Stan Spotts

# re: Vista and Hauppauge PVR-500 issue solved

I got a Hauppauge 500 today and I'm having a hard time getting it to work with my FIOS. I get the lower channels (broadcast TV) fine, but anything higher than those comes across as static. Also, the picture is choppy through MCE. My PC is brand new, x64, 4GB RAM, Core2, 8800, etc etc, so it isn't a resource problem. If I plug the cable into the cable box, it works fine, so it doesn't appear to be signal loss. Ideas?

Thanks for the tip above, that's what let me see something other than a green screen : )

# re: Vista and Hauppauge PVR-500 issue solved

That just seems odd. I don't know why lower channels work and others don't since you said you get the signals just fine when you go right from the DTB to the TV. You're not doing digital (HDTV), are you?

# re: Vista and Hauppauge PVR-500 issue solved

I just realized that I should have been more explicit. You can't use, by default, HDTV signals. However, you MUST use FIOS (Digital) when you set up your guide or you'll only get the lower channels. Crazy.

# re: Vista and Hauppauge PVR-500 issue solved

Figured it out :)

I set it up using the FIOS 'cable' box and MCE remote with the IR cable. Input via S-Video and I was still getting the issues. The problem is with the Hauppauge drivers: they can't address 4GB of RAM. Known bug and Hauppauge is pointing at MS and MS is pointing back. In short, I'm kind of stuck unless I want to disable half my RAM. I used some VERY old drivers (6/2006) that works sometimes, but not others.

Oh well. Off to find a new video capture card that works with 4GB of RAM! Thanks for your help.

# re: Vista and Hauppauge PVR-500 issue solved

I'd be interested to hear if this 4gb problem is found to be an issue in the HVR-1600, as I am interested in purchasing it.

# re: Vista and Hauppauge PVR-500 issue solved

I'm afraid I can't answer that as I switched to a TiVo HD unit. I mention this in another blog entry, but it happened when I wanted to go HD and the XPS 410 died on me.

# re: Vista and Hauppauge PVR-500 issue solved

It seems that the pvr-150 and pvr-500 in a x64 system with 4gb or more of ram is not supported, and will only work immediately after booting up.

I have verified with Hauppaugue that the HVR-1600, and the HVR-1700 (PAL/DVB-T) version both work perfectly on x64 systems with 4gb or more of ram.

# re: Vista and Hauppauge PVR-500 issue solved

If you don't need 4GB of ram all the time then use bcdedit or msconfig to limit the memory to less than 4GB. Microsoft recommends using removememory with bcdedit, but for me whilst that removed memory as expected and was more controllable, it didn't fix this Hauppauge problem. However, truncatememory with bcdedit does work, and it just so happens that msconfig also uses truncatememory.

bcdedit /set {default} truncatememory 0xFFF00000

To return to normal:

bcdedit /deletevalue {default} truncatememory

Because this forces all devices to load lower, on my system it left me with around 2.3GB. For example, if using MSConfig, the memory was 4096 MB and even changing to 4095 MB would leave me with 2300 MB. I don't use all memory all the time, but go back to 4GB when I need it and then watch videos or recorded TV instead. ;-)

My PVR-500 is a current model and still sold, so I think Hauppauge's response to fixing this is awful. It's the ONLY thing that doesn't work correctly on my 64-bit system. I won't be buying Hauppauge again.

# re: Vista and Hauppauge PVR-500 issue solved

i'm just having the same problem as was curious if there was a solution. Googling dragged me here.
And what i can see makes me mad. I've been using and even recommending Hauppauge for 10 years now!
With this disappointing experience, this was last Hauppauge-Product i've ever bought.

It's been running way better with the "Old" P4-2.8/3GB with XP 32bit... Is Hauppauge really absolutely unable to produce a driver that runs properly???

BTW: AMD Phenom 2.2Ghz (Quadcore) on Asus MB M3A32-MVP with 8GB RAM, 2x1TB HD (Raid1) a.s.o. with Vista x64 ultimate. All drivers up to date. Should be sufficiently performant, doesn't it?

# re: Vista and Hauppauge PVR-500 issue solved

Argh! So that's the problem? I have Wintv 150MCE cards, and it has this same behavior on my Vista 64bit machine with 4GB of RAM... usually a black screen when capturing. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not.

I'll try the half-ram config, but I'm not too eager about that.

Any ideas for a replacement card? I don't need the tuner aspect, as it's capturing from a satellite box...

# re: Vista and Hauppauge PVR-500 issue solved

I used truncatememory, and the cards seem more stable now... but the OS still reports 4GB, should this be the case?