I picked up the Fusion USB model this week. Having all kinds of issues viewing and recording HD. Setup went very smoothly. I got the latest drivers from the site (3.5x). Channel scan was good and seemed to pick up more than my MDP-130 from the same source (Comcast Digital). I get all of my local HD channels (about 8). In all I get about 75 digital channels between (D83-D9310) and another 50 or so for analog (A2-A99). Almost all the digital channels report 95-100% signal strength at 30-35db. HD appears very clear. The problems I am having are related to watching and recording anything on the D83-D9310 range. When I watch certain channels it seems that frames are being dropped or skipped. There are pauses in the viewing and it does not appear that the signal going down when this happens (stays at near 100% according to the app). After watching for about 5-10 minutes the screen and sound just go off and the application freezes. The same thing is happening when I record anything on the D83-D9310 range.

My setup is XP on a Dell GX280 Optiplex (3.0Ghz, 1GB Ram). Video is generic Intel on board. I have no issues with anything else. No PCI cards installed.

I sent Dvico a note for assistance as well.

I have tried to change several setting to resolve this with no luck. Any assistance appreciated.

Well I followed the above directions without positive result. Still get the same error. Anyway to tell if the card is dead? It was working fine the day before. Other than my old Fluke meter I have no test equipment.

I had the same nightmare too. I finally did:

uninstalled software by running install with uninstall
unistalled using control panel
reboot
turn off PC
unplug card switch it to a different slot
reboot
uninstall again
remove all registry references to it
remove all folders for it
install it (first says I need to uninstall or repair, i uninstall again!, it says it can't find some referecnes, I say continue)
install it (then it works in this slot, but this slot makes it jumpy)
then I go through the whole thing again with it back in the original slot

that has worked both times that horrible error has appeared. never got any other method too. that said, I'm sure a few of the dozens of steps I did above could be skipped, but who knows which ones.

If you had read down a few more posts to Stan's next one (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9145265&&#post9145265) below the one you quoted, you'd have seen that he found a shorter (and more rational) solution than yours to the EP45 error.

I picked up the Fusion USB model this week....When I watch certain channels it seems that frames are being dropped or skipped. There are pauses in the viewing and it does not appear that the signal going down when this happens (stays at near 100% according to the app). After watching for about 5-10 minutes the screen and sound just go off and the application freezes....Video is generic Intel on board.I suspect that the Intel on-mobo graphics hw or driver are not up to the task of HDTV rendering. Can you try an nVidia 440 MX (or newer) video card? FusionHDTV plays very well on even those old (and now cheap) nVidias but it doesn't do so well on cards that don't make good use of DxVA.

TPeterson, thank you for the prompt response. It is appreciated.

Looking at the other threads out there, I probably should have posted this elsewhere.

(http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=744292&page=12&pp=30)

Apologies on that. Well after I posted, I placed a nVidia GeForce 5200 PCI 128 (the only thing I have handy tonight) in the PC with the Fusion USB. Then I disabled the Intel card. So far I am able to capture (recording some PBS HD stuff now and it has not crashed yet). But the dropped frames and stuttering effect is still going on with a lot of the Digital stations. Fox29 (D1111.1) which is really one of the reason I got this for the football games in HD, is one of the stations giving me issues.

One thing of note is that during install I had one minor error (reg serv type of popup) but the install continued w/o issue and as mentioned the channel scan went perfectly. I actually went back and looked and the scanner found over 400 channels. I was able to get the Comcast audio/music stations (which the MYHD cannot pick up).

So how to fix the stuttering effect? The specs on the rest of the PC would appear to be sufficient to display and cap HD. I can play 1080p, h264 and native HD MPEG content on this same PC w/o any issues or dropped frames so there has to be something amiss here.

Are you making recordings using "minimize on silent" mode in the Fusion Agent tray app? If not, try that and see if those play back without issue in FusionHDTV and whatever player you're using for "1080p, h264, and native HD MPEG". The problem may be with that popup rather than the video hw. Did you try reinstalling using KAXKID's method?

Had the Dvico card for about a month so far, and able to watch, record, timeshift, and all the rest w/o much problem. All OTA HD recording. But I've noticed that the volume of the recorded show is too low, as compared to my TV's hd OTA tuner. Is there a way to have the audio recorded louder, as I have to turn up my Plasma TV's volume twice as loud compared to when I am watching the TV's OTA tuner.

Has anyone else noticed that the DVICO tuner card records or plays audio a bit lower than 'normal'

No, nobody else has "noticed" that, because it's not true. FusionHDTV, like all ATSC recorders, simply records the digital transport stream from the broadcaster and the audio part of that is whatever the broadcaster encoded. If your DTV plays the audio louder, that is because its gain is set higher than whatever equipment you have in the audio path of the recording's playback. You can undoubtedly adjust them to be equivalent.

Why not just turn up the sound on the PC to mach what's coming from the TV's itegrated tuner?

Had the Dvico card for about a month so far, and able to watch, record, timeshift, and all the rest w/o much problem. All OTA HD recording. But I've noticed that the volume of the recorded show is too low, as compared to my TV's hd OTA tuner. Is there a way to have the audio recorded louder, as I have to turn up my Plasma TV's volume twice as loud compared to when I am watching the TV's OTA tuner.

Has anyone else noticed that the DVICO tuner card records or plays audio a bit lower than 'normal'

How do you have your audio run? SPDIF to a receiver (I'm guessing no)? Line out from your audio card to speakers? Line out from your audio card to your tv? etc...

There is a setting in the audio settings for the fusion software that if you are using analog audio out from your sound card, you can set the gain. I think it is set for -10 by default. I use SPDIF so I'm not sure if this setting is what you are looking for, but I remember seeing it.

If you use SPDIF out to a receiver like I do, I don't think there should be any difference in the Fusion audio level from any other SPDIF source.

Ronnie

Quick yes or no question before I go pulling my HTPC case apart again to check my jumper settings.

Should I be able to turn my PC on from the off state or wake it up from suspend or hibernate state by using the Fusion MCE remote?

I can turn the PC off with the remote and the PC will wake from suspend 3 minutes before a recording and it will wake from suspend when I use RDP to access it from work. But it will not wake when I press buttons on the remote.


Thanks,


Ronnie

What kind of Fusion card do you have?

Ooops, I guess that piece of info would help with my question! :o

I have the latest FusionHDTV5 RT Gold.


rf

Then the answer is "yes". The details depend upon whether or not your PC supports wakeup from S5 via PME or not. If not, you'll need to use the PSU control jumper supplied with the RT to parallel the action of the front panel "power" switch.

Then the answer is "yes". The details depend upon whether or not your PC supports wakeup from S5 via PME or not. If not, you'll need to use the PSU control jumper supplied with the RT to parallel the action of the front panel "power" switch.

Thanks! My motherboard (ASUS M2NPV-VM) supports wake from S5 via PME and has a setting for it which I've enabled in the BIOS. I know that much is working because the onboard NIC will wake it from S5. I'm guessing that my jumper is set for SW and not PME on the card.

Just wanted to make sure the remote was suppose to wake it before opening the case back up.


rf

I'm running line out of my sound card to audio line in 'RGB' of my TV, and the PC volume is full on for both 'volume' and 'wave'. Also Dvico volume is full max at '15'

So Tpete...what you're saying is my DTV gain is set higher than the gain for my audio RGB input on the TV. Do ya think I might be able to adjust the RGB to match the DTV gain? or lower DTV gain, so my master volume of the TV, matches DTV ota audio and dvico ota volume.

I'll also look for the 'audio settings' for the Dvico software, I did notice it at -10, maybe I need to boost it up.

The gain in audio settings is for analog audio only. It seems that your sound card line output is low. Perhaps the DTV has per-input gain adjustments, I don't know, is there also a gain adjustment on the sound card itself? There may be if it's an actual card rather than the AC'97 on-mobo stuff. Make sure that there aren't any other gain sliders in the Windows volume controls that are limiting the Fusion's output. The culprit may not even be displayed by default. I would temporarily display them all and set all to max, just to eliminate this possibility.

is the driver ZIP file I see from the digital connection site the most current set of drivers available for the LITE card?

I don't know what "zip file" you mean. The latest app is the one called 3.50.01 on the DViCo site under "Software ATSC", which is linked from DC's site. But it's not a zip and it works with all FusionHDTV units.

I don't know what "zip file" you mean. The latest app is the one called 3.50.01 on the DViCo site under "Software ATSC", which is linked from DC's site. But it's not a zip and it works with all FusionHDTV units.

http://www.digitalconnection.com/drivers/Fusion5Lite.zip

is the link (hence the zip file) that is posted for drivers on the dc fusion 5lite product page.

i was not sure if the LITE was supported with the new 3.50.01 from the DViCo site becuase (according to the site) it is a x64bit driver and the LITE is not listed in their provided link for supported models.

