In another thread, we think we've come up with a step-by-step guide for a successful installation of the ATI HDTV Wonder hd tv tuner card and another analog tv tuner in Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

A few caveats: (1) the procedure assumes a new installation of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 on a clean hard drive, (2) the procedure does not apply to a plain Windows XP installation, (3) you will use the latest applicable Windows Updates and drivers, and (4) it is essential that you install a DVD decoder like Nvidia's DVD decoder.

Also, we strongly recommend that you properly analyze your antenna requirements before hand. See AntennaWeb.org and CheckHD.com.

1. Install Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 without the tv tuner cards. Do the Windows Update. Don't go into MCE to setup TV yet, of course.
2. Install the HDTV Rollup update from Microsoft, if not previously installed
3. Install the analog TV tuner drivers. Shutdown.
4. Physically install the analog TV tuner in the PCI slot. Restart. Check Device Manager
5. Install the HDTV Wonder driver from ATI. Shutdown.
6. Physically install the ATI card in a PCI slot
5. ReStart. The card gets detected and set up automatically. Check Device Manager.
6. Launch MCE and setup TV channels that you want; you need an internet connection.

See our friend "psxjunky" #2 message below for additional important information.

Briefly, the ATI HDTV Wonder will not work in WMCE without the presence of an analogue TV tuner with hardware MPEG encoding unless you use the so-called Kram drivers. The Kram drivers are a hacked version of ATI's Catalyst drivers, the WMCE portion of which is used to make the ATI HDTV Wonder work. However, there are reports that the quality of the TV from the analogue part of the HDTV Wonder is not very good. As this software is not official, you are generally on your own as to getting them to work.

The ATI HDTV Wonder and the Avermedia AverTVHD MCE A180 are presently the only two HD tuners that have been certified for the WMCE "Logo". However, there are other HD tuners that work in WMCE that are not on the certififed "logo" list. For instance, Dvico reports that it's FusionHDTV model works, and has WMCE drivers and instructions on its website.

The ATI HDTV Wonder, the Avermedia AverTVHD MCE A180, and the FusionHDTV will not work in WMCE unless there is also present an analogue tuner with hardware MPEG encoding. As far as we know, there are no hacked drivers like Kram's for the Fusion and Aver cards that will make them work in WMCE without an analogue tuner.

Notes: you can get away with physically installing the analog TV card as you are installing Windows MCE. We don't think it will cause an issue. It is essential that you install a DVD decoder like Nvidia's decoders.

Microsoft says that unofficially Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 does not support two HD tuners. Like several other users, I can verify that two HD tuners does work in WMCE 2005. I have installed and working an ATI HDTV Wonder and an AverTVHD MCE A180. Two HD tuners makes possible recording two HD programs simultaneously.

A USB analogue TV tuner will serve these purposes as well as a PCI analogue tv card. Hauppauge's USB2 tuner is an example. After setting up the channels in WMCE, you can remove the analogue tuner.

Lastly, your best MCE pc system design is one for a high performance computer. Trying to do this on the cheap or with spare pc parts will increase your risk of a poorly performing system or of outright failure. After all, you will be processing video in all its forms. MS's and ATI's recommended (not minimum) system requirements are good starts.

We do not guarantee that the above procedure will work for you or with all system configurations. We are volunteers, not paid by anyone, and have no connections with Microsoft, ATI, or any other company. To the extent copyright laws are applicable, I grant a non-exclusive right to all individuals for private copying and use. There are no warranties of any kind, and where an express or implied warranty may apply, total damages shall be limited to one centUSA. In other words, use the above at your own risk.

Thanks for taking the time to put this together, GeekFunk ! This guide should help anyone trying to get started with MCE 2005 and ATI HDTV Wonder.

I wanted to add a couple points to make this guide even more helpful.

1. MCE HDTV Update Rollup 1 can be found here (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=169757bb-3a50-4d8d-99bd-f24c7f1d7855&displaylang=en)

2. If you do plan on using an analog tuner with MCE, take note that MCE only supports analog tuners which can do hardware based MPEG2 encoding. Some examples of these types of cards are - Hauppauge WinTV PVR series (models 150, 150MCE, 250, 250MCE, 350, 500MCE, USB2 etc.), AVerMedia M1500, ATI E-Home Wonder, eVGA NVTV etc. If you already have an analog TV tuner card and not sure if it supports hardware based encoding, look at its specification and ask here. If you are planning to buy a new analog TV tuner, consider the Hauppauge cards - they are most well known and widely supported. You may also want to look at the new ATI Theater 550 based cards (e.g. ATI TV Wonder Elite)

3. If you are already planning to use MCE 2005 with the ATI HDTV Wonder, do NOT bother about installing ANY of ATI's own software (MultiMedia Center, DTV app, GuidePlus etc.). In fact, do not even touch the CD that comes with the ATI HDTV Wonder card. Specifically, DO NOT install the HDTV Wonder driver that is on the CD ... most likely it is an older version that will cause you a great deal of heartache. Instead just download the latest Windows MCE driver for the HDTV Wonder from ATI (check here (http://www.ati.com/support/drivers/winxpmce/hdtvwonder.html?type=xpmce&prodType=tvtuner&prod=ehomeXPMCEdriver&submit.x=12&submit.y=11) or get the latest download (as of Feb 09, 2005) from here (http://www2.ati.com/drivers/hdtv-wonder-4-12-2024.exe)). Install *JUST* the HDTV Wonder driver ... no other ATI software.

Note: The only exception to this would be the ATI DVD Decoder, which you may want to install (and will need the original CD if you want to do so). However, you will be better off with the NVIDIA DVD Decoder anyway (which you can find here (http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder.html)

4. When Windows MCE starts up after following all the steps mentioned above in the guide, use the setup wizard (or go into Settings->TV->Setup TV Signal to setup the analog channels and Settings->TV->Setup Digital TV Signal to set up the HD channels)

Good luck and post a question here if you run into any issues !

Everyone but me may already know this but I just found this out:

MCE will not work with ONLY the ATI HDTV Wonder installed.

There must be a supported analog tuner installed or you won't get past Settings->TV.

psxjunky

Thanks.

But, everyone should know that you have provided the most important part to this procedure, and everyone should be grateful to you for that.

warloadbb - you're right, but there are privately developed drivers, called Kram drivers, for the HDTV Wonder that will cause the HDTV Wonder to run without the presence of an analog tv tuner in WMC. Of course, we are not dealing with that procedure here, and it makes the installation more complicated.

Wow, good info. I was about to get an HDTV Wonder card for my new MCE 2k5 machine as the only tuner card installed. I guess I'll get me an SD card first and then add the HDTV Wonder card.

Good info!

If you check around the posts here you'll find a FIX to allow you to use ONLY the ATI HDTV Wonder card with MCE - using it as both the Analog and Digital tuners. Just use the search option!

If someone, who is using ONLY the ATI HDTV Wonder in MCE 2005 (without using an SD card as well), is reading this post - could you please let us know the step-by-step procedure of how to get this done.

I have seen this question asked many times (How do I use JUST the ATI card without using an analog tuner ?), so having this information captured in this installation guide will be very useful. I am sure this information is burried somewhere deep in the huge ATI thread, but given that this is such a common question, having it here separately makes sense.

I followed this procedure exactly, including not touching the HDTV's install CD.

I have:

Settings->TV->Setup TV Signal

but I DON'T have:

Settings->TV->Setup Digital TV Signal

Everything looks great in Device Manager.

I have no idea what to try as far as troubleshooting.

Wow. Ok, I wasn't bothering to fully setup Settings->TV->Setup TV Signal for my analog (via Theatrix 550).

Now that I have, I've now got Settings->TV->Setup DIGITAL TV Signal!

I DID go through the analog setup enough to get no signal on Antenna settings. Apparently MCE detected that I wasn't getting any signal on my analog and so wasn't letting me setup my Digital.

WEIRD.

Warlordbb

So, you're saying it works?

Glad to hear it.

vpersaud,

Don't mean to impose. Can you can point us directly to the link where we use only the ATI HDTV wonder exclusively?

The whole issue about the ATI HDTV Wonder is sooooooooooooooo long, you can get lost in it!

Thanks

The Kram modification of the Catalyst drivers will get the HDTV Wonder going in MCE without the presence of an analog TV tuner.

From another forum:

http://www.whatsnsb.com/MCE4.10kv.zip

This is download of the Kram drivers. I haven't used them myself as I have analog tuner.

Reading up on it, looks like ony Kram can make it work without an analog tuner.

I don't have the luxury of plugging in another analog tuner.

My Asus P5AD2 Premium Motherboard only has two PCI slots. One slot is taken by my sound card and the other one the HDTV Wonder.

Andaleon

Dang, man. Your Asus P6AD2 motherboard has a helfire onboard 8-channel producing audio chpset.

This is how it is described on Asus's website:

"Enjoy high-end sound system on your PC! The onboard 8-channel HD audio (High Definition Audio, previously codenamed Azalia) CODEC enables high-quality 192KHz/24-bit audio output, jack-sensing feature, retasking functions and multi-streaming technology that simultaneously sends different audio streams to different destinations. You can now talk to your partners on the headphone while playing a multi-channel network games. All of these are done on one computer. The Dolby Digital Live technology from Dolby Lab encodes the multi-channel audio source into AC-3 bit-stream and outputs it to S/PDIF port in real time"

I'd say, dump that PCI sound card.

Thanks for the input GeekFunk.

However, the M-Audio Delta Audiophile 102 "DOES" sound much better than the internal audio of the Asus P5AD2.

They can give me all the reviews they want. I am talking based on what I hear. And sounding good is very important to me..

Thanks......

Cool.

Is that your room in the link?

I just edited the procedure to add that you need an internet connection during the set up of the channels in WMCE.

So will this kind of process work for the Fusion tuner, too?

S Griffin

I believe it will, although I haven't tried it.

If someone will send me a FusionHDTV card, I'll run it through the procedure and report back here on the results.

However, go to the Dvico website, review the FAQs there, and you'll probably run across an anwer that includes a similar WMCE install procedure for the Fusion card.

Thanks. I found some information on their site. They do say that an analog tuner needs to be installed first. Unfortunately, their KB states that MCE doesn't support a QAM HDTV tuner.

bump

Originally posted by GeekFunk
Cool.

Is that your room in the link?

Yes that's my set-up, although I'm in the process of changing the Krell FPB-300Cx amp to Pass Labs X-600 monoblocks.

The DWIN DLP is also going. A Sony Qualia is taking its place.

GeekFunk,

Thank you for the detailed instructions, they work like a charm.

All,

I have continually had problems with MCE 2005 abrubtly exiting when changing HDTV channels. I never see this when I am changing analog channels.

I am using:

Hauppage WINTV150 board with the latest MCE drivers from their web site.
Radeon 9700 with the latest MCE drivers from the ATI web site
ATI HDTV Wonder with the latest MCE driver from the ATI web site
My mother board is an ASUS P4C800 Deluxe
SATA Hard drive
Intervideo Windvd 6 Platinum for the MPEG2 Decoders

I just did a bare metal rebuild using GeekFunk's directions, and I only put on the MCE drivers for all of the hardware.

Has anyone else had this problem, if so did you resolve it and if you resolved it how did you resolve it. I have rebuilt this PC about 6 times now, trying various combinations trying to get this issue resolved.

Thank you
Bryan

Bryan - may be you could try a different MPEG2 decoder ? You can download a trial version of the NVIDIA DVD Decoder here (http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder.html) ... this is officially supported by Windows MCE.


Also, do you have any HDTV channels enabled in MCE for which you do NOT get a strong enough signal ?

What happens when you just try to play a single HD channel with good signal ? Does that play fine ?

Originally posted by bgarcia
GeekFunk,

Thank you for the detailed instructions, they work like a charm.

All,

I have continually had problems with MCE 2005 abrubtly exiting when changing HDTV channels. I never see this when I am changing analog channels.

I am using:

Hauppage WINTV150 board with the latest MCE drivers from their web site.
Radeon 9700 with the latest MCE drivers from the ATI web site
ATI HDTV Wonder with the latest MCE driver from the ATI web site
My mother board is an ASUS P4C800 Deluxe
SATA Hard drive
Intervideo Windvd 6 Platinum for the MPEG2 Decoders

I just did a bare metal rebuild using GeekFunk's directions, and I only put on the MCE drivers for all of the hardware.

Has anyone else had this problem, if so did you resolve it and if you resolved it how did you resolve it. I have rebuilt this PC about 6 times now, trying various combinations trying to get this issue resolved.

Thank you
Bryan

bgarcia

Thanks for your kind words.


As for your specific problem, I have not seen anyone report a similar issue in the forums that I've been tracking.

So, it may be something that is unique to your system.

When you say 'abrubtly exiting" when you change a HD channel, do you mean that the Media Center shell shuts down, leaving you with a Windows XP desktop?

Originally posted by bgarcia
GeekFunk,

Thank you for the detailed instructions, they work like a charm.

All,

I have continually had problems with MCE 2005 abrubtly exiting when changing HDTV channels. I never see this when I am changing analog channels.

I am using:

Hauppage WINTV150 board with the latest MCE drivers from their web site.
Radeon 9700 with the latest MCE drivers from the ATI web site
ATI HDTV Wonder with the latest MCE driver from the ATI web site
My mother board is an ASUS P4C800 Deluxe
SATA Hard drive
Intervideo Windvd 6 Platinum for the MPEG2 Decoders

I just did a bare metal rebuild using GeekFunk's directions, and I only put on the MCE drivers for all of the hardware.

