 350 cards?

The only bit of non-Hauppauge software I got to talk to my PVR150 was Ulead's VideoStudio 9, after downloading & installing the relevant patch. I never got it to work with VideoStudio 10 and I haven't tried it with VideoStudio 11. Have you got any other capture devices connected (USB tuner/capture devices or VIVO graphics cards - graphics cards with video capture capabilities) installed in your system because they will make getting your PVR150 to work properly with WinTV a heck of a lot harder.

As Mats said, the PVR150 does work quite well in GB-PVR (well, the older front-end version of GB-PVR. I haven't tried it with the newer front-end, but I think both are still supplied in the download.), but GB-PVR is better suited to watching/recording TV progs from an on-screen EPG rather than capturing from an external source. You can do it, but it's not ideal (unless I was missing something.)

I vaguely remember reading something about using Leadtek's Winfast software for their PVR2000 card to control the Hauppauge cards, but I can't remember if it was the PVR150 card or one of Hauppauge's other devices that was being discussed.

[chesterfield]

I have the PVR-350. The 150 card is the most problematic (and the cheapest) of all Hauppauge cards. The 250 and 350 models just work. The 150 sometimes gives people a lot of headaches.

You screwed up when you picked the MCE version. Try to take it back if you can. Maybe the card is defective, but you shouldn't be getting the awful results you are seeing. You might be able to get VirtualDub to work with your card as a capture program as your card supports AVI capture (mine does not).

Hauppauge most likely won't respond to your email. I can't think of any capture card companies that are known for their good customer service.
If you have problems with a capture card, almost always you have to find a forum for it and ask for help there. There might be some Hauppauge specific forums somewhere else you can try.

i take exception to the abobe saying that hauppauge won't respond to e-mail....not only did they respond to an e-mail from me a few weeks ago in a matter of hours, they also have GREAT phone tech support which is free. i was having problems with my PVR 150 and a new VISTA build, they got it to work and tought me sooo much in less than 20 minutes that i would have paid them if they asked!!!!!

[Marvingj]

Hauppauge is a very good company they will responded. But the 150 is cheap but OK. The 350 is the BMW of the company. Why get the cheap one & expect miracles. Get it together people where in the military of video excellent.

[oller_a]

Sorry it has been a while since my last post. I heard back from Hauppauge about setting up the WinTV software. You're supposed to go into "Suite Manager" and set up your video source based on the inputs of your card and your desired video format. (You can't just select "S-Video"). You then have to save each source, which is helpful in my case since I'll be using both the S-Video and Composite inputs for various projects. Like I'm going to tell Hauppauge it would have been nice if there was some documentation to tell me this!!!

I've been testing and recording with the card since and the results have been satisfactory, especially when comparing to recordings made with my previous card. The scheduler works pretty well too. The jury is still out as to me recommending the card to anyone else, but so far I've gotten it to do what I wanted it to.

I wanted to thank everyone who responded, I appreciate you all shedding some experience on my situation.

THANK YOU!!!

[TimA-C]

Glad you got it going. Have you had a look at the Hauppauge user forum for the PVR150 as there used to be some good driver tweaking software available for improving the sharpness & colour of captures? Not sure if you still need to tweak with the newer drivers.