[64bit driver not available models, but we'll add this driver ASAP ]
We cannot support x64 driver for 878 chipset-based models at this moment.

<ATSC>
- FusionHDTV1
- FusionHDTV2
- FusionHDTV3 Silver
- FusionHDTV3 SilverT
- FusionHDTV5 Lite
- FusionHDTV5 RT Lite

Are you running 64-bit Windows? If not, please don't touch the 64-bit driver, it's not for you.

If you're running non-64-bit Windows, just download and install the 3.50.01 package using The KAXKID Procedure (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7600356&&#post7600356) and you'll be fine.

If you had read down a few more posts to Stan's next one (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9145265&&#post9145265) below the one you quoted, you'd have seen that he found a shorter (and more rational) solution than yours to the EP45 error.

well, yes that is much shorter, but not sure how rational it woudl have been since it was a fix impossible to apply in my case.

anyway, yes, I saw that, but it did nothing for me. it may well be a nice quick solution for some, that is all well and good, but it is not the universal EP45 fix.
and yes mine is a mess and surely half the steps could be omitted, but anyway, it did the trick at least.

Then the answer is "yes". The details depend upon whether or not your PC supports wakeup from S5 via PME or not. If not, you'll need to use the PSU control jumper supplied with the RT to parallel the action of the front panel "power" switch.

I now have my remote waking my PC from S5, it was the jumper not set properly on the card.

Is there a way to have the remote wake the computer from S1 or S3? It will only wake the PC from S5. I know a mouse or keyboard is usually what is used to wake from S1 or S3, but I use a wireless keyboard and mouse and they cannot wake the PC because the receiver does not have power when the PC is in S1 or S3 standby.

If I use the PSU control jumper "SW" route instead of PME, will the remote wake the PC form S1 or S3?


Ronnie

Ronnie--

I dunno what's up with your PC. I'm using PME mode with my Fusion RT and I just confirmed that the remote's power button (the one on the lower left corner of the layout) powers up the machine from S3, S4, and S5 states. (I never bother with S1, since that leaves all the fans, etc., running and doesn't save much power at all)

The only purpose of the RT's SW mode, is to wake PCs that don't have PME fully implemented from S5, soft off.

Ronnie--

I dunno what's up with your PC. I'm using PME mode with my Fusion RT and I just confirmed that the remote's power button (the one on the lower left corner of the layout) powers up the machine from S3, S4, and S5 states. (I never bother with S1, since that leaves all the fans, etc., running and doesn't save much power at all)

The only purpose of the RT's SW mode, is to wake PCs that don't have PME fully implemented from S5, soft off.

Well using the patch cable in SW mode was the ticket. Guess PME with the Fusion RT is a little flaky on the ASUS M2NPV-VM motherboard. The remote would start the PC from the S5 "off" state in PME mode but not from S3. The Fusion card itself WOULD wake the PC from both S5 and S3 in PME mode when firing off a scheduled recording. Also my NIC will wake my PC form both S3 and S5 modes. Not sure why the Fusion remote will not.

Anyway, the remote works as it should using the jumper cable and SW mode. No more getting off the couch and waking my HTPC with my toe! :D


Ronnie

Glad that you got it working. Thanks for sharing your solution. (Strange, though, that the newer ASUS had problems. My testing was done with an ASUS P4P800-Deluxe)

I have installed two FusionHDTV5 RT Gold units. I have a few issues that I could use some help with:
1. My TitanTV does not work correctly. When I select the watch button, another window opens. It propmts me to open, save or cancel (reminds me of the screen when you are downloading a file). I select open and I can view the channel. I started using TitanTV with another tuner so I changed my setup in TitanTV for the fusion tuner but still get the same issue.
2. What are the possible PVR programs for the FusionHDTV5 RT Gold cards? What would be the best?
3. My cpu usage is high when viewing HDTV (50 - 75%). The cpu usage when viewing analog is 5 - 10%. Is this normal? If so, how can I use two tuners at the same time viewing HDTV?
4. I would like to use one remote between both tuners. Is this possible?
5. When closing PIP, it will turn off the volume on the main screen. The only way I have found to fix this is to close and restart the fusion software.
6. My goal is to have one remote to control the total system. Is there any other software that may need to accomplish my goal.

My current config
P4 HT 3Ghz
1GB ram
160 GB HDD
ATI X1650 AGP 512MB
2 - FusionHDTV5 RT Gold
Westinghouse 42" LCD display
Windows XP sp2

Thanks

William--

1. You need to change Windows' association of tvpi and tvvi files from your old app to FusionHDTVtray.exe.

2. Right now, I like AllenDB's Record_This, because it works with FusionHDTV to flexibly schedule recurring favorite programs in a TiVo-like way. There are others (BeyondTV and SageTV to name a couple with many PVR features, but they don't use FusionHDTV for playback)

3. Sounds as though you have a video driver issue. With your CPU and video card, I'd expect DxVA mode play to be under 20% CPU for HDTV rendering.

4. I haven't actually used a remote on a machine with more than one Fusion card, but from the way that the application works, I'd expect that you can't use more than one remote to control them, since there's only one instance of the application.

5. I suggest that you look in the DViCo Q&A FAQ and post a question about this if you don't find a solution already there. (But first, I'd try re-installing both FusionHDTV and your soundcard driver)

6. Check out the Harmony remotes. They're by far the easiest in my experience to set up and they can control nearly anything.

I have a dvico 5 hooked to an Nforce 3 motherboard, with a Radeon 9800 pro and the Dvico works and then will suddenly lose the signal. I reboot, still no signal and the only way to get the card to work again is to take it out and move it to another PCI slot. Then, maybe every few days (of very light use) I'll have to switch it back to the origianl slot where it will work again. Has anybody ever heard of this probelm before or have any ideas about how to trouble shoot it? Is it an IRQ conflict, problem with the board, overheating? Any ideas would be appreciated.

Do you have another computer in which to try the tuner? If it behaves similarly in a second PC, I'd suspect that it's defective and try an RMA exchange. If you don't have a second PC for testing, you could still try the RMA route, I suppose, but there's a fair chance that the problem is with the computer hardware.

Update
Thanks for the reply.
Since the last update I have found other issues:
1. When I try to manually analog record a program in PIP and then manually analog record a program in the main screen, It will refuse the reord in the main screen. But I can change to digital record in the main screen and it works.
2. No sound issues during playback. I made a digital record in the main screen and the playback was ok. I then did step #1 and the digital play of a new recordings had no sound.

I have went out and purchased another computer: Gateway GT5238E core 2 duo E6300. I have used all the equipment that has come with it, nothing was transfered from the other system other than the fusion cards.
I still have all the same problems as with the other computer except for:
1. The cpu usage is less.
One new problem:
1. The new computer has XP MCE and it will not use the fusion cards. I get an error message that it needs at least one tuner card that uses NTSC. I noticed used the device manager that there is two: fusionHDTV 88x, WDM video capture (NTSC).
There seems to be only one constant here and that is the fusion tuner system. I'm ready to return these things unless I have missed something. Please advise.

When I started out on this project I wouldn't have believed that situation wouldn't have been this bad. This reminds me of the windows 95 / 98 days of loading software / dealing with int problems. I would apprecaite any suggestions on a system that works with cable analog, digital, and HDTV. The cable analog is really only a temporary situation. But I would like to have a system to utilize two tuners, DVD, etc...
Thanks

Update
Thanks for the reply.
Since the last update I have found other issues:
1. When I try to manually analog record a program in PIP and then manually analog record a program in the main screen, It will refuse the reord in the main screen. But I can change to digital record in the main screen and it works.
2. No sound issues during playback. I made a digital record in the main screen and the playback was ok. I then did step #1 and the digital play of a new recordings had no sound.

I have went out and purchased another computer: Gateway GT5238E core 2 duo E6300. I have used all the equipment that has come with it, nothing was transfered from the other system other than the fusion cards.
I still have all the same problems as with the other computer except for:
1. The cpu usage is less.
One new problem:
1. The new computer has XP MCE and it will not use the fusion cards. I get an error message that it needs at least one tuner card that uses NTSC. I noticed used the device manager that there is two: fusionHDTV 88x, WDM video capture (NTSC).
There seems to be only one constant here and that is the fusion tuner system. I'm ready to return these things unless I have missed something. Please advise.

When I started out on this project I wouldn't have believed that situation wouldn't have been this bad. This reminds me of the windows 95 / 98 days of loading software / dealing with int problems. I would apprecaite any suggestions on a system that works with cable analog, digital, and HDTV. The cable analog is really only a temporary situation. But I would like to have a system to utilize two tuners, DVD, etc...
Thanks
It is a well known & advertised limitation that MCE needs an analog (NTSC) tuner to enable an ATSC tuner. I believe there are workarounds (hacks) as well as other options (buy an NTSC card, install the ATSC, take the NTSC out and return the NTSC card to the store), but since i haven't dirtied my hands with MCE, this is all hearsay from browsing other topics. You should be able to find some advice on this stuff in the AVS forum as well as thegreenbutton.com etc. Google is your and my friend.