Has anyone else had this problem, if so did you resolve it and if you resolved it how did you resolve it. I have rebuilt this PC about 6 times now, trying various combinations trying to get this issue resolved.

Thank you
Bryan

I have same problem with my Fusion II card. Whenever I change to CBS channel while it broadcasts HDTV program, MCE2k5 just exits. I don't have this problem with ABC and NBC.

GeekFunk,

Yes, When sometimes when I change channels the MCE shell exits, and I find my self back at the XP desktop, and sometimes I get the critical error popup where it gives me an opportunity to report the problem to Mickey Soft.

Thx
Bryan

With only limited testing, it appears that replacing the Intervideo decoder with the Nvidia decoder may have solved my problem. I will do some more testing, over the next few days, but with about 15 minutes of continious channel changing I did not have one exit from Media Center.

Thank you to all for the help.

Bryan

I just watched a Microsoft Webcast for OEMs about the Media Center Extenders. There was a keen interest in HDTV and WMCE. One questioner asked about ATI's HDTV card.
Well, wouldn't you know it, the MS presenter confused things further. He tried to clarify the difference between the ATI All-in Wonder and the ATI HDTV All-in-Wonder, which of course is non-existent.
It is my view that HDTV is going to be the "Must Have" home technology of 2005, and aWindows XP Media Center Edition 2005 computer will be high on the list of "must have" Christmas gifts.
Yet, I don't know of any OEMs or vendors who are selling WMCE boxes with an ATI HDTV Wonder.
Someone's going to recognize this need, and fulfill this market demand.

Brian,

Did you ever resolve your problem?

I am having a similar problem with MCE freezing when changing between HD channels.

I have also rebuilt my system and I tried different decoders/ sound cards etc.

Thanks for any suggestions!

md

Bryan

I've done some research on your issue, but I haven't found any solutions. It's difficult to point the cause.

Are there any processes running that shouldn't be in Windows Task Manger?

Note which processes are running before WMCE exits, and compare with the processes that are running after WMCE exits.

Has anyone else experienced loss of the MCE 2005 GUI when flipping through HD channels? I have tried everything (clean system install, other drivers, different decoders, etc) to get rid of this major bug, but to no avail.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

md500 - sorry to hear about this problem ! All I can say is that I have NEVER seen this problem. I know this doesn't help you much, but just a data point.

Post your complete system specification (hardware details, as well as software details e.g. what DVD decoders you have in the system, which one is the default etc.) and may be we'll be able to offer some clue.

bump

Here my system specs:

2800 Athlon XP
1GB RAM
160GB HD
NVIDIA 6600GT AGP 128MB - latest NVIDIA beta drivers
Hauppauge 150PVR MCE Edition
ATI HDTV Wonder with latest Drivers
MCE 2005 - with HDTV rollup
.net framework 1.1

Currently only using onboard analog sound (C-Media) - had too much trouble with digital

DVD Decoders:
Latest NVIDIA decoder
Currently also WinDVD decoder installed (gives me same loss/ lock of MCE GUI problem), but HD picture quality is much worse than NVIDIA decoder
My default decoder is the WinDVD - but I will switch this back to the NVIDIA.
(I also tried PowerDVD and Sonic on a prev. system install - but they did not work at all...)

Thanks for any suggestions!

md

md - how many PCI slots are there in your motherboard and which ones are being used by PVR150 and ATI HDTV Wonder ?

BTW, you can use the Microsoft DECCHECK (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=de1491ac-0ab6-4990-943d-627e6ade9fcb&DisplayLang=en) utility to verrify and set your default decoder in MCE.

The motherboard has 5 PCI slots. I use the No. 2 for the HDTV wonder and No. 3 for the 150 PVR. I don't have any other PCI cards in the computer. In another configuration I was using no 3 for the 150 PVR and no 4 for the HDTV wonder...

Thanks, I used that utility and NVIDIA is now again my default decoder.

my motherboard also has 5 PCI slots. counting the PCI slot immediately next to the AGP slot at no 1, I use no 2 for ATI HDTV Wonder, no 3 and 5 for two PVR 250 cards and no 5 for an ATA card.

I too have a 6600GT AGP card and am using the drivers from here --

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_winxp_2k_67.03.html

See if these help.

I installed the forceware drivers - with the same results. The GUI still freezes up and the video keeps playing...

All these motherboards are different when it comes to figuring out which PCI slot is better than another for a card like the HDTV Wonder.

The issue is trying to avoid having two or more high performance PCI cards sharing the same IRQ. Any card that passes video data trough the PCI bus has to be classified as a high performance card.

If you have video running through the PCI bus from a 1394/ILink port from a miniDV camcorder, then the 1394 card or chipset should also be considered a high performance card. Additionally, if your NIC card continously sends video data or files through your home network, it might be considered a high performance card while it is in action.

So, MadDog500, at the very least we much classify your Nvidia 6600GT, the HDTV Wonder, and the WinTV 150PVR as high performance cards. If any two or three of these cards are sharing the same IRQ, certainly the probability of conflict rises.

The closest I can come to a general rule is that the first PCI slot will be sharing an IRQ with the AGP graphics card, so you don't want to put the HDTV Wonder there. Second, contrary to what many believe, the last PCI slot often shares an IRQ with the AGP card and PCI slot one, so it is often a poor choice. PCI slot three is often loaded with other devices like the USB controllers, so it may be a poor choice also.

I'd try PCI slot four, with PCI slot two as a second choice. However, if there is a card already in four, move it to PCI slot two.

I think that all of the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Cards, Live as well as the Audigy cards, are finicky cards as well. Back in 1998, I wrestled with a Hauppauge WinTV Go card and a Sound Blaster Live card for a month trying to figure out where to put them. Of course, Hauppauge didn't have tuner drivers as good as they are now, and Windows 98 was a BSOD creator.

It might be useless to check the motherboard manual because they are difficult to figure out at times, but that is where one should start.

Originally posted by md500
Has anyone else experienced loss of the MCE 2005 GUI when flipping through HD channels? I have tried everything (clean system install, other drivers, different decoders, etc) to get rid of this major bug, but to no avail.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

I'd experienced this on a single HD channel (WB). When I took that channel out of the line-up, the problem went away. The only other HD channels I get are PBS and FOX. I suspect my problem is caused by not having upgraded my graphics card to an HD-capable card (DX9 accelerated), and as a result I can display 720p but not 1080i.

IRQ conflicts sounds like another possibility. Device manager doesn't show any conflicts, but I did find that my sound card and my graphics card share the same IRQ. I've also noticed occasional audio dropouts when displaying digital TV (even SD). Is this likely the cause? Is moving the cards to different slots the only solution? I only have 4 slots in my computer (1 AGP and 3 PCI). Slots are occupied as follows (top to bottom, not sure which one is slot 1 though I know the AGP must be the top slot):

graphics (GeForce MX420)
audio/firewire (Audigy)
analog capture (Emuzed)
digital capture (ATI HDTV Wonder)

Thanks,

John

Geek, thanks for the info.

So far I tried the ATI Wonder in slot 4 and slot 2 (where it currently resides). The PVR150 is in slot 3 and does not give me any problems. The 6600GT is AGP. I have no other cards installed. I checked device manager (sorted by resource) and it turns out the ATI does not share its IRQ with any other resource.

It looks like at this point I will have to try another motherboard altogether. Any recommendations?

Brian: The problem seems to be worse on certain channels. My CBS station ( which has 5 bars reception) locks up the GUI almost every time as I tune to it...

MD500,

I just finished rebuilding a HTPC with a new Motherboard because the system was crashing constantly. So I got a new mb hoping that it would help solve the problem. So far no crashes but I am loosing the MCE GUI when watching a digital channel or recorded digital show and pressing guide or start. The video is minimized to the small thumbnail window. I can go back to full screen video without a problem.

I am also having a problem watching live digital TV. It just won't display or takes along time to display video, 10-15 seconds. I have not had a chance to troubleshoot that much because I had to go out of town today and won't be back until Monday. One thing I did test is recording digital channels and watching while recording. This worked without a problem. I started recording a show and went to recorded TV immediately and started watching the show without a problem. Analog TV displays without a problem.

I will check the IRQ when I get home. The only PCI cards are the tuner cards. I am using onboard sound card. I think but will have to confirm that the analog tuner is in slot 3 and the HDTV tuner is in slot 5. My motherboard does a good job documenting the IRQs.

My system is a
ASUS P4P800-E delux
Intel 3.0 with hyperthreading
1 gig PQI DDR400 pc3200 memory. (actually 512mb waiting for a replacement dimm because one went bad)
Chaintech 6600GT AGP video card - 66.93 driver I believe
Onboard sound ALC850
Avermedia MCE1500 analog tuner
ATI HDTV Wonder digital tuner
Disks
OS installed on WD 80 gig 7200 rpm
RAID array promise 2 250 gig maxtor drives. RAID 0.
NVIDIA dvd decoder

I have upgraded the cooling on the CPU and video card.
CPU cooler has an arctic freezer 4
Video has a Zalman VF700

I also upgraded the powersupply to an Antec 480 True Power supply.

I think that about covers the system config.

I got on the forum to search for a loss of the MCE gui when watching video and found this thread. I will post my troubleshooting when I get home Monday/Tuesday.

One question is if this is happening with your analog channels.
Also noticed that once this happens, you loose the pause time indicator on full screen video.

Bryan

Originally posted by md500
Here my system specs:

2800 Athlon XP
1GB RAM
160GB HD
NVIDIA 6600GT AGP 128MB - latest NVIDIA beta drivers
Hauppauge 150PVR MCE Edition
ATI HDTV Wonder with latest Drivers
MCE 2005 - with HDTV rollup
.net framework 1.1

Currently only using onboard analog sound (C-Media) - had too much trouble with digital

DVD Decoders:
Latest NVIDIA decoder
Currently also WinDVD decoder installed (gives me same loss/ lock of MCE GUI problem), but HD picture quality is much worse than NVIDIA decoder
My default decoder is the WinDVD - but I will switch this back to the NVIDIA.
(I also tried PowerDVD and Sonic on a prev. system install - but they did not work at all...)

Thanks for any suggestions!

md

What motherboard are you using?

Bryan,

I am using (until today) an ASRock K7VT6 Motherboard. This is based on the Via KT 600 chipset. I will go out today and upgrade my motherboard to a nforce2 based chipset and rebuild my system.

The problem you describe is EXACTLY what I have been struggling with the past week or so. I am not happy that you are having to deal with this issue, but at least I am not the only case where this occurs. Let's try to solve it once and for all.

Here is what happens: This only happens on the digital channels. I loose all Windows GUI - but Video keeps playing. When I hit the start button - I see "Start" with some messy locked and trailing video feed behind it. The preview window keeps playing fine - and when hitting the live TV button on the remote it goes back to full screen w/o a probem. In full screen mode, I cannot see the progress bar either. I appears the MCE GUI cannot be rendered for some reason.

At this point, I must assume it is a problem with the motherboard. I did a lot of testing over the last week and noticed that the problem mostly occurs on digital channels that do NOT do multicasting (i.e. have the highest datastream through only 1 channel). My CBS station for example does broadcast subchannels - it almost immediately locks up the MCE GUI. While my local PAX station has 3 (!) subchannels and has hardly ever locked up the GUI.
It appears that in that case of a full data stream the ATI starts hogging resources and puts the MCE GUI renderer in lockdown.
However, as noted before, none of my system components shares IRQs. I also tried all possible PCI slot arrangements with no success.

Questions for you:

Did this same problem occur before you replaced your motherboard - or were they just pure system crashes you were experiencing?

Did DTV work OK before you replaced your motherboard? Or did it seem to cause the system crashes?

Thanks,

md

The problem is the exact same thing, although I don't know if there is more or less of occurrence if the channels multicast subchannels or not. I will see if there is a better chance of it happening or not based on multicasting.

My old mb was an ECS PT800CE-A. I did not have the loss of gui with the old motherboard, just crashing after ten minutes of watching TV. The current mb is not crashing, just doing the loss of gui.

What about watching live TV? Are you having a problem with that? I described that I get a long delay when tuning to a channel. Watching a recorded show there is no problem.

Also no problems with analog channels, until I tune to a digital channel. Then when tuning back to analog, the gui is still gone if I experienced the loss of gui problem.

MD,
Lets dedicate a thread to the resolution of this problem here. I just found this thread tonight.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=5318460

Chris is also having the same problem on an Nforce MB so you may want to hold off before you make that purchase and find out some more details. It would not be good to get a new MB and have the same problem.

Bryan

All -

In order to find out which devices in your machine are sharing IRQ, if any, and if so which ones, use the Windows Device Manager.

1. Open Device Manager
2. Use menu View -> Resources by Type
3. Expand the IRQ node

If you see one or more high performance devices sharing the same IRQ, try moving them around in different PCI slots until you get them to use different IRQs.

md500 -- I have had very good luck with nForce2 9and now nForce3) chipset based motherboards, and I am sticking with them. Good luck with your new motherboard search. ASUS is always my first choice when it comes to motherboards, followed by ABIT and MSI.

ok, I am wanting to set up a HTPC with a pvr. I have a 450 dollar gift card with Dell, so I am stuck getting a dell. I was going to get one of their systems which the video card can be upgraded to carry a 128 meg video card and I was going to add the HDTV wonder. Will I be able to get the PC to record 720P for later playback? thanks in advance.

Well I am just about ready to install MCE 2005 on a spare HDD in my system to test things out before wiping my WinXP/HDTV Wonder install on my main drive. I was hoping someone can clarify some of the steps for me since the ATI 9800 Pro AIW card has the tuner built in. So here are my thoughts on the steps posted so far for my situation:


1. Install Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 *WITH ATI 9800 AIW* Don't go into MCE to setup TV yet, of course.

*What video drivers/software do I need to install after the setup is complete? ATI's Radeon drivers site for MCE2005 notes "ALL-IN-WONDER™ Series are not currently supported under Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005." when refering to the MCE2005 Catalyst download? There are two options "Display Driver, Control Panel" and "Display Driver, CATALYST Control Center". I am assuming I just install "Display Driver, COntrol Panel"? Will I be missing any video output resolutions/options not using ATI's CATALYST software"

2. Install the HDTV Rollup update from Microsoft, if not previously installed

3. Install the analog TV tuner drivers. Shutdown.

*WHERE ARE THE ANALOG TUNER DRIVERS FOR THE AIW? All i see on ATI's MCE2005 driver download site for tuners aside from the HDTV wond*

4. Physically install the analog TV tuner in the PCI slot. Restart. Check Device Manager *Step skipped*

5. Install the HDTV Wonder driver from ATI. Shutdown.

6. Physically install the ATI card in a PCI slot

5. ReStart. The card gets detected and set up automatically. Check Device Manager.

6. Launch MCE and setup TV channels that you want; you need an internet connection.

*Where and when do I install the ATI DVD Decoder? I have not yet purchased the Nvidia DVD decoder.

I know other people are using the 9800Pro AIW in ther MCE2k5 install so I was wondering how you guys installed this setup with the HDTV Wonder. You guys are using the AIW tuner card as your analog tuner correct?

Thanks in advance.

ATI download pages for reference
CATALYST 5.3 Windows XP Media Center Edition - Driver Download (https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=27)

ATI Radeo Download Page for MCE2005 (https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=27)

Originally posted by psxjunky
All -

In order to find out which devices in your machine are sharing IRQ, if any, and if so which ones, use the Windows Device Manager.

1. Open Device Manager
2. Use menu View -> Resources by Type
3. Expand the IRQ node

If you see one or more high performance devices sharing the same IRQ, try moving them around in different PCI slots until you get them to use different IRQs.
Thanks. Does a PCI slot always correspond to the same IRQ (if I move a different card into the slot, will it always get the IRQ that the previous card had)?

How can I tell which USB controller is being used by which USB device (and does switching USB plugs change that)?

I ask because all of my PCI slots are occupied by "high performance devices" (when considering MCE/AV capture and playback as the applications) so I don't really know what I can do to get them to not share an IRQ. My cards are: audio, video (AGP slot), analog tuner, digital tuner. I have no spare slots, so all I can do is move them around. I assume the video card needs to stay in the AGP slot, so can only move around the tuners and audio. Right now, my audio uses the same IRQ as video, but if I were able to make them use different IRQs, but have the tuners either share IRQ with each other (bad for recording two shows at once) or one of the tuners share with the audio instead (bad for recording and watching at the same time), that seems like I'm just trading off one problem for another. I'd like to find out how to avoid any IRQ conflicts for any device involved in AV recording or playback (I didn't mention I have a USB disk, so I wouldn't want to create a conflict with that either, which currently may also share the IRQ with audio and video -- I have 4 USB controllers showing in device manager, but can't tell which is being used by the disk, and one of them conflicts).

Thanks,

John

Originally posted by JohnDiamant
Thanks. Does a PCI slot always correspond to the same IRQ (if I move a different card into the slot, will it always get the IRQ that the previous card had)?

How can I tell which USB controller is being used by which USB device (and does switching USB plugs change that)?

I ask because all of my PCI slots are occupied by "high performance devices" (when considering MCE/AV capture and playback as the applications) so I don't really know what I can do to get them to not share an IRQ. My cards are: audio, video (AGP slot), analog tuner, digital tuner. I have no spare slots, so all I can do is move them around. I assume the video card needs to stay in the AGP slot, so can only move around the tuners and audio. Right now, my audio uses the same IRQ as video, but if I were able to make them use different IRQs, but have the tuners either share IRQ with each other (bad for recording two shows at once) or one of the tuners share with the audio instead (bad for recording and watching at the same time), that seems like I'm just trading off one problem for another. I'd like to find out how to avoid any IRQ conflicts for any device involved in AV recording or playback (I didn't mention I have a USB disk, so I wouldn't want to create a conflict with that either, which currently may also share the IRQ with audio and video -- I have 4 USB controllers showing in device manager, but can't tell which is being used by the disk, and one of them conflicts).

Thanks,

John


Generally, the BIOS or the operating system (Windows) will assign IRQ to PCI slots. However, some motherboards will always assign a particular IRQ to a particular PCI slot. But, you can change them in the BIOS settings.

But, as you are doing, it may be easier simply to move the cards from one slot to another.

You may have to sacrifice that audio card if you can tolerate the builtin audio, as a last resort.

Let's consider these factors. Of the four cards you use, the HDTV Wonder should be considered the heavy lifter because it processes high definition video. If you can isolate an IRQ for the HDTV Wonder, then do so.

Next, the analog tuner is probably a hardware encoder; that it, video processing is done on the card itself instead in software, which means the CPU does the processing. So, the analog card might share an IRQ fairly well, particularly if it has good software drivers. Excellent drivers might cure all such issues.

If the audio card does hardware processing, then the same applies. Despite its apparent reputation for good audio cards, Creative Labs Sound Blaster audio cards have been known to be finicky. It used to be that you had to isolate the SB with its own IRQ, otherwise the sound would sputter and pop. I have no experience with the current SB models.

With respect to the USB devices, in the Device Manager at the bottom, there will be listed within the Universal Serial Bus Controollers' section several USB Root Hubs. Selecting and double-clicking each Hub will bring up the properties of the Hub.

Under the "Power" tab, you will see which USB device is associated with that particular USB Hub. If you check the properties of all the USB HUBs listed, you can figure out which HUB Hub is associated with which physical USB port.

Originally posted by GeekFunk
You may have to sacrifice that audio card if you can tolerate the builtin audio, as a last resort.

Let's consider these factors. Of the four cards you use, the HDTV Wonder should be considered the heavy lifter because it processes high definition video. If you can isolate an IRQ for the HDTV Wonder, then do so.

Next, the analog tuner is probably a hardware encoder; that it, video processing is done on the card itself instead in software, which means the CPU does the processing. So, the analog card might share an IRQ fairly well, particularly if it has good software drivers. Excellent drivers might cure all such issues.

If the audio card does hardware processing, then the same applies. Despite its apparent reputation for good audio cards, Creative Labs Sound Blaster audio cards have been known to be finicky. It used to be that you had to isolate the SB with its own IRQ, otherwise the sound would sputter and pop. I have no experience with the current SB models.

With respect to the USB devices, in the Device Manager at the bottom, there will be listed within the Universal Serial Bus Controller' section several USB Root Hubs. Selecting and double-clicking each Hub will bring up the properties of the Hub.

Under the "Power" tab, you will see which USB device is associated with that particular USB Hub. If you check the properties of all the USB HUBs listed, you can figure out which HUB Hub is associated with which physical USB port.
Thanks.

Not using the audio card would be a problem for me since I'm feeding a digital receiver with a single coax digital cable using limited in-wall wiring -- and I don't want to lose the ability to transmit DolbyDigital, and built in audio (whatever that might be) isn't likely to be able to generate digital audio out.

I'm using the Kram drivers, and using the HDTV Wonder as a 2nd analog as well as a digital tuner, but that means MPEG2 encoding in software for the HDTV Wonder, so yet another good reason to keep it from sharing an IRQ.

So, it sounds like having the HDTV Wonder and audio card on their own IRQs, and having the USB disk and analog capture card share an IRQ is preferable. What about the video card? While I can't move it, and it's currently sharing an IRQ with a USB Universal Host Controller (not USB Hub). I may be able to change (likely) or prevent (unlikely) what's sharing with it.

As to the USB mapping, thanks. However, as I point out above, the IRQ conflict shows with a USB Universal Host Controller, not a USB Hub device, so I'm not sure how to map these back together.

Thanks again,
John

Originally posted by JohnDiamant
Thanks.

Not using the audio card would be a problem for me since I'm feeding a digital receiver with a single coax digital cable using limited in-wall wiring -- and I don't want to lose the ability to transmit DolbyDigital, and built in audio (whatever that might be) isn't likely to be able to generate digital audio out.

I'm using the Kram drivers, and using the HDTV Wonder as a 2nd analog as well as a digital tuner, but that means MPEG2 encoding in software for the HDTV Wonder, so yet another good reason to keep it from sharing an IRQ.

So, it sounds like having the HDTV Wonder and audio card on their own IRQs, and having the USB disk and analog capture card share an IRQ is preferable. What about the video card? While I can't move it, and it's currently sharing an IRQ with a USB Universal Host Controller (not USB Hub). I may be able to change (likely) or prevent (unlikely) what's sharing with it.

As to the USB mapping, thanks. However, as I point out above, the IRQ conflict shows with a USB Universal Host Controller, not a USB Hub device, so I'm not sure how to map these back together.

Thanks again,
John


OK. The coax connection can't be beat. My motherboard has builtin spdif and coax connections. Anyway, its a good reason to keep the Audio card.

I know of the Kram drivers, but have no experience with them. If the Kram's are poorly written, then it may contribute to the problems.

Well, we're getting way too technical, but there is a direct relationship between the USB Host Controller and the USB Root Hub: for every host controller there is a root hub. So, if the root hub shows that an USB device is connected, then it is also connected to the corresponding host controller. Which host controller "controls" the root hub, you will have to do some exploring.

Double clicking the host controller will give a little information about how much bandwidth is being used in the host controller, but not necessarily which USB device is using the bandwidth.

You say that you have a USB disk: is that a hard drive disk? Is is always active, that is, you are writing to and reading from it constantly? Is it a powered external USB drive or does it draw power from the USB port?

If the USB device is constantly on, using up all the USB bandwidth, and drawing power from the USB port, then it might require an IRQ of its own. If its sorta passive, then it should not of concern.

Those have problems with the analog tv tuner (like me) try this:

Coppy

vidcap.ax
kswdmcap.ax
ksxbar.ax
kstvtune.ax

from win/sys32/drivers folder to the ati/multi/main folder.

Hope this helps!

I don't believe that there is a QAM capable HDTV tuner card presently in production.

Hauppuage is said to release such a card later this year.

The Kram modification of the Catalyst drivers will get the HDTV Wonder going in MCE without the presence of an analog TV tuner.

From another forum:

http://www.whatsnsb.com/MCE4.10kv.zip

This is download of the Kram drivers. I haven't used them myself as I have analog tuner.

GeekFunk, I am not using an ATI video card (I'm using a MSI 6600GT PCIe), so I am not running Catalyst drivers (unless the HDTV Wonder that I am about to buy needs to use them). Also, I do not have a free PCI slot to install an analog tuner, unless there is a PCIe supported card available. Will this Kram fix do anything for me to get the HDTV Wonder working as the only tuner card in my system?

You seem to be making this unnecessarily complex. I suggest that you understand the technique instead of focusing on the particular parts.

Installing the software drivers before physically installing the tuner cards in the PCI slots seem to increase the success rate. The support pages at Dvico.com for their FusionHDTV card follow the same plan.

It shouldn't matter that you are using a Nvidia graphics card. Just install the card in WMCE and make sure that it's working before installing the tv tuner cards. The Catalyst drivers for ATI graphics cards are not necessary to get the ATI HDTV Wonder tv tuner card to work.

Once you get a stable installation of WMCE without the tv tuner cards, you might consider making an image of the installation with Norton Ghost so that you won't have to start all over again if the tv tuners don't install the way you want them the first time.

You absolutely, positively have to have an analog tuner installed if you want to get the HDTV Wonder to work WMCE, unless you use the Kram drivers. Of course, if you use the Kram drivers, you are on your own as to getting them to work. In a plain Windows XP environment, the ATI HDTV Wonder will work in the absence of an analogue tv tuner.

I have absolutely no experience in using the Kram drivers. You will use them at your own risk, and must accept that you may run into some problems and no one at MS or ATI will help you out. So, if you have a lot of experience in trouble shooting computer problems, then have at it. Otherwise, go the safe route.

Instead of an analog TV tuner on a PCI card, some have used USB analog tv tuners with success when installing the HDTV Wonder in WMCE. The Hauppauge WinTv USB tuner is one such product. After you've installed both tuners, and setup the analog and digital channels in WMCE, the USB tv tuner can be removed, so I've heard. The key is the fact that WMCE must see an analog tuner before it will setup the digital channels.

Gotcha, GeekFunk....My problem is that there is no way for me to install more than a single tuner card in my system *IF* it requires a regular old PCI slot . I have 3 PCI slots on my mobo, one taken up by my VGA cooler, one for my Revo 7.1, and one proposed for the ATI HDTV Wonder card. ALL I have left are a pair of PCIe x1 slots, so my plan was to install the HDTV Wonder with no analog tuner at all. I don't need or want an analog tuner anyway, as most of my viewing is OTA HD with an occasional digital SD show.

You absolutely, positively have to have an analog tuner installed if you want to get the HDTV Wonder to work WMCE, unless you use the Kram drivers.