As far as the complexity of things, it is much like anything else, the greatest cost is upfront, learning the terminology & problem space, but once you get over the original learning curve, things get remarkably less difficult. It is a hobby though, and if you aren't willing to (or don't enjoy) investing the time, a settop box from your cable company or dish provider is probably the way to go.

I don't have a second computer I could try the card in, and it's been too long for an RMA I expect. I've been tempted on several occasions to just try a different card since I'm doing OTA and not interested in cable decoding. I'm running XP pro, not MCE, so analog tuner support is also a non issue for me.

Hello TPeterson. I just got my Fusion5 Gold RT yesterday and installed it. Everything went smoothly and the card, wake from PME, recording functions smoothly. I have an Athlong 64 2.2 Ghz machine, nForce 4 mobo and an nVidia 7900GT video card with latest 93.71 drivers.

The only major issue I'm having is related to the video decoding modes in the config menu. When I select the DxVA (which I take to mean hardware accelerated) mode, all the 1080i stations (which in my area is everything except Fox) exhibit significant tearing / smearing on the edges of moving objects on screen. If I switch to the 3rd decoding option which seems to be pure-software, the performance is much better although during fast motion of sharp-edged objects, there's still a slight fine combing effect. These seem to be de-interlacing errors. Indeed, checking Task Manager for CPU % shows the DxVA mode is about half the CPU usage compared to software rendering, yet it looks junky. I'd like to use my relatively new high-horsepower card to decode MPEG2 OTA and keep the CPU usage down. I did some research on nVidia's site and while it appears the 93.71 enables PureVideoHD, it seems you have to download and pay for the PureVideo decoder to take advantage of the hardware acceleration and quality features? See here (http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder.html). The site suggests it works only with Windows Media Player so I'm not sure if it will work for FusionHDTV. They have a free trial I can try it out if you think this is the solution, or is there another setting in FusionHDTV that fixes this?

EDIT: Note I'm use Win XP Pro. I searched the thread and found posts referencing using the NV PV decoder for MCE, but will this change work for XP?

Hello TPeterson. I just got my Fusion5 Gold RT yesterday and installed it. Everything went smoothly and the card, wake from PME, recording functions smoothly. I have an Athlong 64 2.2 Ghz machine, nForce 4 mobo and an nVidia 7900GT video card with latest 93.71 drivers.

The only major issue I'm having is related to the video decoding modes in the config menu. When I select the DxVA (which I take to mean hardware accelerated) mode, all the 1080i stations (which in my area is everything except Fox) exhibit significant tearing / smearing on the edges of moving objects on screen. If I switch to the 3rd decoding option which seems to be pure-software, the performance is much better although during fast motion of sharp-edged objects, there's still a slight fine combing effect. These seem to be de-interlacing errors. Indeed, checking Task Manager for CPU % shows the DxVA mode is about half the CPU usage compared to software rendering, yet it looks junky. I'd like to use my relatively new high-horsepower card to decode MPEG2 OTA and keep the CPU usage down. I did some research on nVidia's site and while it appears the 93.71 enables PureVideoHD, it seems you have to download and pay for the PureVideo decoder to take advantage of the hardware acceleration and quality features? See here (http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder.html). The site suggests it works only with Windows Media Player so I'm not sure if it will work for FusionHDTV. They have a free trial I can try it out if you think this is the solution, or is there another setting in FusionHDTV that fixes this?

EDIT: Note I'm use Win XP Pro. I searched the thread and found posts referencing using the NV PV decoder for MCE, but will this change work for XP?

Have you tried older forceware drivers? I had the same issue as you with my 6150 integrated video card with the latest drivers. It was like there was not any hardware acceleration. I tried several different things with the latest drivers and never fixed the laggy playback with them.

Try either 84.21_forceware_winxp2k_english_whql.exe from nvidia's site or 84.25_forceware_winxp2k_english.exe. I get better results with the 84.25 drivers on my 6150 but they are beta drivers if that matters to you. You can get them here:

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_winxp_2k_32bit_84.25.html

With the 84.25 drivers and my 6150 (which your 7900GT should smoke,) I get perfect 720p and 1080i source playback with the Fusion software set to DxVA render and my vid card res set to 720p output to my TV. My AMD 3500+ (AM2 single core) cruises at around 15-25% usage with 1080i source material with the above settings.

FYI- 1080i res. output settings on my 6150 do not look as good as 720p res settings on my TV (a lot more flicker) and also taxes the 6150 a little too much. I'm guessing your 7900GT should not have problems with either though...


rf

Vasanth, I agree with Ronnie's suggestion to try the older driver for your video card. DViCo says that they have known problems with the 9x.xx forceware version. I have no personal experience with the paid-for Nvidia codec but, IIUC, it wouldn't do anything for FusionHDTV, which uses its own codecs.

OK guys, this suggestion makes sense and I'll give it a try. I understand the latest Forceware drivers are only really needed to support the latest 8xxx series nVidia cards.

Have you tried older forceware drivers? I had the same issue as you with my 6150 integrated video card with the latest drivers. It was like there was not any hardware acceleration. I tried several different things with the latest drivers and never fixed the laggy playback with them.

Try either 84.21_forceware_winxp2k_english_whql.exe from nvidia's site or 84.25_forceware_winxp2k_english.exe. I get better results with the 84.25 drivers on my 6150 but they are beta drivers if that matters to you. You can get them here:

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_winxp_2k_32bit_84.25.html

With the 84.25 drivers and my 6150 (which your 7900GT should smoke,) I get perfect 720p and 1080i source playback with the Fusion software set to DxVA render and my vid card res set to 720p output to my TV. My AMD 3500+ (AM2 single core) cruises at around 15-25% usage with 1080i source material with the above settings.

FYI- 1080i res. output settings on my 6150 do not look as good as 720p res settings on my TV (a lot more flicker) and also taxes the 6150 a little too much. I'm guessing your 7900GT should not have problems with either though...


rf


ok, now I know i'm not going crazy. i could've sworn my HDTV looked a little messed up in a weird to describe way ever since I popped in an 8800 GTS, most noticeably with sports, and it seems to sort of match the above. in my case though i can't roll back the drivers. :(

my HD DVD is way better with my X2 and 8800 and games too (the former mostly because of the X2 I'm sure, well the 8800 did give DVI which does look a little crisper than VGA on my display, and the latter mostly because of the 8800 I think), but HDTV is clearly worse now, clearly :( .

i hope nvidia fixes this up soon (and much moreso that they can)
i'm a little worried though that three drives in a row for 8800 ALL have this. including the one that will be officially released in another two weeks or so :eek: .

OK guys, this suggestion makes sense and I'll give it a try. I understand the latest Forceware drivers are only really needed to support the latest 8xxx series nVidia cards.

Something I should mention is on my 6150 with the 84.xx drivers and the latest fusion software, digital 480i content is messed up with DxVA and the default settings. On digital 480i channels, the bottom 1/3 of the image is all gray/white. I've only seen one other person post about this issue. There is a fix because I no longer have the issue with the 84.xx drivers, but I'm not exactly sure what I did to fix it. I think it is either disabling AA in the forceware drivers OR checking the box to use VMR render with DxVA. Not sure what using VMR with DxVA does but I think it fixed the above issue. I do not see any performance hit when I check use VMR and I do not notice any difference in the image. My CPU usage stays the same as when the box is unchecked.

For whatever reason I no longer have the issue and I don't want to try and reproduce it because I'm happy with my current settings. But it would happen every time with a fresh install of the Fusion software and the 84.xx drivers on my 6150 Asus motherboard.

It's almost a mute point even if you have the same issue and cannot fix it because most digital 480i stations are "shop-at-home" type of crap anyway, but I figured I'd mention it.

rf

Update: I tried 84.25 and while there is some improvement, there's still combing artifacts on the edges of moving objects and on some channels the bad wavy artifacts. I'll stick with software decoding as it doesn't seem to tax my Athlon 64 single core 2.25 Ghz too much. I'll try to posts some pics of the problem. I might fork over the $10 for a driver cleaner program to completely remove all trace of the 91.73 drivers.

Here (http://home.austin.rr.com/vbalak/upload/OTA_snapshot_j_20070110_0000.jpg) is a link to a 1080i screenshot taken using the FusionHDTV capture function. The bunny slippers were moving pretty fast in this commercial...seems like there is no deinterlacing being done on 1080i streams in DxVA decode mode. No image quality issues on 720P.