Well, since it looks like I won't have an analog tuner, and I don't have an ATI video card with which to use the Kram/Catalyst drivers, then I guess I am SOL. Who was the super genius who designed MCE such that it REQUIRES you to have an analog tuner installed? And are there any plans that you know of for repairing this glaring error in judgement?

From TGB

Have you went back into the tv signal setup screen after you installed Kram's hacked drivers? MCE doesn't automtatically detect and scan after MCE has been ran. I think many people may be having issues with this...

I've had both tuners running for about 3 weeks now....

I've posted a couple of times but not much feedback afterward....anyway

here's my 1st post: http://www.thegreenbutton.com/community/shwmessage.aspx?forumid=41&messageid=72291#bm72347

my recent post:

"IT's not officially supported, but I have both tuners working in MCE2K5 right now.

My video card is the EVGA 6800GT, and the ONLY tuner card I have installed is the HDTV BULNDER...At first, I couldn't get either to work. Everyone said that both won't be used by MCE....it's because ATI wil not provide a MCE approved software encoder like they did for the ATI AIW'S to take advantage of the analog tuner...

What I did was....

1) Install MCE 2005 after a clean format.

2) Install motherboard chipset drivers..(I have the NFORCE 2 chipset)

3) Install video card drivers

4) Install NVIDIA DVD decoder 1.00.58

5) Install HDTV BLUNDER drivers from ATI's website

6) Updated everything from Windows UPDATE (including the HDTV drivers)

7) Install NVIDIA'S VIVO drivers

8) Since ATI isn't going to release a software encoder for MCE for the HDTV BLUNDER, I figured ATI wouldn't come up with a new design for the analog tuner, but reuse one. So, since I do not have a P4 w\hyperthreading nor an ATI video card, I could not install the "official" ATI software encoders for MCE 2004. However, I installed KRAM'S hacked drivers....I ONLY INSTALLED THE MCEE portion of the drivers....

9) Wholah!!!! after that, I go into the MCE setup and everything works,BOTH TUNERS!!!Since the analog tuner uses the software encoder, the picture is worse than a hardware encoder such as the E-Wonder's, but it still works... The HDTV picture is outstanding though....I have issues with digital channels in my area not being viewable in the guide, but I'll have to iron that out later.

I hope someone takes this information, runs with it and modifies the drivers even further in an effort to improve the analog tuner picture quality....

HOPE THIS HELPS!!!

Update 11-12-04:

After installing the newer ATI drivers posted this week and installing the new NVIDIA drivers (66.93), the analog picture quality has picked up noticeably.."

http://www.thegreenbutton.com/community/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=50&MessageID=75787&TopicPage=2

Good Luck Bob!

Jeff

Jeff

This clarifies things a lot. Thanks.

Bob

As Jeff's message points out, you only install the WMCE part of the Kram drivers, not the Catalyst drivers for ATI graphics cards, thus making possible the use of Nvidia graphics cards along sidethe HDTV Wonder in a WMCE box.

As I said, I have not experience with the Kram drivers and use thereof.

It is noteworthy that the originator of the TheGreenButton.com message specifically noted the poor quality of the standard definition from the analog part of the ATI HDTV Wonder. This makes sense because the analog tuner in the HDTV Wonder is a software encoder.

Also this fact might explain why Microsoft requires that an independent analog tuner with hardware encoding be installed when the HDTV Wonder is being used. Perhaps during testing of the HDTV Wonder, MS and ATI discovered the poor qualty of the standard TV that the decision was made to disable the analog TV tuner of the HDTV Wonder when used in WMCE.

So, it seems that the Kram drivers is the way to go if you do not use a USB analog TV tuner.

Bob, Hein's procedure on page 25 of MCE 2005 Faq worked for me. I have no analog tuner, nor do I have An ATI video card.

ATI HDTV Wonder working with Nvidia 6600GT
Hi folk,

I was able consistently setup MCE 2005 and ATI HDTV tuner stand alone. (I did it on 3 machines, two have Radeon X300, and one has NVIDIA 6600GT).
Here's a step by step from scratch

1. Install MCE -

2. Install MCE rollup1 - windowsxpmediacenter2005-kb873369-enu.exe

3. Install Nvidia DVD decoder - Download nvdvd v1.00.67

4. Install ATI HDTV wonder MCE driver (download from ATI site, install this driver before inserting the ATI HDTV card)

5. Insert the ATI HDTV card, let windows detects the card (reboot)


Below is the hack that allows ATI HDTV works with MCE as a stand alone
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. Obtain KRAM driver, and unzip. Go to ATI_KRAM\MCE4.10kv\MCEE - then run setup.exe, reboot.

7. Go to ATI_KRAM\MCE4.10kv\eHomeAIW - then run setup.exe, reboot.

8. Open Device Manager and look for "ATI HDTV Wonder Digital and Analog Tuner Device"

right click then select Update Driver... select "No at this time" click next...select "Install from a specific locaction (Advance)" click next....select "Don't search, I will chose..." click next.... click "Have disk" then point to ATI_KRAM\MCE4.10kv\eHomeAIW\WDM_XP

Now select "ATI WDM Rage Theater Video".... and install this when prompt hit OK. Reboot.

9. Now go back to Device Manager, under "ATI WDM Rage Theater Video" there is an yellow exclaimation, righ click -> properties -> Driver then click "Roll Back Driver" button. Reboot.


10. Now start MCE, and begin the TV set up procedure.


That's it, the procedure works for me every time. Try it and post the result back here.


Cheers, Hien. [/B][/QUOTE]

Maybe you guys can help

I setup the following HTPC, everything seems to work (including analog and digital off of the HD Wonder card), but all the HD video is slightly stuttery or choppy. Is this a hardware problem, or perhaps a problem with the Intervideo decoder?

Setup:
Clean install of Windows XP MCE 2005
P4 3.06 on an FIC Condor Motherboard (rated for AGP 8x)
ATI 9600 XT
1 Gig Ram
300 Gig SATA hard drive (No RAID)
HDTV Wonder
Plextor DL DVD
Intervideo DVD Decoder

System worked find under XP Home with ATI Multimedia software (ie, no stuttering or choppiness), so I don't think it is a hardware problem. Also, as to interrupts, I have one AGP and 2 PCI slots; I used the same slots for both cards with both MCE 2005 and XP Home.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated. I really prefer the MCE interface to the ATI Multimedia center (easier to use for the wife and thus greater WAF), but I find the HD unwatchable with the MCE. Do I need to put in a faster processor? (I did try an ATI 9800 Pro with the same results.) I'm kind of at a loss as to why one setup works fine, and the other (MCE) doesn't.

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

Miguel Mulet

Miguel - your hardware seems more than adequate, so the stutterring is probably related to your driver/decoder configurations.

I would try using the NVIDIA decoder (instead of Intervideo) and use the Microsoft DECCHECK utility to make sure that the NVIDIA decoders are set as the "preferred" one.

OK, here are my results.

Reinstalled everything...thus the 4 hour + delay.

Looks pretty good, except the basketball game on CBS this afternoon. Still stutters a little, both live and recorded. I don't think its the hardware - uses 15-18% CPU resources live, 30-36% resources when recording.

Any other ideas? I guess it must be the installed DVD decoder, as the nVidia is much better than the Intervideo decoder I was using previously. Which other ones should I try?

Thanks!

Miguel Mulet

Oops, I think I was using the Cyberlink decoder before, not Intervideo.

mmulet

Originally posted by nailbender


Bob, Hein's procedure on page 25 of MCE 2005 Faq worked for me. I have no analog tuner, nor do I have An ATI video card.

ATI HDTV Wonder working with Nvidia 6600GT
Hi folk,

I was able consistently setup MCE 2005 and ATI HDTV tuner stand alone. (I did it on 3 machines, two have Radeon X300, and one has NVIDIA 6600GT).

-------------------------
Now select "ATI WDM Rage Theater Video".... and install this when prompt hit OK. Reboot.

9. Now go back to Device Manager, under "ATI WDM Rage Theater Video" there is an yellow exclaimation, righ click -> properties -> Driver then click "Roll Back Driver" button. Reboot.
--------------------------


Cheers, Hien.



Maybe someone can offer a suggestion or some help.

I've been through this process three times now with no joy. I can get everything working on MMC, but MCE keeps saying "No TV tuner found".

I can not find any reference to "ATI WDM Rage Theater Video" and I'm thinking I may be missing something.

Can anyone tell me the importance of "ATI WDM Rage Theater Video" and how do I get it onto my system?

DVD's play fine under MCE

Thanks, Bill L.

I'm running:

Intel 925 mb with 2.8ghz P4 (775-hyperthreading)
512mb of ddr2
ATI PCIe Radeon x700 video
ATI HD Wonder tuner
Toshiba DL DVD r/w drive.

XP MCE 2005

Originally posted by mmulet
Maybe you guys can help

I setup the following HTPC, everything seems to work (including analog and digital off of the HD Wonder card), but all the HD video is slightly stuttery or choppy. Is this a hardware problem, or perhaps a problem with the Intervideo decoder?

Setup:
Clean install of Windows XP MCE 2005
P4 3.06 on an FIC Condor Motherboard (rated for AGP 8x)
ATI 9600 XT
1 Gig Ram
300 Gig SATA hard drive (No RAID)
HDTV Wonder
Plextor DL DVD
Intervideo DVD Decoder

System worked find under XP Home with ATI Multimedia software (ie, no stuttering or choppiness), so I don't think it is a hardware problem. Also, as to interrupts, I have one AGP and 2 PCI slots; I used the same slots for both cards with both MCE 2005 and XP Home.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated. I really prefer the MCE interface to the ATI Multimedia center (easier to use for the wife and thus greater WAF), but I find the HD unwatchable with the MCE. Do I need to put in a faster processor? (I did try an ATI 9800 Pro with the same results.) I'm kind of at a loss as to why one setup works fine, and the other (MCE) doesn't.

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

Miguel Mulet

===============

Your system is fast enough. It is the video card problem. MCE don't like the 9600xt for the 1080i HD channels. IMO, 6600GT is the best card for MCE.

I had to overclock my 9600xt to 571/317 and the stuttering stop. Use the Artic Cooler for stability. I also use the Cyberlink decoder. Nvidia decoder didn't perform well with the overclock.

As was said before, a WCE machine should be considered a high performance system and designed accordingly.

In my view, the next important feature of WMCE that will be pursued by users is media streaming to other WCE competent boxes on the home network.

This means file serving, either from the MCE box itself or on a standalone server. Video streaming, of live HD tv for example, requires fairly robust and musclular parts.

Also, if you have content streaming from outside the system like from a fiber optic internet that can handle mulitiple video streams, then you're still talking about powerful pc parts.

So, the mindset for MCE and MCE like systems should be high performance.

I had to buy a USB TV tuner to get it working.

Got it set up and it works great. I unplugged the USB tuner after the setup.

Watching and recording free HDTV right now. Yeehaw

This may be a dumb question, but how do I install device drivers before putting in the hardware?

There should be an executable for your device drivers. For the ATI HDTV wonder there is an executable .exe you run to install the drivers before physically install the card. You can download the driver here. You need download 2 of 4.

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=27

Contrary to conventional knowledge, there is nothing unusual about installing software drivers before physically installing the respective hardware part.

The most familiar examples are USB devices, where routinely you install the software drivers before plugging in the USB device.

We know that Windows includes a vast library of drivers for devices and hardware that is not currently attached to or installed in the subject pc; the drivers are just waiting around for Windows to detect the hardware during bootup.

Yet, it is not a dumb question because it sounds illogical, doesn't it?

Originally posted by wblynch
I had to buy a USB TV tuner to get it working.

Got it set up and it works great. I unplugged the USB tuner after the setup.

Watching and recording free HDTV right now. Yeehaw


I'm glad you (and others in other threads) posted this. I'll edit #1 message to this thread to clarify that this technique has been verified.

Thanks for the feedback. I was just thrown because the WinTV card doesnt have an executable, but i think that went ok anyway. I did the ATI install like you guys say and that seems fine (haven't finished yet, so knock wood).

One additional question. There's no mention of the ATI remote in this thread. Is it ok to use this with MCE? I wonder if this will also control the WinTV capabilities. I think I have some more reading and searching to do.

Thanks,
Rich

I have found that on my 42" HD plasma, MCE looks terrible while MMC looks beautiful.

I don't think MCE is delivering true HD from the HD Wonder. MMC is definitley 1080i / 720p.

The difference between the two is night and day.

did you do the Flat Panel display setup and configuration in WMCE? I think that WMCE will change the Display Properties when it loads, and might be different when MMC is running.

Which plasma do you have?

Originally posted by GeekFunk
did you do the Flat Panel display setup and configuration in WMCE? I think that WMCE will change the Display Properties when it loads, and might be different when MMC is running.

Which plasma do you have?

Yep, went through every option I could find anywhere. Tried at least a dozen different combinations.

I have an NEC XM42A HD 1024*768 plasma.

Thanks.

Actually I think because my problem is MCE related I will take it to an MCE thread. It really isn't an ATI HDTV Wonder problem.

Thanks

can media center preserve the dolby digital sound from recorded tv, i have the hdtv wonder working in it, but i dont think it is saving the dolby digital like mmc did.
Also i have my aiw x600 and hdtv wonder working in media center, but now media center can't find a tuner, when i try to adjust settings. i can still watch tv and dtv, but cant adjust tv settings. all hardware is recognized and working under windows system properties. any ideas???

one more thing, anyone able to get msn remote record to work with hdtv channels online? i can't even see them listed online

Originally posted by hansol89
can media center preserve the dolby digital sound from recorded tv, i have the hdtv wonder working in it, but i dont think it is saving the dolby digital like mmc did.
Also i have my aiw x600 and hdtv wonder working in media center, but now media center can't find a tuner, when i try to adjust settings. i can still watch tv and dtv, but cant adjust tv settings. all hardware is recognized and working under windows system properties. any ideas???

one more thing, anyone able to get msn remote record to work with hdtv channels online? i can't even see them listed online

To your first questions. Yes, MCE records the DD5.1 surround sound. ABC and CBS both broadcast in DD5.1 and Fox's American Idol is also.

Can't address your AIW x600 issue.

Have not tried the online recording option. I assume you are referring to remote web based recording instruction? Am planing on it. Just not got around to it.

Originally posted by psxjunky
If you already have an analog TV tuner card and not sure if it supports hardware based encoding, look at its specification and ask here.



So, should the ATI 9600 All in Wonder be sufficient for this purpose? I'm unsure as to whether it has hardware encoding..

Thanks..

MSN remote faq says they don't support HDTV channels right now. Very lame!

I've edited the leading post here to say that the ATI HDTV Wonder is one of only two HD tv tuners on the certified for WMCE list.

The other HD tuner is the Avermedia Aver MCE A180. It goes for about 90 bucks.

I'm considering getting this tuner to see if will work in a two HD tuner WMCE setup with the ATI HDTV Wonder.

The AverMedia page says that the new card supports QAM Cable broadcasting, too:
http://www.aver.com/products/tvtuner_avertvhd_mce_a180.shtml

I just bought an Avermedia AverTVHD A180 tuner card from Buy.com for 67.64 after ten dollar coupon and free shipping.

Hurry. Appears to be in short supply.

I will try ot do a two hd tuner alongside ATI HDTV Wonder in my WMCE box.

Out of Stock at Buy.com at this time...

Trying to get KRAM hacked drivers and a solo HDTV Wonder tuner card working...

cable is no problem...

but, when I run the MCE auto-config it says "A Digital TV tuner was also detected. It will be configured later."

but it doesn't ever seem to be configured later ???

When I go to the manual config later Dgital TV doesn't appear on the list.

Originally posted by Lexor
Trying to get KRAM hacked drivers and a solo HDTV Wonder tuner card working...

cable is no problem...

but, when I run the MCE auto-config it says "A Digital TV tuner was also detected. It will be configured later."

but it doesn't ever seem to be configured later ???

When I go to the manual config later Dgital TV doesn't appear on the list.

After you get the page for "A Digital TV Tuner was also detected. .. " , there were three check blocks after "Would like to configure your TV signal using these results."

Check the "Yes" box.

Then, the Guide is dowloaded from the internet. So, you must have an internet connection by this point.

After the Guide is downloaded, your standard channels will be configured eventhough you won't do anything. The page you will get eventually will say someting nonsensical like, "You have previously configured your standard channels and Guide. .. "

It will be headlined, "Configure Digital TV", and you go on from there.

Probably, if you don't download the Guide, you won't go no where.

errm apparently I have to say yes to using the guide...

and all that after a few days of hacking around with the country selected as Canada... apparently MS doesn't know Canada has DTV too. I had to select USA just to get the thing to admit I had a DTV card.

I'm sure I'll be dealing with that myself shortly. I'm waiting on my HDTV Wonder coming in the mail. Living in Canada, trying to get a feel for what will happen with Canadian channels in the guide, which US Zip code to use, etc.

Let me know how it works out.

fish

is it possible to have two hdtv wonders in mce, if so how do you configure it too work? Or am i better off using 2 different types of hdtv cards under mce. if so what other card should i use???

I followed the Kram procedures to get my HDTV wonder working without an analog tuner, and didn't have any trouble. After reading a bit, I took the plunge and upgraded to the latest Catalyst 5.4 drivers and CCC. The immediate benefit was that I have access to new resolutions (including 1280x720) without using powerstrip. The upgrade went fine, and MCE still is happy with the HD tuner. It appears that once MCE is fooled with the "kram fix" there isn't any dependency, and we can continue to upgrade.

I just thought others debating this and needing some of the other fixes might be reassured.....

Originally posted by hansol89
is it possible to have two hdtv wonders in mce, if so how do you configure it too work? Or am i better off using 2 different types of hdtv cards under mce. if so what other card should i use???


I do not remember reading any reports of folks using two HDTv Wonders in one WMCE box.

However, there are quite a few reports of folks getting various combinations of the ATI HDTV Wonder, the Avermedia AverTVHD, and the FusionHDTV working together in WMCE in two HD tuner setups.

It is quite doable.

Originally posted by Zyll
I followed the Kram procedures to get my HDTV wonder working without an analog tuner, and didn't have any trouble. After reading a bit, I took the plunge and upgraded to the latest Catalyst 5.4 drivers and CCC. The immediate benefit was that I have access to new resolutions (including 1280x720) without using powerstrip. The upgrade went fine, and MCE still is happy with the HD tuner. It appears that once MCE is fooled with the "kram fix" there isn't any dependency, and we can continue to upgrade.

I just thought others debating this and needing some of the other fixes might be reassured.....


When you use the Kram drivers, can you confirm other reports of the poor picture quality of standard definition programs from analogue tuner part of the HDTV Wonder?

Originally posted by GeekFunk
When you use the Kram drivers, can you confirm other reports of the poor picture quality of standard definition programs from analogue tuner part of the HDTV Wonder?

Sorry, I never even tried the analog tuner.... don't even have an antenna connected.

Question about the DTV application in ATI HDTV Wonder's Multimedia center in an MCE based machine.

MCE with ati hdtv wonder and ati tv elite and winfast pvr2000, everything works except the ati dtv application. MCE finds all the hdtv channels, works fine. But the dtv application in ati's multimedia center won't show channels - it finds all of them and when first tuned to them the channels display for a second then a black screen. So, the antenna's fine, mce's tv application works fine for all types of tv signal including using the hdtv wonder's signal, but the ati application DTV won't keep displaying a locked signal for more than a second. Anyone know if both mce tv and ati dtv have ever worked in the same machine?

Originally posted by swoo
So, should the ATI 9600 All in Wonder be sufficient for this purpose? I'm unsure as to whether it has hardware encoding..

Thanks..

Although not officially supported in WMCE 2005, there are reports that the ATI 9600 AIW does work in WMCE if you use the Kram drivers.

To the best of my knowledge, the analogue tuner in the AIW is a software MPEG encoder.

I've edited the first post in this thread to confirm that an ATI HDTV Wonder and an AverTVHD MCE A180 does work well in WMCE 2005.

I've recorded two HD programs without any issues.

Thanks GeekFunk for pointing me to the A180 deal ! Unfortunately it seems to have expired by now.

Anyway, I have a Fusion3 and the ATI card working parallely in my MCE2005 machine now. Seems to work fine and I can record two OTA HD shows at the same time.

Only issue I encountered was that MCE2005 seems to have a hard limit of TOTAL 3 tuners in the system. Before adding the Fusion3 into the system, I had the ATI card and a PVR500MCE (dual tuner). After throwing the Fusion3 into the mix, I was not able to setup TV signal or Digital TV signal ... the MCE shell would just hang at these screens.

So I replaced the PVR500MCDE with a single PVR250 and everything worked like a breeze.

So earlier I had one HD tuner and TWO SD tuners ... now I have TWO HD tuners and ONE SD tuner.

If anyone knows of a wayt to remove this apparent hard limit of TOTAL 3 tuners in MCE2005, I would like to know please.

Hello,

After several days of reading this section knowing now that without a very complicated install, a analog tuner is needed before installing the ATI HDTV Wonder card. Would a USB out of the case tuner suffice for the install I am not a computer person and COMP USA will do the install and since I will never use the analog side why pay for the analog install. I know the COMP USA tech wont do the no tuner hack. If so what USB tuner do you recommend?

Thanks for your reply,

rmlowz

Originally posted by rmlowz
Hello,

After several days of reading this section knowing now that without a very complicated install, a analog tuner is needed before installing the ATI HDTV Wonder card. Would a USB out of the case tuner suffice for the install I am not a computer person and COMP USA will do the install and since I will never use the analog side why pay for the analog install. I know the COMP USA tech wont do the no tuner hack. If so what USB tuner do you recommend?

Thanks for your reply,

rmlowz


I'm sorry Lowz. I intended to be clear in the first post to this thread so that installing the ATI HDTV Wonder would not be too complicated. I guess I failed with some folks.

To answer you, yes, you can use an external USB analogue TV tuner for purposes of installing the ATI HDTV Wonder. Specifically, a USB tuner like Hauppauge's WinTV USB2 is such a external USB tuner.

Note well that the external USB analogue tuner, regardless of brand, must be one that performs hardware MPEG encoding.

The technique that works for folks like you who do not want or need the analogue tuner is too use the USB tuner until you have setup the channels in Windows MCE 2005. Then, you can remove the USB tuner.

Originally posted by psxjunky
Thanks GeekFunk for pointing me to the A180 deal ! Unfortunately it seems to have expired by now.[QUOTE]

It seems that folks are jumping all over HD tuners. The ATI HDTV Wonder is in extreme short supply as well; out of stock at ATI's online store.

After my poorly handled purchase at Buy.com, I took delivery of two AverTVHD units on the same day, one from Buy.com and one from Newegg. I've arranged to a RMA with Newegg, but they haven't emailed me return instuctions yet. It's still in the FedEX box unopened. One person wanted to buy it, but never followed through.

[QUOTE]Anyway, I have a Fusion3 and the ATI card working parallely in my MCE2005 machine now. Seems to work fine and I can record two OTA HD shows at the same time.

Only issue I encountered was that MCE2005 seems to have a hard limit of TOTAL 3 tuners in the system. Before adding the Fusion3 into the system, I had the ATI card and a PVR500MCE (dual tuner). After throwing the Fusion3 into the mix, I was not able to setup TV signal or Digital TV signal ... the MCE shell would just hang at these screens.

So I replaced the PVR500MCDE with a single PVR250 and everything worked like a breeze.

So earlier I had one HD tuner and TWO SD tuners ... now I have TWO HD tuners and ONE SD tuner.

If anyone knows of a wayt to remove this apparent hard limit of TOTAL 3 tuners in MCE2005, I would like to know please.

My limitations were in available PCI slots on my motherboard.

I have 5 PCI slots, but two are practically unusable because in PCI slot 4 only PCI devices that do not require Interrupt steering can be used (no sharing of IRQs) and PCI slot 1 is blocked by an Artic Cooling VGA Silencer heat sink and fan attached to my Radeon 9800 Pro AGP card.

In PCI slot 4, I had no choice but to put a 1394 port addin PCI card there; my motherboard did not come with builtin 1394 controller chipset. I needed the 1394/Firewire/iLink ports because I connect my miniDV camcorders through them. It seems to work OK. Even then, it's sharing an IRQ with two other devices.

I wanted to quiet down the Radeon 9800 Pro, so the Artic Cooling Silencer was one of my few choices. It's a shame because the PCI slot 1 on motherboard was one of those rare free slots that could easily handle a high performance device like an HD tuner card.

If things didn't work out and I got non-performing cards because of an IRQ problem, my last resort was to remove the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250MCE. It's a pretty nice, full featured card with FM radio (used in WMCE).

One note: I put the AverTVHD in a plain Windows XP box. Naturally, the Tv tuner didn't work. However, I could get video in Windows Movie Maker via composite and svideo on the AverTVHD. It might be that an independent TV application could work, like Sage I guess. But, I don't have any interest in trying that.

Thanks GeekFunk,

I am sure that you did a great job in your post to all the others that understand computers well. I am still on the learning curve and I appreciate your reply. Now I am on the hunt for a USB tuner that has mpeg encoding.


Thanks again,


rmlowz

Originally posted by rmlowz
Now I am on the hunt for a USB tuner that has mpeg encoding.


This one should work great for you (http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=310588&pfp=SEARCH)

Originally posted by GeekFunk
My limitations were in available PCI slots on my motherboard.

I have 5 PCI slots, but two are practically unusable because in PCI slot 4 only PCI devices that do not require Interrupt steering can be used (no sharing of IRQs) and PCI slot 1 is blocked by an Artic Cooling VGA Silencer heat sink and fan attached to my Radeon 9800 Pro AGP card.

In PCI slot 4, I had no choice but to put a 1394 port addin PCI card there; my motherboard did not come with builtin 1394 controller chipset. I needed the 1394/Firewire/iLink ports because I connect my miniDV camcorders through them. It seems to work OK. Even then, it's sharing an IRQ with two other devices.

I wanted to quiet down the Radeon 9800 Pro, so the Artic Cooling Silencer was one of my few choices. It's a shame because the PCI slot 1 on motherboard was one of those rare free slots that could easily handle a high performance device like an HD tuner card.

If things didn't work out and I got non-performing cards because of an IRQ problem, my last resort was to remove the Hauppauge WinTV PVR 250MCE. It's a pretty nice, full featured card with FM radio (used in WMCE).

One note: I put the AverTVHD in a plain Windows XP box. Naturally, the Tv tuner didn't work. However, I could get video in Windows Movie Maker via composite and svideo on the AverTVHD. It might be that an independent TV application could work, like Sage I guess. But, I don't have any interest in trying that.

GeekFunk,

What was your experience make 2 hdtv tuners work in MCE? Any pitfall or gotchas to take note of? I'm leaning toward the same configuration but would like to know more about your experience. Thanks!