I might fork over the $10 for a driver cleaner program to completely remove all trace of the 91.73 drivers.

You should not have to do that. I've installed and unistalled the drivers several times, with probably 5 different versions of the drivers. The "add/remove" Nvidia Drivers and selecting only remove graphics drivers option has always worked for me.

I know some people have had issues if the Fusion card is sharing IRQ's another device like the graphics card. You might want to check that and see. If it is and you want to see if that is your issue, you'll have to pull the card and move it to a different PCI slot. I'm not sure exactly what issue people have had with the IRQ sharing because I do not have that problem with mine.


rf

Here (http://home.austin.rr.com/vbalak/upload/OTA_snapshot_j_20070110_0000.jpg) is a link to a 1080i screenshot taken using the FusionHDTV capture function. The bunny slippers were moving pretty fast in this commercial...seems like there is no deinterlacing being done on 1080i streams in DxVA decode mode. No image quality issues on 720P.

Wow, I've never seen anything like that with mine before when using the Fusion drivers. I've had slow frame rates etc, but nothing like that.

I have seen something like that before when using VLC to watch recorded TP files and not having my codec settings correct. But if you are using the Fusion software with live streams or recorded files, it should be using the included Fusion ZULU drivers.

Strange.

rf

I know some people have had issues if the Fusion card is sharing IRQ's another device like the graphics card. You might want to check that and see. If it is and you want to see if that is your issue, you'll have to pull the card and move it to a different PCI slot. I'm not sure exactly what issue people have had with the IRQ sharing because I do not have that problem with mine.
Thanks for the suggestion. I would say it doesn't seem like an IRQ issue but then again, if I switch decode modes while a channel is being viewed live, I can the program to crash with a fatal error about 1 out of 3 times I try it. It will restart fine. I don't get the crash when stop viewing, then switch decode modes. Is this a known bug or a symptom of IRQ issues?

Thanks for the suggestion. I would say it doesn't seem like an IRQ issue but then again, if I switch decode modes while a channel is being viewed live, I can the program to crash with a fatal error about 1 out of 3 times I try it. It will restart fine. I don't get the crash when stop viewing, then switch decode modes. Is this a known bug or a symptom of IRQ issues?

Are you using the latest version of the Fusion software from Dvico's site or are you using what came with your card?

(You might have already mentioned this...)


rf

But if you are using the Fusion software with live streams or recorded files, it should be using the included Fusion ZULU drivers. This deinterlacing issue is only present when using DxVA mode. If I choose the ZULU software decoders, there's no problems. I'd like to fix this problem to enable HW acceleration but it's not a deal-breaker since software decode looks fine and I don't have dropped frames even in full-screen 1080i mode.

I'm using what I think is the latest software, 3.50.01 downloaded from the Korean DVICO site.

This deinterlacing issue is only present when using DxVA mode. If I choose the ZULU software decoders, there's no problems. I'd like to fix this problem to enable HW acceleration but it's not a deal-breaker since software decode looks fine and I don't have dropped frames even in full-screen 1080i mode.

I'm using what I think is the latest software, 3.50.01 downloaded from the Korean DVICO site.

Does the issue happen when you play back recorded TP streams using the Fusion software in DxVA mode? Or is it only when watching live streams?


rf

Good question. I believe it happens also on TP playback but I'm not certain. I tried Remote Desktop from work into my home computer but overlay isn't supported over RD. :) I'll check tonight.

Good question. I believe it happens also on TP playback but I'm not certain. I tried Remote Desktop from work into my home computer but overlay isn't supported over RD. :) I'll check tonight.

I'm just shooting in the dark here, but If it does not show the combing issue on the recorded TP file in DxVA mode, I'd say it might be an IRQ sharing issue or a motherboard driver issue. As in it only happens when data is traveling over the PCI bus from the fusion card to the video card.


rf

Ronnie, just checked and it does have the deinterlacing errors on TP playback in DxVA mode. It's definitely something to do with the decode function. I'll keep trying things.

Ronnie, just checked and it does have the deinterlacing errors on TP playback in DxVA mode. It's definitely something to do with the decode function. I'll keep trying things.

I'm stumped then. I'd poke around in the advanced nvidia display settings to see if changing any options there makes a difference like making sure you are set for single monitor mode etc.

Have you tried checking the VMR box in the Fusion software next to the DxVA setting to see if it changes anything? You might have to quit out of the fusion software and reload it for the changes to take.

(all of these are just suggestions to try. I have not idea if they will help...)


rf

I don't know what "zip file" you mean. The latest app is the one called 3.50.01 on the DViCo site under "Software ATSC", which is linked from DC's site. But it's not a zip and it works with all FusionHDTV units.

I just installed the Fusion5Gold yesterday (with minor difficulties) and have most bells and wistles working. (Except for too weak of a VF digital signal on CBS.) I did start with the latest software download.

Is there a similar thread going, specific to the software?
For example - Conversion software.

The documentation focus on the DBT hardware is a bit disconcerning. Is there a US oriented set?

Something I should mention is on my 6150 with the 84.xx drivers and the latest fusion software, digital 480i content is messed up with DxVA and the default settings. On digital 480i channels, the bottom 1/3 of the image is all gray/white. I've only seen one other person post about this issue. There is a fix because I no longer have the issue with the 84.xx drivers, but I'm not exactly sure what I did to fix it. I think it is either disabling AA in the forceware drivers OR checking the box to use VMR render with DxVA. Not sure what using VMR with DxVA does but I think it fixed the above issue. I do not see any performance hit when I check use VMR and I do not notice any difference in the image. My CPU usage stays the same as when the box is unchecked.

For whatever reason I no longer have the issue and I don't want to try and reproduce it because I'm happy with my current settings. But it would happen every time with a fresh install of the Fusion software and the 84.xx drivers on my 6150 Asus motherboard.

It's almost a mute point even if you have the same issue and cannot fix it because most digital 480i stations are "shop-at-home" type of crap anyway, but I figured I'd mention it.

rf

I do have this problem with 480i display. My Nvidia driver is setting at 8.4.2.1.
What is the AA setting? My band is about the bottom 20%.

Ronnie and hollig1--

Are you sure that the key factor wasn't in making sure that your BIOS AGP aperture setting (or whatever is the PCI-e equivalent) was as big as the shared DRAM setting?

Has anyone been able to tune into RF channels above 124? My cable provider has 2 HD channels above that frequency. I heard that there was a registry hack for the software to trick it into seeing channels above 124. Can someone please help me out?

Search the Forum for "TS0-1" and you'll find the discussion of how to substitute higher number channels in the first 125. There's a thread on the subject (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8200574&&#post8200574) also.

I think that the need for this hack will be going away in the next sw version but I may be mistaken.

Thanks...I posted in another thread and was given the information. I finally got it working after 3 days. How did someone figure that hack out? What a genius.

Ronnie and hollig1--

Are you sure that the key factor wasn't in making sure that your BIOS AGP aperture setting (or whatever is the PCI-e equivalent) was as big as the shared DRAM setting?
Don't think this is it. I have the only bios "video memory setting" set to the max 128MB. (I cannot remember what the setting was called right now...)
I do have this problem with 480i display. My Nvidia driver is setting at 8.4.2.1.
What is the AA setting? My band is about the bottom 20%.

I messed around with mine this weekend doing some color calibration tweaks. Using VMR renderer with DxVA is the key to NOT having the 20% weird gray/white band at the bottom of the screen with 480i digital channels.


On another note, does anyone know if DVICO plans no supporting VMR9 render without overlay instead of VMR7 which uses overlay? I like calibrating my system to be able to output BTB info and calibrating my monitor to display gray 16 as black. DVD's look outstanding this way. But when I calibrate my system like this for awesome DVD playback, the Fusion software crushes the heck out of the blacks in HDTV video since it outputs in overlay and already extended gray 16 to be pure black. Since the Fusion software is my only software that uses overlay, I can get ok results by tweaking the Nvidia video overlay settings and pumping the brightness up to 135% to 140% and dropping the contrast to around 80%. But I'd rather be able to bypass overlay with the Fusion software like I do for DVD playback in Media Center and use VMR9 mode with the Fusion software sending full 0-255 and do the final corrections on my TV.

Ronnie

Does anyone know of any good HD video editing programs to go with the DVICO FusionHDTV tuner?

How would one go about suggesting to DVICO that they allow users to edit the Service names for digital channels? My cable company recently reconfigured their QAM channels and they no longer send any channel names.

Alternately, is there some other program I can use with a Fusion HDTV USB that will let me configure my own channel names?

Jim - My cable provider does the same. I have hacked the registry to change the names, but Fusion always resets them. unless someone else knows something I don't, I believe you're out of luck.