I put the AverTVHD into a WMCE box containing a ATI HDTV Wonder and an Hauppauge WinTV 250MCE, and it installed without any issues at all.

I went into WMCE channels setup again. Once that was done, I could record two HD programs simultaneously right off.

Originally posted by GeekFunk
I put the AverTVHD into a WMCE box containing a ATI HDTV Wonder and an Hauppauge WinTV 250MCE, and it installed without any issues at all.

I went into WMCE channels setup again. Once that was done, I could record two HD programs simultaneously right off.

That sounds rather simple! Did you have to install drivers first & then the card? Or the other way around? I know you're not using the Kram drivers, but would
be good to know any potential conflicts.
How about the quality of the new card versus the ati?

Thanx.

There is no driver CD that comes with the AverTVHD, which is an OEM product. You must download the drivers from the Avermedia website.

On this occassion, I downloaded the drivers, and extracted the driver files to a directory. Then, I physically installed the AverTVHD in the PCI slot first, and then on boot up directed the Windows driver installer to the proper directory.

Next, I went into WMCE and ran the TV channels setup again.

FYI, Avermedia has three pdf's on installing the dirvers and setting up the TV channels.

There is no other software for this card that would allow you to watch hd tv. The only software for watching TV is WMCE 2005.

As for PQ, you can't tell when the ATI HDTV Wonder or AverTVHD is being used for viewing or recording. Both are working because I can record two programs simultaneously.

I see you're also contributing in this thread http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=501155.
Thanks again for the info.

Ok I setup mine useing these directions and it ran GREAT! However today it stopped working because the NVIDIA DVD Decoder / Codec expired.

I wanted to buy it but NVIDA says their store will be closed for a month so I can't buy it.

Can I use the ATI DVD software which came with the ATI HD Wonder card?

Any ideas or suggestions?

Hi all. I just purchased the ATI HDTV Wonder tonight for use in my MCE05 box and have a problem. I have Dish network so I input the s-video out of Dish receiver into s-video input on the ATI TV Wonder Elite card. This works fine using the IR blaster to change channels on the sat receiver. I followed all the instructions in the beginning of this thread for installing the HDTV card including a clean install of mce and it is detected in device manager as it should be. The problem is that I get no option to set up digital channels in MCE. I go through the whole process of setting up the Dish network channels through the Elite just fine but cannot find an option to configure digital channels for the HDTV card. PLease help. Thanks.

Bill

I've posted a new version of WatchHDTV here-
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=511835

It should work with MCE now.
Thanks.

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski
Ok I setup mine useing these directions and it ran GREAT! However today it stopped working because the NVIDIA DVD Decoder / Codec expired.

I wanted to buy it but NVIDA says their store will be closed for a month so I can't buy it.

Can I use the ATI DVD software which came with the ATI HD Wonder card?

Any ideas or suggestions?

No, there is no DVD decoder software on the CD that comes with the HDTV Wonder.

Other than Nvidia's DVD decoder, you might try PowerDVD or WinDVD. One or the other usually comes with a new DVD drive.

Originally posted by zmn668
Hi all. I just purchased the ATI HDTV Wonder tonight for use in my MCE05 box and have a problem. I have Dish network so I input the s-video out of Dish receiver into s-video input on the ATI TV Wonder Elite card. This works fine using the IR blaster to change channels on the sat receiver. I followed all the instructions in the beginning of this thread for installing the HDTV card including a clean install of mce and it is detected in device manager as it should be. The problem is that I get no option to set up digital channels in MCE. I go through the whole process of setting up the Dish network channels through the Elite just fine but cannot find an option to configure digital channels for the HDTV card. PLease help. Thanks.

Bill

I don't know why that would be unless the WMCE doesn't see the digital tuner. Normally, after you install the ATI HDTv Wonder, you go into setting up the channels all over again as you did for the analog tuner.

I know that, in the step by step guide, I recommended that you install both the analog tuner and the HDTV Wonder in individual steps, and, afterwards, go into WMCE to do the channels setup.

However, I have went ahead and setup up analog channels before installing the HdTV Wonder without any issues.

However, it appears that you have to go through the entire channel setup again after the HdTV Wonder is installed. The WMCE setup wizard will tell you that it found a analogue tuner and a digital tuner soon after the process begins. It will say, also, that it will setup the analogue channels first.

Right after the new TV guide is downloaded, a screen will appear for starting the digital channel setup.

If the channel setup wizard fails to find the digital tuner, then it probably means that the HDTV Wonder did not install properly.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for the response. I have it working perfectly. Did not realize I needed to reboot once more time and then MCE recognized it just fine.

Bill

I have an HDTV Wonder and 9700 Pro.

I have tried both installation instructions

1. With analog tuner using the Hauppauge USB 2.0 Win TV as the analog tuner

2. And the Second Set of Instructions using the KRAM for an HDTV Wonder only installation.

I have also update with every single Windows Update item.

Neither once has worked for me. I check device manager and everything is fine then when i go to run media center to setup TV it tells me NO TV Tuner detected. Can someone Help. Much appreciated...

Oh i am also using the Nvidia Encdoer. The analog tuner works with its own proprietary software but media center refuses to pick it up.

Originally posted by conman06
I have an HDTV Wonder and 9700 Pro.

I have tried both installation instructions

1. With analog tuner using the Hauppauge USB 2.0 Win TV as the analog tuner

2. And the Second Set of Instructions using the KRAM for an HDTV Wonder only installation.

I have also update with every single Windows Update item.

Neither once has worked for me. I check device manager and everything is fine then when i go to run media center to setup TV it tells me NO TV Tuner detected. Can someone Help. Much appreciated...

Oh i am also using the Nvidia Encdoer. The analog tuner works with its own proprietary software but media center refuses to pick it up.


It might help if we knew the other parts of your system. It's difficult to make suggestions otherwise. So, we're working pretty much in the dark here, with limited info.

Did you ever get the WinTV USB2 tuner working alone? See if it will work in WMCE. In other words, after you've installed the unit and drivers, go ahead into WMCE and try to setup the standard analogue channels.

Report back the results.

Sorry i should have been more clear

Machine. AMD XP 2800, RAM 1.5 GIG, ATI 9700 PRO, 3 200GIG Drivers ATA, PCI, Modem, PCI Firewire Card

I did the install and did all of MCE 2005 and then did all the updates. I then created a GHOST Image so i can revert back to the Clean MCE Install with all Windows Updates including HDTV rollup. I then tried the two diffrent install instrucitons one with and one without the analogn tuner both failed. So the fourth time i did:

After re-ghosting I first installed the USB2 tuner then the drivers. I only did this becuase the instructions said to do so. I then launched MCE 2005 and got the cannot detect tuner. I wanted to make sure the USB2 tuner was working so after MCE telling me on three diffrent installs that did not detect a tuner i tried the Hauppauge SOft PVR software install and that made the analog tuner work right away.

Any suggestions.. and thanks for trying to help...

Originally posted by conman06
Sorry i should have been more clear

Machine. AMD XP 2800, RAM 1.5 GIG, ATI 9700 PRO, 3 200GIG Drivers ATA, PCI, Modem, PCI Firewire Card

After re-ghosting I first installed the USB2 tuner then the drivers. I only did this becuase the instructions said to do so. I then launched MCE 2005 and got the cannot detect tuner. I wanted to make sure the USB2 tuner was working so after MCE telling me on three diffrent installs that did not detect a tuner i tried the Hauppauge SOft PVR software install and that made the analog tuner work right away.

Any suggestions.. and thanks for trying to help...

I don't see anything problematic with your hardware configuration.

I suggest that you try installing the USB2 tuner, then go into WMCE to setup only the analogue channels.

If you can't get the USB tuner to work, then we can focus on something else.

Anyway, let us know what WMCE says when you try to watch live TV.

I have succesfully installed the analog tuner with MCE and can record with the seperate analog tuner. So it all works fine. Then i added the drivers for the ATI HDTV Wonder and all is fine under Hardware howerver when i go to TV setup i dont get DTV setup. I only can setup the regular analog channels. I have also tried to manually set it up and no success any thoughts...

I recently got the ATI HDTV Worder set up in WMCE 2K5 using the steps in this thread :) It's been working great except that I can't get Nvidia DVD decoder to work. I keep getting a decoder error screen telling me to restart or reboot everytime I start Live TV. I switched to the Cyberlink DVD decoder and now it works fine.

Last night I bought an Audigy 2 ZS card and now there is no audio when watching HDTV, either live or recorded. Does anyone here using the Audigy 2 ZS card had any issues with ATI HDTV setup? I'm currently using the analog outputs to a 5.1 speaker setup. I also just installed the Audio 2 ZS drivers and did not install the other Creative apps to keep the bloat down.

Dell 8400 3.0GHz
1 Gig Ram
ATI HDTV Wonder
WinPVR 150 MCE
Audigy 2 ZS

Although I do not have the Audigy 2 ZS (I have an audigy though), I was unable to get any sound when watching live HD through MCE while recorded content played fine. What worked for me was to drop the hardware acceleration on the sound card.

To do this:
Start -> Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices
On Volume Tab Select Advanced in the Speaker Settings groupbox
On Advanced Audio Properties dialog select the Performance Tab
Drop Hardware acceleration down until sound works (Mine was one up from none).

Hope that helps.

I have succesfully installed the analog tuner with MCE and can record with the seperate analog tuner. So it all works fine. Then i added the drivers for the ATI HDTV Wonder and all is fine under Hardware howerver when i go to TV setup i dont get DTV setup. I only can setup the regular analog channels. I have also tried to manually set it up and no success any thoughts...


Does WMCE recognize the digital tuner?

The general procedure is to rerun the channel setup in its entirety after you've installed the ATI HDTV Wonder, including the standard channels. Of course, you'll be connected to the internet to download the latest TV Guide.

Along the way, WMCE should report that the standard channels have been setup and that you will proceed to setup the digital channels.

Incidentally, you will know that WMCE has recognized the ATI HDTV Wonder if digital channel numbers show in the Guide. For instance, if channel 4 is broadcasting HD signals, there will be a channel number 1041 in the listings.

If WMCE does not see a digital tuner (ATI HDTV Wonder), then we have an installation problem.

Does the ATI HDTV Wonder show up in Windows Move Maker? If not, it is surely not been installed.

It may be that the HDTV Wonder is defective.

conman06:
i am just wondering if you have all the devices listed properly in device manager for the DTV Wonder. there should be something like 5. i believe i had a similar problem as you and needed to redo the hdtv rollup update from microsoft which then took the number of DTV Wonder devices from 3 to 5, and voila! it worked after that (for a while anyway). good luck :)

Are there any known issues with using the HDTV Wonder in MCE05 with the Dell 2005FPW LCD monitor?

It's native resolution is 1680x1050. thanks!

The HDTV Wonder has absolutely nothing to do with the display device used. It is purely a video capture card.

The HDTV Wonder is a TV tuner card that also does video capture.

This Dell has a peculiar native resolution. Although it has a 16:10 aspect ratio, which makes it wide screen, I don't think it is a resolution that is supported by most ATI and Nvidia graphics cards.

I have a WMCE 2005 box using an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro with the latest catalyst drivers, and it does not show this resolution. I also have a SFF box using an Nvidia GeforceFX 5700LE, and it does not show this particular resolution.

You might have to use Powerstrip to set it up right.

For those looking for installing an HD wonder without another tuner, a really old guide I wrote is still probably a good place to look:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=501782&highlight=jotter

I'm TRYNG to install a HDTV Wonder card,it has BOTH HDTV and Analog.
So far from ATI..joke!

1st E-mail: How to INSTALL a ATI Video card( Have a Leadtek A400 (GF6800 GT 256meg)

2nd E-mail How to install the Multimedia program (came with the download)

ONLY device that installed was the remote!
The drivers would NOT install
I have the Nvidia DVD decoder
Multimedia program would stop installing at error -RegDBGetKeyValueEX Failed

SO! what do I use as a program to see and switch channels..I don,t have Multimedia XP?

ABIT AN7 Athlon XP 3200 (400fsb) Dual 512meg Dual channel DDR memory

AGP 8x GF6800 GT 256meg DDR-3 memory

Slot 1 empty covered by fan
Slot two SCSI Tape Backup
Slot - 3 HDTV Wonder
Slot - 4 Audigy Plat-2/EX
Slot - 5 empty

I do have other Analog TV cards that worked fine...Old Hauppage PCI tuner,Pinncle PCI
and a ATI wonder pro NTSC card!(weird stuff)

Reinstalled Winxp pro about 3 months ago!

Any Ideas Anyone!

Cheers Dennis

I'm TRYNG to install a HDTV Wonder card,it has BOTH HDTV and Analog.
So far from ATI..joke!

1st E-mail: How to INSTALL a ATI Video card( Have a Leadtek A400 (GF6800 GT 256meg)

2nd E-mail How to install the Multimedia program (came with the download)

ONLY device that installed was the remote!
The drivers would NOT install
I have the Nvidia DVD decoder
Multimedia program would stop installing at error -RegDBGetKeyValueEX Failed

SO! what do I use as a program to see and switch channels..I don,t have Multimedia XP?

ABIT AN7 Athlon XP 3200 (400fsb) Dual 512meg Dual channel DDR memory

AGP 8x GF6800 GT 256meg DDR-3 memory

Slot 1 empty covered by fan
Slot two SCSI Tape Backup
Slot - 3 HDTV Wonder
Slot - 4 Audigy Plat-2/EX
Slot - 5 empty

I do have other Analog TV cards that worked fine...Old Hauppage PCI tuner,Pinncle PCI
and a ATI wonder pro NTSC card!(weird stuff)

Reinstalled Winxp pro about 3 months ago!

Any Ideas Anyone!

Cheers Dennis



Dennis

What items show up in your Device Manager? There should be five items for the HDTV Wonder under Sound, Video section.

I will note that this "step by step" addresses installing a Windows XP Media Center Editiion 2005.

However, I suggest (1) make sure that you've removed all the remaining elements of the other tuners. Hauppauge's app to remove drivers and Registry entries will remove stuff related to ATI tuners as well as Hauppauge tuners. (2) move the HDTV Wonder to PCI slot 5.

Dennis

What items show up in your Device Manager? There should be five items for the HDTV Wonder under Sound, Video section.

I will note that this "step by step" addresses installing a Windows XP Media Center Editiion 2005.

However, I suggest (1) make sure that you've removed all the remaining elements of the other tuners. Hauppauge's app to remove drivers and Registry entries will remove stuff related to ATI tuners as well as Hauppauge tuners. (2) move the HDTV Wonder to PCI slot 5.

I Did try to move it to Slot 5- NoT Good! did not work....slot 3 seems to be the place for it. according to manual AN7 PCI SLOT 1 SHARES SIGNALS WITH PCI -5 AND SATA.....Just thought you would love to know that(grin)
I got 4 items :

ATI DTV Wonder Digital AV -BDA-BDA Capture Devices and Digital tuner Device!

I cannot get it to self load the drivers..BuT can load Em,manualy..Depends which ones you pick to get the right one! (grin) there are Two that don't like each other!
One is the Digital Tuner and the other is the Analog and Digital tuner!
When I get them in there, the IRQ location is 16 or 18 on ALL devices and not shared with others! It,s a pain that MS did not allow one to change or lock out a intruding device.
so far,batting Zero! any help would be used!
The HDTV wonder card I have has both Analog and Digital tuner!
and also came with the Remote gizmo (RF) THAT was the ONLY part that installed!
I have a Hauppuge WINTV older one! a Leadtek USB II Winfast TV ...at hand,and somewhere a ATI TV wonder Pro. They all worked fine! WHY not the HDTV one?
what is with their lousy software?

Cheers Dennis

All these motherboards are different when it comes to figuring out which PCI slot is better than another for a card like the HDTV Wonder.

The issue is trying to avoid having two or more high performance PCI cards sharing the same IRQ. Any card that passes video data trough the PCI bus has to be classified as a high performance card.

If you have video running through the PCI bus from a 1394/ILink port from a miniDV camcorder, then the 1394 card or chipset should also be considered a high performance card. Additionally, if your NIC card continously sends video data or files through your home network, it might be considered a high performance card while it is in action.

So, MadDog500, at the very least we much classify your Nvidia 6600GT, the HDTV Wonder, and the WinTV 150PVR as high performance cards. If any two or three of these cards are sharing the same IRQ, certainly the probability of conflict rises.

The closest I can come to a general rule is that the first PCI slot will be sharing an IRQ with the AGP graphics card, so you don't want to put the HDTV Wonder there. Second, contrary to what many believe, the last PCI slot often shares an IRQ with the AGP card and PCI slot one, so it is often a poor choice. PCI slot three is often loaded with other devices like the USB controllers, so it may be a poor choice also.

I'd try PCI slot four, with PCI slot two as a second choice. However, if there is a card already in four, move it to PCI slot two.

I think that all of the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Cards, Live as well as the Audigy cards, are finicky cards as well. Back in 1998, I wrestled with a Hauppauge WinTV Go card and a Sound Blaster Live card for a month trying to figure out where to put them. Of course, Hauppauge didn't have tuner drivers as good as they are now, and Windows 98 was a BSOD creator.

It might be useless to check the motherboard manual because they are difficult to figure out at times, but that is where one should start.




Argggg! don't remind me! been there/done that!(grin)

I,m Baaaacck! I got a NEW copy of XP pro sp-2 my old copy of XP upgrade got pinholes in the disk somehow,so I could not reinstall it!

Anyway! here,s the problem's:

new install XP......install Nvidia Geforce 6800 GT w/DVD decoder...

Setup HDTV in second slot as it has ONLY the ATI card IRQ active!

run install!
drivers would NOT install.........Install MANUALY.....Working fine IRQ 17 on all!

SiSoftware Sandra

0 : System timer
1 : Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
4 : COM1
4 : Communications Port (COM1)
6 : Standard floppy disk controller
8 : System CMOS/real time clock
9 : Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System
11 : NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management
13 : Numeric data processor
14 : Primary IDE Channel
15 : Secondary IDE Channel
16 : OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
17 : ATI DTV Wonder Analog Audio Capture Device
17 : ATI DTV Wonder Analog AV Capture Device
17 : ATI DTV Wonder Digital AV Capture Device
17 : ATI DTV Wonder Digital BDA Capture Device
17 : ATI DTV Wonder Digital BDA Capture Device
18 : Adaptec AIC-7850 PCI SCSI Controller
18 : Silicon Image SiI 3112 SATARaid Controller
19 : Creative SB Audigy
19 : NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
20 : Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
21 : NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller
21 : Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
22 : Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller



went to install ATI decoder! FAILED cannot find ATI hardware(HUH!)
Wait a min! it's there,and I can PROVE it!(grin)
WHy me! darn it! I just noticed on retrospect,The TUNERS missing(grin) nowonder it did'nt work! I did find out one thing thou,use the single Digital tuner rather than the dual as ATI don't Support the Analog one(what a crock,they have it on the darn card)

anyway just for grins I stuck in my RADeon 8500 and Suprize it worked! mostly
I have ONE problem! ******CRASHING****** sometimes!
I used the WatchHDTV program,which worked right away,real nice! :cool: :cool: :p
Nice pictures,I hung it on my outside ANT and it works,don't believe anyone if they tell you to get a NEW ANT! mine goes back to 87 when we moved into this house,and it works great!

In the EVENTS viewer I get this ERROR: Microsoft never heard of it! :eek:

The COM+ Event System detected a bad return code during its internal processing. HRESULT was 8007041F from line 44 of d:\qxp_slp\com\com1x\src\events\tier1\eventsystemobj.cpp.

Now that I,ve programmed the watchHDTV with all the local stations it shows the Screen sounds off for 2 seconds and crashes! I get these Errors in the event log!

The COM+ Event System failed to create an instance of the subscriber partition:{41E90F3E-56C1-4633-81C3-6E8BAC8BDD70}!new:{D3938AB0-5B9D-11D1-8DD2-00AA004ABD5E}. CoGetObject returned HRESULT 8007041F.

Note these two have the same address location

The COM+ Event System attempted to fire the EventObjectChange::ChangedSubscription event but received a bad return code. HRESULT was 80040201.

WMIAdaptor

4099 Error

Open of service failed. This one shows up at the Start and END


Apart from this it looks great when it worked! Now I wonder what will happen if I put my BETTER video card back in(grin)

9/1/2005

Hey! wake up GEEK,where ARE you?

anyway! Put my Nvid back and everything worked fine, EXCEPT !

The picture is like a color Negitive,a little washed out,how can I change the Color and other things?

9/2/2005

HULLO! ANYONE HOME?

Just for laughs:

got this back from ATI:

The HDTV will work with the Radeon 9600 or higher (not with an 8500 series card).

We are not sure how it worked with the Radeon 8500 series card, but HDTV requires directX 9 on a hardware level, the video card you have supports only directX 8 (on a hardware level).



The previous info you relayed to us indicates you have an Nvidia 6800 card…?

YET!

Ahhhh! Previous info:
Ok! Since I last sent post! I installed my Radeon 8500 I had and everything else installed.

I use the WatchHDTV program to setup the TV as the only thing I got on the Multmedia program was EASYShare,no TV setup!

now as I was setting up the TV I sometimes got dumped!

Once I got all the Stations setup,activating the TV would cause a complete CRASH! REBOOT!
I would get sound and video for about 5 seconds!

This from Shabu ???? Wonder where Support IS ????(grin) he cannot read that's for sure!!


News Flash! 9/7/05 :D

All working fine! All that was needed was to play a DVD through the system ????

I watched a movie tonight and just for grins I activated the HDTV tuner..and up it came! Woooo! :cool:

Boy! am I suprized! :eek:

don,t need you after all(grin)

9/6/2005

Tips: :p

INSTALLING on a XP pro system: :eek:

Use a Radeon 8600 or higher,(I used an 8500,it worked,see earlier note) if you can and install ALL ATI,s files!Then install WATCHHDTV program, once finshed and you have video and sound,reinstall the NVIDIA card,you may get a lousy washed out picture as I did,It sounds weird,but it worked,GET a DVD movie and run it on MS Media,after that,it should come up fine! you then can remove most of ATI stuff ...

I can also run my Winfast USB TV tuner II at the SAME time! PERRRFict picture and NO slow down! according to my Info screen 34/43 % CPU time with BOTH!
23/34% just HDTV.....Lovve IT! the remote works too!





Cheers Dennis :D

I have an HDTV Wonder and a PVR-250 installed in HP Pavillion 2.53 GHz with Windows XP Home. I have only the onboard graphics that came with the machine (Intel Extreme Graphics 64MB).

Presently, the HDTV card records fine in this machine, but I have no live display for anything but 480 HDTV channels. 720 and 1080 record ok, even though the screen is blank during the process. (The post capture files do display later at higher resolutions on this machine.) Need recommendations for inexpensive graphics card to add to the HP to allow 720/1080 display and any techniques I might try to get the machine to display 720/1080 with only the existing onboard graphics.

Bob, Hein's procedure on page 25 of MCE 2005 Faq worked for me. I have no analog tuner, nor do I have An ATI video card.

ATI HDTV Wonder working with Nvidia 6600GT
Hi folk,

I was able consistently setup MCE 2005 and ATI HDTV tuner stand alone. (I did it on 3 machines, two have Radeon X300, and one has NVIDIA 6600GT).
Here's a step by step from scratch

1. Install MCE -

2. Install MCE rollup1 - windowsxpmediacenter2005-kb873369-enu.exe

3. Install Nvidia DVD decoder - Download nvdvd v1.00.67

4. Install ATI HDTV wonder MCE driver (download from ATI site, install this driver before inserting the ATI HDTV card)

5. Insert the ATI HDTV card, let windows detects the card (reboot)


Below is the hack that allows ATI HDTV works with MCE as a stand alone
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. Obtain KRAM driver, and unzip. Go to ATI_KRAM\MCE4.10kv\MCEE - then run setup.exe, reboot.

7. Go to ATI_KRAM\MCE4.10kv\eHomeAIW - then run setup.exe, reboot.

8. Open Device Manager and look for "ATI HDTV Wonder Digital and Analog Tuner Device"

right click then select Update Driver... select "No at this time" click next...select "Install from a specific locaction (Advance)" click next....select "Don't search, I will chose..." click next.... click "Have disk" then point to ATI_KRAM\MCE4.10kv\eHomeAIW\WDM_XP

Now select "ATI WDM Rage Theater Video".... and install this when prompt hit OK. Reboot.

9. Now go back to Device Manager, under "ATI WDM Rage Theater Video" there is an yellow exclaimation, righ click -> properties -> Driver then click "Roll Back Driver" button. Reboot.


10. Now start MCE, and begin the TV set up procedure.


That's it, the procedure works for me every time. Try it and post the result back here.


Cheers, Hien. [/B][/QUOTE]

I know, old post, but I used this as a map for set-up with MCE-2005 with roll-up 2.

Worked like a charm, first time. I installed on Gateway with dual 2.80GHz and am using onboard graphics (no add-on graphics card) and with no other tuner card.

Is there way to access both analog and digital on the ATI Wonder tuner with MCE?

Is there any way using MCE to see if transmission is 480 or 720 or 1080? Guide shows "HD" beside channel in guide listing detail, but there is no indication in guide detail or on screen when changing channels. I have to go to Titan detail listing to see this now.

As I don't have ATI MMC using this setup, I convert dvr-ms to MPEG2 720x480 with DVRMSToolbox (Fast and no sync problems so far).

I recently got the ATI HDTV Worder set up in WMCE 2K5 using the steps in this thread :) It's been working great except that I can't get Nvidia DVD decoder to work. I keep getting a decoder error screen telling me to restart or reboot everytime I start Live TV. I switched to the Cyberlink DVD decoder and now it works fine.

Last night I bought an Audigy 2 ZS card and now there is no audio when watching HDTV, either live or recorded. Does anyone here using the Audigy 2 ZS card had any issues with ATI HDTV setup? I'm currently using the analog outputs to a 5.1 speaker setup. I also just installed the Audio 2 ZS drivers and did not install the other Creative apps to keep the bloat down.

Dell 8400 3.0GHz
1 Gig Ram
ATI HDTV Wonder
WinPVR 150 MCE
Audigy 2 ZS
I have a very similar setup, 8400, 2g RAM, HDTV Wonder, Sapphire 550 Pro, and MCE 2005. Everything works except no sound when on the DTV channels. When recording it doesn't work and I've tried the hack to change the hardware settings. Still nothing. I wonder if it is a driver problem for the Audigy, for the HDTV or what. Yes, I have all 5 of the "devices" listed in the device manager. I really am at a loss as to what to try next (well, I'm going to clean everything out and try reinstalling, but I'm not all that hopeful).