DViCo has been notably unresponsive to suggestions regarding editing the QAM service names. You can make your pitch to their Q&A Forum but don't hold your breath. :(

You can use Record_This to at least schedule things using human-readable names. Also, help is on the way from CW_EPG to do the same.

Upon thinking about it further, I believe the problem with editing the service names is that every time I switch to a QAM channel, it re-identifies the streams coming down on that physical channel. I found this out because the cable company just started doing VOD :) So editing the service names on the configuration screen is probably out without changing the way the whole program works. But it would be nice if I could set up custom names in my Favorite Channels list, which should not be re-scanned every time I change.

Jim - I WAS able to redefine the names of the favorite channels by editing the registry and those DO stick. Of course, be careful when playing with the registry....

Would you please tell me where you fixed the favorite list in the registry? I found what looked like the Favorites under HKEY Current User - Software - DVICO - ZuluHDTV - data - SubCh but changing them did not stick.

That is where I found them, and they stuck for me....

Thanks, I tried to get too fancy and put in the call letters. If I just change them to a 3 digit channel number they stick for me too.

I used call letters and they worked. Like I said, you must be careful and make sure the record you are editing remains the same length.

It worked for me too. I wonder just how many bytes we're allowed to use for names.

I have installed a Fusion HDTV5 Express in a system running MCE. FusionHDTV runs fine but then after closing it (the tray icon is still visible) and re-opening it, I get an unexpected error and all channels show a signal strength of -1. No channels display video or audio. Rebooting resolves the problem but then repeats. Looking at the event log, prior to the error, MCE is reporting and error with the Media Center Receiver.

I haven't seen any reference to uninstalling the MCE remote receiver but I'm wondering if this is the cause. I am running the 3.51 driver included with the Express card. The other specs are AMD 3200+. 2gb ram, Gigabyte 7600GT, ASUS A8-NE MB, and Hauppauge 150. I've done a fresh install of MCE and related software. I did not unplug the MCE remote receiver prior to reloading so I suspect that may have caused a problem. Does this sound like a possible cause? I plan on reloading from scratch and leave the MCE remote unplugged as I don't think it is necessary as long as I use the Fusion remote.

Thanks.

Gibbie--

Did you check the FAQ section on the DViCo site for your problem? I doubt that you'll find many people here with the Express card yet so that's probably your best bet. If you don't see the problem described in their FAQ, you can log onto their Q&A forum and post your question. They're very responsive to that forum.

Does the issue happen when you play back recorded TP streams using the Fusion software in DxVA mode? Or is it only when watching live streams?


rf

i also get that issue live or recorded streams. i get weird stutters from certain camera pans or if an object moves fast, sometimes it stutters while the rest sometimes still looks ok, that is with any combo of live or recorded or render mode chosen in fusion. startedwhen i put 8800 GTS card in. was fine with my old 7800. OTOH, SD DVD and HD DVD playback are 100% fine no matter what render mode I pick in powerdvd.

Sounds as though the 8800 installation created a resource conflict. Did you try moving the Fusion card to a different slot and/or reinstalling the Fusion software after the 8800 installation?

I have installed a Fusion HDTV5 Express in a system running MCE. FusionHDTV runs fine but then after closing it (the tray icon is still visible) and re-opening it, I get an unexpected error and all channels show a signal strength of -1. No channels display video or audio. Rebooting resolves the problem but then repeats. Looking at the event log, prior to the error, MCE is reporting and error with the Media Center Receiver.

I haven't seen any reference to uninstalling the MCE remote receiver but I'm wondering if this is the cause. I am running the 3.51 driver included with the Express card. The other specs are AMD 3200+. 2gb ram, Gigabyte 7600GT, ASUS A8-NE MB, and Hauppauge 150. I've done a fresh install of MCE and related software. I did not unplug the MCE remote receiver prior to reloading so I suspect that may have caused a problem. Does this sound like a possible cause? I plan on reloading from scratch and leave the MCE remote unplugged as I don't think it is necessary as long as I use the Fusion remote.

Thanks.

I have also just installed this card and have been having software issues with FusionHDTV. It crashes and then says it is already running and would restart unless I reboot. I have contacted the DViCO and they did respond by saying that they are currently compiling an alpha version 3.51.02. They said they will contact me when available for ftp so you may want to do the same.

Dvico responded to my issue with the error I was getting running the Express card under the 3.51 driver. Here is their response. I'll give it a try tonight.

"We think it is because system file is corrupted. We'll send another program to you.
Here's FTP site.

ftp://Fusionbeta:fusionhdtv@partner.dvico.com
ID:fusionbeta
Password :fusionhdtv
File name : FusionHDTV3.51.02_Alpha.exe

Before installing this software, please entirely uninstall application on the control panel-Add or Remove programs if already installed on your PC.

This version didn't finish the testing, so there is some bugs. But you can check this issue in advance. Recording scheduler doesn't work now, do not test it."

Note to other AVS Forum readers of this thread:

I recommend against installing the alpha software posted at the link above.

It has not even finished DViCo's own testing (that's what "alpha" means) and it has known-broken features. Install at peril to your system enjoyment. There will be "beta" version(s) of this code in the near future that will be worth waiting for.

Needless to say I was concerned with the Alpha tag and "there is some bugs" but the current version makes the product unusable so I'll have to take my chances. I wonder if the 3.41 version would work with Express?

IIRC, there is not a driver for the Express card included in 3.41.

Anything less than 3.51 does not appear to have drivers for the pci express card.(sorry, but it looks like the previous post addressed this)

I was able to get 3.51.01 off of the ftp site and it does work a little better now. I will wait for them to compile a newer beta verson and try again.

Am I correct in assuming that I can use Windows Vista Media Center with this card(without having an analog card) and possible get rid of the Fusionhdtv software?

I have installed a Fusion HDTV5 Express in a system running MCE. FusionHDTV runs fine but then after closing it (the tray icon is still visible) and re-opening it, I get an unexpected error and all channels show a signal strength of -1. No channels display video or audio. Rebooting resolves the problem but then repeats. Looking at the event log, prior to the error, MCE is reporting and error with the Media Center Receiver.

I haven't seen any reference to uninstalling the MCE remote receiver but I'm wondering if this is the cause. I am running the 3.51 driver included with the Express card. The other specs are AMD 3200+. 2gb ram, Gigabyte 7600GT, ASUS A8-NE MB, and Hauppauge 150. I've done a fresh install of MCE and related software. I did not unplug the MCE remote receiver prior to reloading so I suspect that may have caused a problem. Does this sound like a possible cause? I plan on reloading from scratch and leave the MCE remote unplugged as I don't think it is necessary as long as I use the Fusion remote.

Thanks.

I have the exact same problem except I have yet to see any HD content with their software and when I tried the alpha I get an error when I try to run the program saying authentication failed.

Newbie Wish List for Fusion HDTV 5 Gold:

I have had the card installed about a week. While over-all I am pleased, there are a few things about the setup that seem awkward. I am comparing this to long experience with a Hauppague PVR-250 and TiVo.

1) The documentation is poor at best. It would make sense to me to totally separate the ATSC and DVB-T documentation. Many optional settings with little or no explanation.
2) When playing a recorded file, why can’t you use the remote to control the playback? I’ve only been able to use the mouse to control with the slider, to get through commercials.
3) Fusion Converter can not be used with the HDTV on? What is the logic behind this?
(To watch shows via the network on another computer, I have to convert them first. Can’t watch or record during conversion.)


The HD quality is great!

To watch shows via the network on another computer, I have to convert them first.Not so. There are many players that will handle native transport streams perfectly well, including Theatertek, VLC, Nero Showtime, most software DVD players,.... I have only used the Fusion Converter to experiment with the thing. It's not needed in general.

I've scanned through all 27 pages of this thread so far before posting...

I just installed the Dvico FusionHDTV5 Gold Plus PCI TV Tuner w/ FusionHDTV3.50.01_Web.exe and use Charter Communications (Glendale, CA digital build) cable feed only for HDTV via QAM. I use my Hauppauge PVR-150 w/ an external cable box for all of the non HDTV stations via BeyondTV. My main reasons for buying this was:

1) Record network HDTV stations in DD 5.1. I don't care about the analog channels.
2) Specifically record "24" on FOX-HD and "Smallville" on CW-HD instead of waiting 6 months for the DVDs (in lower resolution) to come out. If those turn out well, then record other HDTV shows for my personal video library.

I've noticed a couple of issues, though:

1) BeyondTV doesn't support QAM. :(

2) For analog, audio needs to be set up separately from video in BeyondTV. I guess if I want to get rid of my Hauppauge PVR-150, I should hook up the audio cable directly to my SB Xi-Fi?

3) After I switch back and forth only between digital/QAM channels, I can't get a steady feed (picture & sound) anymore. My signal strength drops from the high 80's to the low 80's. It was so bad that I couldn't even watch Smallville tonight.

I had to reboot to be able to access those QAM channels again w/o any issues. However, by chance, I found out that if I switch to an analog station it "clears" whatever HDTV issue I'm having with the QAM channels so I can then switch back to QAM with no problems.

I haven't tried setting up automatic recordings yet, so I'm not sure if I'll get this problem during that time. Maybe I can schedule a 5-minute analog recording between digital/QAM recordings?

4) The QAM channels jump around. My broadcast HDTV QAM channels for Charter in Glendale, CA are:

D782.1 CBS-HD
D786.1 PBS-HD
D1020.1 FOX-HD
D1021.1 NBC WEATHER
D1022.1 NBC-HD
D1040.1 ???
D1041.1 THETUBE
D1042.1 ABC-DT
D1043.1 CW-HD
D1044.1 ABC-HD

However, sometimes D1023.1 and D1024.1 come up and the channels "shift up". i.e. D1021.1 NBC WEATHER and D1022.1 NBC-HD jump to D1023.1 and D1024.1 or the D1040.1 - D1044.1 channels shift down to D1023.1, etc. Why? :confused:

5) I can't add a QAM channel. The D780's are for the broadcast HDTV stations, but somehow some of them got mapped to the D1020's and D1040's.

6) There are few more QAM channels in the 200's to 800's, but when I try to change to them, I mostly get a black screen.

7) I get an "access error(?) 0x????????" sometimes.


Also, I use VideoReDo to cut out the commercials. I tested it with an HDTV 1080i DD5.1 (AC-3) transport stream and it makes very clean cuts and does not re-encode any audio or video data. As someone mentioned above, you can edit frame-by-frame and the automatic commercial-finder works pretty well. If you edit your recordings, this is a must-have app.

Lastly, if I get an HDTV cable box (Scientific Atlanta) from Charter, can I tune to an HDTV channel, then use the coaxial-out to record HDTV in Fusion? Or is the coaxial-out only SDTV and stereo? In other words, are my only options to record HDTV via an antenna or direct coaxial cable w/ QAM? I'd like to record some games on ESPN-HD.

BTW - WOW! :eek: HDTV looks awesome!

Thanks!!! :)

Not so. There are many players that will handle native transport streams perfectly well, including Theatertek, VLC, Nero Showtime, most software DVD players,.... I have only used the Fusion Converter to experiment with the thing. It's not needed in general.
It does not work with PowerDVD or RealPlayer. I will have to try it with NeroShowtime, I don't have any of these on the laptop. The filesize and throughput over a wireless network will probably make for jumpy playback.

I did find out through trial and error that I had to check interlaced to get the sound to synch in FusionConvert.

I started out trying to record direct to MPeG. The files were much larger than expected for this format. My apps would open them, but playback was way bad.

Not so. There are many players that will handle native transport streams perfectly well, including Theatertek, VLC, Nero Showtime, most software DVD players,.... I have only used the Fusion Converter to experiment with the thing. It's not needed in general.
Downloaded VLC (the price was right). Works pretty well even wireless. :)
It will also allow me to watch recorded files while recording another on the Fusion based PC.

Now, is there a way to "redirect" the Fusion Remote "DVD" button to this application?
Does it just start the default DVD player?

PMFJI

I am looking for a HD tuner card. I prefer a USB based solution, with recording, live TV pause and scheduling capability. I was looking for something exactly like the Fusion HDTV USB tuner and was delighted to find this thread.

After reading the posts, I have to say I am not only overwhelmed with the seemingly incomplete offerings, but am disappointed with the unstable and buggy software. Seems all the posts are regarding bugs and missing/broken functionality.

Actually, I am about to abandon my search and remain on the sidelines. Who wants to pay to be a product tester on their own time? I do not really see a product on the market by anyone that someone really likes with that functionality.

Am I off base here? Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance, Ed.

3) After I switch back and forth only between digital/QAM channels, I can't get a steady feed (picture & sound) anymore. My signal strength drops from the high 80's to the low 80's. It was so bad that I couldn't even watch Smallville tonight.

I doubt the switching back and forth is the actual "strength" issue. High 80's signal strength is usually still too low for good QAM tuning, at least it was for me. I had the same issue and had to get Comcast to come out and install an Electroline EDA-2200 drop amp last weekend. My lowest signal digital QAM signal strength on any channel is now above 94 with most being 97-100.

I have no more dropout issues. And my other 2 old analog TV's with cable have never looked better. No snow or ghosting what so ever.

Ronnie

High 80's signal strength is usually still too low for good QAM tuning, at least it was for me. I had the same issue and had to get Comcast to come out and install an Electroline EDA-2200 drop amp last weekend. My lowest signal digital QAM signal strength on any channel is now above 94 with most being 97-100.
I found the PDF instructions for the Electroline EDA-2400 (http://www.electroline.com/en/products/drop_amplifiers/images/dropamp_installation_instructions.pdf). It looks simple enough for a DIY job.

I noticed that my cable runs into a 2-way splitter: one for cablemodem, the other for a 3-way splitter for cable to 3 rooms around the house. Maybe if I replace both of them with one Electroline EDA-2400, my signal strength for QAM will improve?

EDIT: After looking at the Electroline Drop Amps some more, I found this website (http://www.dropamp.com/connect.html) which recommends the Electroline FT 08100 (http://www.electroline.com/en/products/drop_amplifiers/eda_ft/index.html) Drop Amp which can have a direct cablemodem connection. I'll first call Charter to see if they can set this up for me, but after seeing how they hooked up my basic cable, I think I'll go the DIY route. Hopefully, this will improve the signals I get on my FusionHDTV 5 Gold card.

I found the PDF instructions for the Electroline EDA-2400 (http://www.electroline.com/en/products/drop_amplifiers/images/dropamp_installation_instructions.pdf). It looks simple enough for a DIY job.

I noticed that my cable runs into a 2-way splitter: one for cablemodem, the other for a 3-way splitter for cable to 3 rooms around the house. Maybe if I replace both of them with one Electroline EDA-2400, my signal strength for QAM will improve?

EDIT: After looking at the Electroline Drop Amps some more, I found this website (http://www.dropamp.com/connect.html) which recommends the Electroline FT 08100 (http://www.electroline.com/en/products/drop_amplifiers/eda_ft/index.html) Drop Amp which can have a direct cablemodem connection. I'll first call Charter to see if they can set this up for me, but after seeing how they hooked up my basic cable, I think I'll go the DIY route. Hopefully, this will improve the signals I get on my FusionHDTV 5 Gold card.

You setup right now is almost exactly like mine was. But mine was a 4-way splitter where you have the 3-way, 2 going to analog TV's and 2 going to my HT room, one for my HTPC and one for the QAM tuner in my Sony TV.

If you are not having any issues with your cable modem, I would not touch the first splitter you have. Leave it in place and leave the modem line alone. That is what I did. I installed the EDA-2200 where the 4-way splitter was. I ran both lines out of the amp into two 2-way splitters. Two line go to my analog TV's and two go to my HT room. (Pretty much what I did was turn a EDA-2200 into a EDA-2400 by using two 2-way splitters.) If I'd of purchased the amp elsewhere I'd of got a EDA-2400. Comcast only offered the EDA-2200. Their price after install, extra cable runs, a couple extra splitters I bummed off of the installer, a couple new patch cables, etc, came out a lot cheaper than if I would have purchased the amp off of eBay and all the new cable and fittings from Home Depot and ran it all myself. If I would not have needed new cable runs, and only the amp, I'd of gonew pure DIY as well.


Ronnie

ps- The install of the amp is a piece of cake. I'd highly suggest if at all possible you install the amp as show in Figure A and not Figure B. I do not like having power AND a signal on the same line. It makes for a real easy install though without running a dedicated power line. I had an unused AC outlet in my crawl space so it was very easy to run a dedicated power line.

However, sometimes D1023.1 and D1024.1 come up and the channels "shift up". i.e. D1021.1 NBC WEATHER and D1022.1 NBC-HD jump to D1023.1 and D1024.1 or the D1040.1 - D1044.1 channels shift down to D1023.1, etc. Why?

The only reason the physical channel should change is if the cable company changes it, which I wouldn't think they would be doing very often.

Sub-channels, on the other hand... Mine change occasionally, and I'm not sure whether it's the cable company or the software. The software used to be tremendously buggy and would generate duplicate channel names for QAM channels. It hasn't done that for the past several versions, however. I can tell you that every time you switch to a digital channel, it re-identifies the streams on that channel. But I don't know if the cable company is switching streams or if the software is still a little loose in assigning names. For example, sometimes two of my local HD channels will be WYOU on D1110 and WVIA on D1111, other times it'll be WYOU on D1111 and WVIA on D1110. And WOLF will come up on D1130 sometimes and D1131 other times. This last one is particularly interesting because there isn't any other stream on that physical channel! I thought about using TSBrowser to see whether the actual PIDs are changing, but it's kind of a hard experiment to do when the channel only switches occasionally!