Any advise would be appreciated.

Bob.
----------------
Edited - in case anyone else has similar problems. I tried reinstalling and everything that I could think of. I was using the ATI DVD decoder. I ended up downloading the nvidia one and it worked immediately. So, there is something wrong with the cyberlink dvd decoder and my setup.

Just did a fresh install of MCE and installed an HDTV Wonder by itself without and analog tuner using the kram drivers. I followed the guide from these forums. Everything appeared to go fine. But when I go to MY TV, all I get is blue background instead of a TV siganl/show. Any help?

Just did a fresh install of MCE and installed an HDTV Wonder by itself without and analog tuner using the kram drivers. I followed the guide from these forums. Everything appeared to go fine. But when I go to MY TV, all I get is blue background instead of a TV siganl/show. Any help?

I have only the ATI card with MCE, no add-on video card.

I had to install:

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=737&p_created=1127248112&p_li=&p_topview=1

and AC3Filter to get things to work.

My decoders.txt file is:

NVIDIA video Decoder
AC3Filter

Good luck and post a question here if you run into any issues !
Having just installed my HDTV Wonder, I find that the signal strength is too weak for HDTV, but analog cable works OK. However, I can't get sound with the ATI software (my default Windows sound device is the onboard Realtek SPDIF), and I get nothing at all with MCE (neither sound nor picture--MCE says there is no signal, even though the ATI software finds it just fine).

Any suggestions? How does the analog tuner output sound, seeing as there is no analog out on the back of the HDTV Wonder card?

Thanks, RD

First, go into the Sound Properties from the Control Panel. Look at the Volume Control panel. It may be that one of the audio sources may be "muted." So, unmute it.

Second, from the Volume Control panel, select Options, and then Properties. Select the Playback volume adjustment circle. In the bottom window, you will see a list of audio sources for which volume control are enabled. Apparently, you have "SPDIF" presently enabled with a check mark in the block.

Enable the other sources, and fool with them to see what happens.

Third, RealTek has its own Control Panel entry called "Sound Effect Manager". If your Control Panel doesn't have this entry, you will probably need the CD disk that came with your motherboard to install it.

But, my guess is that the proper Volume Control entry is muted.

By the way, if you don't use SPDIF, disable it.

I am using Realtek SPDIF for primary audio playback; it works fine with Windows and MCE (the Windows sounds are coming through fine), but is there any way I can route the sound from the HDTV Wonder analog tuner through it?

Thanks, RD

After removing and reinstalling the ATI software (the latest versions from the ATI site), I now get sound from both the analog and digital tuners. However, MCE now reports that there are no compatible analog tuners; previously, with the decoder downloaded from Windows Update, it had found the tuner , but refused to acknowledge any signal.

I take it that the latest ATI drivers and decoder software are incompatible with MCE?

rdunnill,

I had a similar problem. I reinstalled the kram drivers, then ran windows update and installed the ATI drivers from their, rebooted and the ATI is working for me.

Lance

Just be be sure, so this card will work for both OTA HDTV and analog cable tv channels in MCE 2005?

Just be be sure, so this card will work for both OTA HDTV and analog cable tv channels in MCE 2005?


No. The ATI HDTV Wonder has two types of tuners: one analog SD and one digital HD. Under normal circumstances when using WMCE, only the digital HD tuner will work, and then only if you have a separate analog tuner that does hardware MPEG encoding.

Stated another way, the ATI HDTV Wonder will not work in WMCE unless you have a separate analog Tuner like one of the ones for WMCE from Hauppauge or Avermedia.

Exception: There are hacked ATI Catalyst drivers (the Kram drivers) that will fool WMCE so that both the analog and digital channels will work in WMCE. As these are hacked, unofficial drivers, you are on your own in getting them to work. When I say unofficial, neither Microsoft nor ATI will help you. However, some of the experienced folks here may lend a hand with the Kram drivers.

Note that there are reports that the video from the analog channels is not very good when using the Kram drivers. I don't know because I haven't used them.

A work around if only want digital HD channels: you can setup digital channels in WMCE using the ATI HDTV Wonder by using an USB analog tuner to setup the channels. After the channels set and the TV Guide in place, then you can remove the USB analog tuner.

Instead of doing all the hacking and fooling around, install a permanent PCI analog tuner that does hardware encoding along side the HDTV Wonder, and your WMCE TV should work just fine.

^^^Thanks! That cleared a lot of my confusion up!

Whenever I try and install my HDTV WONDER the computer will reboot itself, as if it encountered a hardware error during startup. It generally will get far enough along to get to the log in screen or barely let me log in, then its all over again. I have tried most of the procedures out there, but basically the card causes my computer to get into a state where it endlessly keeps rebooting itself over and over and over... I'm running a Sony R-Series MCE2k with XP SP2.

Has anyone else seen this problem?

Thanks.

I installed the HDTV wonder this weekend, for the most part it works ok, not with MCE 2005 but that is because of not having an Analog tuner card hooked up apparently from what I have read on here from you knowledgable folks.

I do have issues with the audio many times where it's not quite in sync with the video, especially yesterday during the football games on FOX and CBS.

The interesting thing is I haven't been having that problem at night on CBS or FOX.

Is that a signal issue? I am using the non amplified antenna that came with the card.

Any suggestions or ideas?

Whenever I try and install my HDTV WONDER the computer will reboot itself, as if it encountered a hardware error during startup. It generally will get far enough along to get to the log in screen or barely let me log in, then its all over again. I have tried most of the procedures out there, but basically the card causes my computer to get into a state where it endlessly keeps rebooting itself over and over and over... I'm running a Sony R-Series MCE2k with XP SP2.

Has anyone else seen this problem?

Thanks.

It might be helpful if you shared the other parts of your box.

To get out of your current problem: (1) try booting into safe mode by holding down the F8 key Windows begins to load up; or (2) take out the HDTV Wonder, and do the Windows update.

I can't tell whether "MCE2K" means Windows Media Center Edition 2005, or something else.

After removing the HDTV Wonder, do the Windows Update based on the WMCE install so that .Net framework and HD Rollup 2 is applied.

I'm assuming that you have a DVD decoder like Nvidia's?

I installed the HDTV wonder this weekend, for the most part it works ok, not with MCE 2005 but that is because of not having an Analog tuner card hooked up apparently from what I have read on here from you knowledgable folks.

I do have issues with the audio many times where it's not quite in sync with the video, especially yesterday during the football games on FOX and CBS.

The interesting thing is I haven't been having that problem at night on CBS or FOX.

Is that a signal issue? I am using the non amplified antenna that came with the card.

Any suggestions or ideas?

It may indeed be a weak signal issue. Local broadcasting TV stations are doing a lot of testing and evaluations right now, and sometimes they vary the signal strength.

It might be helpful if you shared the other parts of your box.

To get out of your current problem: (1) try booting into safe mode by holding down the F8 key Windows begins to load up; or (2) take out the HDTV Wonder, and do the Windows update.

I can't tell whether "MCE2K" means Windows Media Center Edition 2005, or something else.

After removing the HDTV Wonder, do the Windows Update based on the WMCE install so that .Net framework and HD Rollup 2 is applied.

I'm assuming that you have a DVD decoder like Nvidia's?

More info about my Box:
Sony R-Series with Dual 3.2ghz Processors, 1 Gig of Ram, 200GB HD, Windows XP SP2 with Media Center Edition 2005 (both completely up to date), Radeon X300 PCI Express Video Card. I think that is all you would need to know.

As far as a DVD decoder I have the ATI DVD Decoder installed. I have read a few times that although the NVIDIA works "better" either works.

I'm starting to wonder if the problem is my Radeon X300 video card. Perhaps if I upgraded to something else. I'm willing to do so, but I WANT a card that is PCI Express and doesn't have a fan. I bought this computer because it is silent due to liquid cooling, and tossing in a card with a fan would ruin that. Your thoughts?

I have an HP MCE machine currently running fine and I want to install the ATI HD Wonder card to it. the HD card has input for Antenna and a cable. Can I use both of these inputs and teh one I currently use or only the HD input because my other card is using the cable input. I'm confused on how this all works.

Thanks
shane

Hey all, so I installed the ATI HDTV tuner tonight with the Kram drivers and nVidia decoder and everything is working great. My question is... Is installing the ATI Multimedia Center a bad thing at this point? I was hoping to install just the player and still shots feature but wasn't sure if doing so could hose my current installation.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

More info about my Box:
Sony R-Series with Dual 3.2ghz Processors, 1 Gig of Ram, 200GB HD, Windows XP SP2 with Media Center Edition 2005 (both completely up to date), Radeon X300 PCI Express Video Card. I think that is all you would need to know.

As far as a DVD decoder I have the ATI DVD Decoder installed. I have read a few times that although the NVIDIA works "better" either works.

I'm starting to wonder if the problem is my Radeon X300 video card. Perhaps if I upgraded to something else. I'm willing to do so, but I WANT a card that is PCI Express and doesn't have a fan. I bought this computer because it is silent due to liquid cooling, and tossing in a card with a fan would ruin that. Your thoughts?

I just went through the install tonight and can tell you I had absolutely no luck with the ATI Decoder. I couldn't get any audio at all, and the nVidia Decoder solved that problem.

I installed the ATI HDTV card with a fresh install of MCE 2005 using the Kram drivers.

I also installed the nVidia decoder and made sure that it is the "preffered" decoder using the MCE decoder utilty.

I've tested the ATI card with WatchHDTV program and it works great.

The problem i have is when i use MCE, the digital channels stutter and my CPU use goes really high.

My system is a Dell 400sc:

P4 2.8ghz
512mb Ram
ATI AGP 8x generic Radeon 9600 series based card 128mb / 128bit
200gb Sata Drive

What i find wierd is that it works great with WatchHDTV but not MCE 2005.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

bump... anyone?

You probably need a faster PC or else you won't be able to use MCE. MCE is probably using more resources than WatchHDTV, and that is likely the culprit. I don't know what esle someone could say with the information given. Sorry

And more physical memory, at least 1gb. I haven't installed MCE yet but does anyone know what default swap file settings are? Usually you want to set your swap (MS calls it 'virtual memory') at twice what your physical memory is. DevMgr, Advance, Performance, Settings, Virtual Memory, Change, Custom Size. Then type in twice what your physical memy is, in your case put in 1024 on BOTH initial and maximum sizes. Letting Windoze manage it you get a perf hit because it's 'dynamic' and shrinks and grows all over the disk, horrible. When you set it then it's better defined.

Well, i've added more memory. I now have 1gb and i checked the CPU usage and it went down to 30-35%.

But it still stutters! Maybe it wasnt a memory problem. i dunno.

This sucks because i was fine with WatchHDTV, but i wanted a more user friendly interface that had closed captioning. And now i end up using WatchHDTV anyway. Any other suggestions?

Well, i've added more memory. I now have 1gb and i checked the CPU usage and it went down to 30-35%.

But it still stutters! Maybe it wasnt a memory problem. i dunno.

This sucks because i was fine with WatchHDTV, but i wanted a more user friendly interface that had closed captioning. And now i end up using WatchHDTV anyway. Any other suggestions?

I am having the same problem except MCE and HDTV Wonder were working flawlessly before I reloaded MCE.

I reloaded MCE 2005 with kram drivers from here: http://www.hdtvtunerinfo.com/krammcehdtv1.html

That page says its not the full version of kram so I'm wondering if thats the problem.

I get jerky video on the digital channels, whats funny is I can watch hdtv on my 360 through this machine without any jerky video.

I am having the same problem except MCE and HDTV Wonder were working flawlessly before I reloaded MCE.

I reloaded MCE 2005 with kram drivers from here: http://www.hdtvtunerinfo.com/krammcehdtv1.html

That page says its not the full version of kram so I'm wondering if thats the problem.

I get jerky video on the digital channels, whats funny is I can watch hdtv on my 360 through this machine without any jerky video.

I've had a couple related issues, one of which I could solve and one I couldn't. From your description, I'm not sure these are related, but the experiment is easy. I found that 1080i deinterlacing was too CPU intensive for my system, but 720p was no problem. I believe my issue is a non-HD capable graphics card, which I've avoided upgrading due to heat/power issues. It causes semi-lockups (could be called jerky performance, as it eventually moves forward) in normal mode, and after I "fixed" it, slightly jerky (not entirely smooth) video in some particularly complex 1080i broadcast scenes, but smooth most of the time. Anyway, the partial fix is to change the Priority of the MCE process to "Normal" instead of "AboveNormal." I haven't found a permanent way to do it, so I have to do this every time I play back 1080i content (a bit of a pain). If anyone knows of a permanent way to change a the MCE shell's priority, please let me know.

To make the change (temporarily) for your experiment, bring up the Windows task manager after getting ready to play some normally jerky video. In the applications tab, select the MCE application, right click and go to process. That's the process you need to modify. You can change it now by right clicking and selecting Set Priority->Normal. However, it will change back once it starts playing. At this point, start the program playing, but immediately pause the program and bring up the Windows Task Manager again Ctrl-Alt-Delete (which should bring you back to the same process). Repeat the right click Set Priority->Normal, making sure the dialog box you have to accept is over MCE and not the task manager. After that, you can mouse click play and it should stay in Normal priority, which at least on my system makes for much smoother playback without lockups.

I believe the reason this helps is that by lowering the priority of the MCE shell, it allows the deinterlacing to get more resources (not sure if it's more CPU or more I/O it actually needed), where's it's most needed.

John