...And WOLF will come up on D1130 sometimes and D1131 other times. This last one is particularly interesting because there isn't any other stream on that physical channel!

When WOLF is on D1131, have you checked your Channel setup page to see if an encrypted channel is listed as being on D1130?

This happens to me with INHD in my market. It is on D870 (or should be.) Sometimes it junps to D871. When it does this, if I go under the channel setup tab there is an encrypted QAM channel being listed on D870.

The channel is not actually changing subs because my QAM tuner in my Sony TV has had INHD on 87.1 for over 2 years. It's just that the Fusion software is moving the virtual mapping around.

I posted about this a few days ago and TPeterson said it is a known bug but is hard to nail down what is causing it.


Ronnie

When WOLF is on D1131, have you checked your Channel setup page to see if an encrypted channel is listed as being on D1130?

No I haven't, I'll have to try that sometime.

I always thought it was weird that they would give a broadcast channel its own physical channel because all the other ones are paired up, but since I don't subscribe to anything other than basic I don't know what sort of channel might be coming and going.

I bought my drop amp from here for much less.
http://cabletvamps.com/drop%20amps.htm

I doubt the switching back and forth is the actual "strength" issue. High 80's signal strength is usually still too low for good QAM tuning, at least it was for me. I had the same issue and had to get Comcast to come out and install an Electroline EDA-2200 drop amp last weekend. My lowest signal digital QAM signal strength on any channel is now above 94 with most being 97-100. I have no more dropout issues.As a temporary workaround until I run new RG6 cables throughout the house, I swapped my cablemodem line (off of a 2-way splitter) with my cable line (off of a 3-way splitter off of the 2-way splitter). It made a BIG difference. My signal strength is now in the mid 90's and I can watch all local HDTV QAM channels w/o any issues. From time to time, I still have the channel "jumping" but as you said, I don't think it's due to the "strength" issue.

Right now I'm recording 1080i shows w/o any problems as *.tp (Transport Protocol?). I edit out the commercials in VideoReDo and save as *.ts (Transport Stream). FusionHDTV can play back *.ts as well as Windows Media Player.

I recorded the same show in HDTV 1080i (FusionHDTV5) and analog SDTV (Hauppauge PVR 150) and compared them together... WOW! What a difference! :D

I have the exact same problem except I have yet to see any HD content with their software and when I tried the alpha I get an error when I try to run the program saying authentication failed.
sounds like you did not get a good driver install yet. check in device manager for some yellow exclamation marks indicating driver problems.

...

6) There are few more QAM channels in the 200's to 800's, but when I try to change to them, I mostly get a black screen.

...
does the fusion app show qam channels with 200's or 2000's and 800's or 8000's?

the fusion app may be mapping higher multiple sub channels of "on demand" channels using the 2000's and mapping music channels in the 8000's which could explain the black screen.

PMFJI

I am looking for a HD tuner card. I prefer a USB based solution, with recording, live TV pause and scheduling capability. I was looking for something exactly like the Fusion HDTV USB tuner and was delighted to find this thread.

After reading the posts, I have to say I am not only overwhelmed with the seemingly incomplete offerings, but am disappointed with the unstable and buggy software. Seems all the posts are regarding bugs and missing/broken functionality.

Actually, I am about to abandon my search and remain on the sidelines. Who wants to pay to be a product tester on their own time? I do not really see a product on the market by anyone that someone really likes with that functionality.

Am I off base here? Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance, Ed.

Given the high cost of HD TVs, I viewed this as a relatively cheap experiment. $150 for a card (I have the RT-5 Gold PCI version) and <$80 for the OTA antenna. The quality of the HD, and ability to record in HD is awesome!

In or out?
This is NOT TiVo simple. Expect some level of frustration with the software quirks.
If you live in an area with good coverage, most local programing is available free OTA. I you have cable, check whether there is added cost for HD.
If you have the right Video Card and Computer, this solution works efficiently. (You are probably going to want a larger Harddrive!)

I'm In, and would do it again. Will likely expand to the USB for dual tuner watching/recording at some point. CBS has always been a weak signal, even on cable. Now crystal clear. Recordings look like you are playing a DVD. 10x better than the PVR-250 or TiVo Series 2.

holligl, thanks for taking the time to reply.

I suppose it's clear that a lot of fiddling/tweaking and debugging is involved.

I'm still leaning towards the Fusion USB. I called Digital Connections and spoke with the tech support guy. His opinion is that it is virtually a bug free product, and works great out of the box. Seems there is a disconnect compared to the volume of posts I see here? He also said my GFORCE 6200 was compatable, but there was no mention of it at all in the compatability section of the documentation, which I have downloaded and reviewed already. His only other opinion was that he preferred MYHD product due to the hardware decoding instead of the software decoding used in the FUSION, but if you already have an adequate system and existing video card, that will be a moot point.

My main use is in an office/study, with some scheduled recording, some ad-hoc video capture, editing and saving/burning for later use.

My quest continues......

If you live in an area with good coverage, most local programing is available free OTA. I you have cable, check whether there is added cost for HD.Are you implying that you would use a STB to tune to each station and feed the coax-out (HDTV signal?) into the FusionHDTV card?

Currently, I have my Charter coax cable directly plugged into my FusionHDTV card. The picture and sound is awesome! However, I don't get any of the basic SDTV channels (above 99), nor do I get DiscoveryHD. I only get CBS, PBS, NBC, WB, and ABC in HD via QAM.

Is it possible to use an HDTV Scientific Atlanta STB and feed the coax-out to the FusionHDTV card and record in HD? If so, could I also do that with the premium content that I subscribe to like HBO-HD, SHO-HD, ESPN-HD, etc.?

This is what I was doing previously with my Hauppauge PVR-150 card - feed the coax into the STB then out to the card; record channel 3 and tune the channel I want on the STB via IR blast. I don't care if IR blast is not a "clean" way to change channels. If I can record in HD, I'll do those workarounds. Thanks.

does the fusion app show qam channels with 200's or 2000's and 800's or 8000's?

the fusion app may be mapping higher multiple sub channels of "on demand" channels using the 2000's and mapping music channels in the 8000's which could explain the black screen.It shows the channels in the 200's and 800's.

D84 N/A
D94 N/A
D100 N/A
D281 CMC2 (advertising)
D282 CMC (advertising)
D283 ATV (Armenian TV)
D782 KCBS-HD
D786 KCET-HD (PBS)
D800 BARKR (N/A)
D802 NICK GAS
D820 ??? (movies)
D860 ???
D882 ???
D887 ->D282
D1020 KTTV-HD (FOX)
D1021 KNBC WEATHER
D1022 KNBC-HD
D1040 ??? (advertising)
D1041 THETUBE
D1042 KABC-DT
D1043 KTLA-HD (CW)
D1044 KABC-HD
D1050->D786
D1051->D782

I put in the -> because sometimes those channels show and the ones they point to don't. But then I tune to that channel, it automatically jumps to the other one. Then it goes away and I can see the new one. For some reason, sometimes KTLA on 1043 jumpes to 1041. And other times I don't get the 800's.

What's odd is that the Charter lineup for HDTV broadcast channels is supposed to be 781-787:

781 KTTV-DT - FOX Hi-Def Lifeline
782 KCBS-DT - CBS Hi-Def Lifeline
784 KNBC-DT - NBC Hi-Def Lifeline
785 KTLA-DT - WB Hi-Def Lifeline
786 KCET-DT - PBS Hi-Def Lifeline
787 KABC-DT - ABC Hi-Def Lifeline

But only KCBS and KCET are at those channels. The others are bumped to the 1020's and 1040's. :confused:

Sounds as though the 8800 installation created a resource conflict. Did you try moving the Fusion card to a different slot and/or reinstalling the Fusion software after the 8800 installation?

yeah, doesn'thelp. in fact, the other slot, adds problems of its own. the other slot was where I originally tried it and it had some issues there causing a very different type of stutter, skip and occasional audio crackle. i think i have it in a good slot, since none of that stuff happens. there is one more combo of slots i could try, but not sure it would make a difference.

i did re-install the fusion software too.
nvidia drivers too.

it's a weird problem, by far most apparent when sports are being broadcast such as football, way less noticeable with other material for the most part, but even there, sometimes when a part of the frame has some fast action or does a certain type of pan or something something just doesn't look quite right.

It shows the channels in the 200's and 800's.

D84 N/A
D94 N/A
D100 N/A
D281 CMC2 (advertising)
D282 CMC (advertising)
D283 ATV (Armenian TV)
D782 KCBS-HD
D786 KCET-HD (PBS)
D800 BARKR (N/A)
D802 NICK GAS

D820 ??? (movies)
D860 ???
D882 ???
D887 ->D282
D1020 KTTV-HD (FOX)
D1021 KNBC WEATHER
D1022 KNBC-HD
D1040 ??? (advertising)
D1041 THETUBE
D1042 KABC-DT
D1043 KTLA-HD (CW)
D1044 KABC-HD
D1050->D786
D1051->D782

I put in the -> because sometimes those channels show and the ones they point to don't. But then I tune to that channel, it automatically jumps to the other one. Then it goes away and I can see the new one. For some reason, sometimes KTLA on 1043 jumpes to 1041. And other times I don't get the 800's.

What's odd is that the Charter lineup for HDTV broadcast channels is supposed to be 781-787:

781 KTTV-DT - FOX Hi-Def Lifeline
782 KCBS-DT - CBS Hi-Def Lifeline
784 KNBC-DT - NBC Hi-Def Lifeline
785 KTLA-DT - WB Hi-Def Lifeline
786 KCET-DT - PBS Hi-Def Lifeline
787 KABC-DT - ABC Hi-Def Lifeline

But only KCBS and KCET are at those channels. The others are bumped to the 1020's and 1040's. :confused:
the 781-787 numbers you have listed above are the virtual numbers used by charter for their stb. they have no relation to the actual rf channels that the signal for those stations are actually transmitted over the cable wire.

the fusion app uses the actual rf channel it scans to assign a new virtual channel recognized by the fusion app to tune each channel. these new numbers will not be the same as what charter uses for the stb.

some channels have psip data transmitted that will be shown in the fusion app. i believe that is what you are seeing when you say that only kcbs and kcet are at those numbers.

the "others" are on subchannels of rf 102 and rf 104, which are assigned new virtual numbers by the fusion app because there is no psip data present.

the fusion app uses the actual rf channel it scans to assign a new virtual channel recognized by the fusion app to tune each channel.I noticed that CBS-HD and PBS-HD are both on RF 105. The other HD channels are on RF 102 and 104. How does that work? In analog, there is only 1 channel per RF signal. For DTV there are more than 1 channels per RF?

I tried to add more channels per an existing RF (i.e. 102) but FusionHDTV said it already exists. If so how did it get D1020, D1021, and D1022 from RF 102? I'd like to try to add D1023 but can't.

I noticed that CBS-HD and PBS-HD are both on RF 105. The other HD channels are on RF 102 and 104. How does that work? In analog, there is only 1 channel per RF signal. For DTV there are more than 1 channels per RF?

I tried to add more channels per an existing RF (i.e. 102) but FusionHDTV said it already exists. If so how did it get D1020, D1021, and D1022 from RF 102? I'd like to try to add D1023 but can't.
yes, the analogs are on one rf channel each.

yes, for DTV there can be more than one station on an rf channel.

D1020 would be the first subchannel of rf102 D1021 is the second subchannel etc. there is a formula for how the fusion app assigns the numbers and it has be posted numerous times. the fusion app will only display the unencrypted subchannels. you should not need to add any manually if everything is working the way it was designed. the latest fusion apps are pretty good at getting the channel line-up correct.

you should not be able to add a channel where there is not one scanned by the fusion app(if all is working correctly) and you could only add the main RF channel not a sub.

hope that's a little clearer.

You can only add the rf channel, not the subchannels. FusionHDTV detects the clear subchannels when you tune the rf channel.

It seems that your cableco is sending a PSIP that identifies KCBS and KCET with their cableco virtual channels. This is so far unique in my experience! Other cablecos are either sending no PSIP data at all or they send a modified version of the original OTA channel that identifies the program with the OTA virtual channel number (usually the same major number as the old analog channel uses plus a number to designate a subchannel. E.g., 28.1 for KCET-DT).

Is it possible to use an HDTV Scientific Atlanta STB and feed the coax-out to the FusionHDTV card and record in HD?No. You have the correct approach by connecting the Fusion input directly to your cable feed.

I suppose it's clear that a lot of fiddling/tweaking and debugging is involved.Yes!I'm still leaning towards the Fusion USB. I called Digital Connections and spoke with the tech support guy. His opinion is that it is virtually a bug free product, and works great out of the box. Seems there is a disconnect compared to the volume of posts I see here?The folks who post here are the ones who have problems. The DC tech knows about all the units that they ship to happy customers. ;)He also said my GFORCE 6200 was compatable, but there was no mention of it at all in the compatability section of the documentation, which I have downloaded and reviewed already.Yes the 6200 is fine. Just be sure to use the nVidia 84.21 Forceware and not the newer versions, which have HDTV bugs.His only other opinion was that he preferred MYHD product due to the hardware decoding instead of the software decoding used in the FUSION, but if you already have an adequate system and existing video card, that will be a moot point.Some of us also prefer the stability and user interface of MyHD over the FusionHDTV offerings to date, but the gap is definitely narrowing.

...
It seems that your cableco is sending a PSIP that identifies KCBS and KCET with their cableco virtual channels. This is so far unique in my experience! Other cablecos are either sending no PSIP data at all or they send a modified version of the original OTA channel that identifies the program with the OTA virtual channel number (usually the same major number as the old analog channel uses plus a number to designate a subchannel. E.g., 28.1 for KCET-DT).
this is probably why the other D1050 and D1051 virtual channels show up sometimes for KCBS and KCET. this indicates these two stations are really on rf 105.

Are you implying that you would use a STB to tune to each station and feed the coax-out (HDTV signal?) into the FusionHDTV card?


No - wasn't typing to imply anything complicated. We have Comcast Cable, which will gladly provide HD for another $7/mo, and digital recorder for about $12-13/mo. Most of what I wanted is Free Over the Air (OTA) with a simple antenna.

Newbie Wish List for Fusion HDTV 5 Gold:

2) When playing a recorded file, why can’t you use the remote to control the playback? I’ve only been able to use the mouse to control with the slider, to get through commercials.

Not sure what I was doing before, but the remote is working great. You can pull up recorded files and play with full control, using only the remote. Surprised no one set me straight!

I purchased a Fusion HDTV5 RT Gold in December. I have it connected to TW cable in Akron Ohio using the QAM signal for HD recording. I recorded the Ohio State BCS game (should have deleted the file but haven't yet). I recorded 5 hours for the pre game and game which took approxmiately 33.5GB. Here is what I am able to do with this .TP file.

I like to play all of my multi-media files with Media Player Classic. To find out what codec's and framerates are used when playing a file in MPC, go to FILE, PROPERTIES and DETAILS. I also use a program called GSPOT to find the codec's and framerates used in a file.

Using VideoReDo Plus I was able to automatically remove ALL commericals. The .TP file was converted to a .TS file of approximately 22.5GB for this 5 hour recording.

I could have used Avi.NET or AUTO GORDIAN KNOT to convert the .TS file to a .AVI file. Both are EXCELLENT FREE programs. A word of caution when using these programs. Uninstall any old versions of Xvid before installing this software. You may have video/audio sync problems otherwise. I also STRONGLY recommend that you read the FAQ and Tutorials on their web sites before using the software.

Avi.NET requires you to download two support packages (with multiple software installs in each package) and install them. So it is not a simple one button install like Auto Gordian Knot is.

The next conversion I did was to create an .MPG file and the DVD folder structure (VIDEO_TS) files on my HD using the FREE software HDTV2DVD. Using the 22GB .TP file as input, this software created an 11GB .MPG file and the DVD folder structure (Video_TS) which included 11 .VOB files of 1GB size. I realize that an 11GB DVD is not possible but it plays great from a HD!

Then I could have used the FREE software ImgTool to make an image (.ISO file) of a DVD Folder(VIDEO_TS) and also burn it. I could have used the FREE software VOB2MPG to join my 11 .VOB files together creating a single .VOB file.

I hope this gives you some ideas what you can do with the programs that you record using your Fusion card.

If you are looking for other multi-media software try:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools

---------------------------------
VideoReDo PLUS
http://www.videoredo.com/Download.htm

VideoReDo is the perfect tool to edit your MPEG1/MPEG2 files. Whether you create digital video by capturing off-the-air programs, convert analog (VHS) tapes, HDTV, DigitalTV, DVB, TivO, ReplayTV,

DVR-MS or extract chapters from DVDs, VideoReDo makes fast work of trimming, cutting, and/or joining your MPEG compressed digital images. Repair/fix MPEG streams.

AdDetective™ Commercial Detection takes the pain out of finding the best places to cut advertisements from your videos. AdDetective will scan your files for likely places where advertisements start and end. You can preview and change AdDetective recommendations before editing, or let VideoReDo Plus do the job automatically.

-------------------------------
Media Player Classic
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303&package_id=84358

A great all-in-one player based on the Windows Media Player 6.4. Supports most formats if you have the codecs installed like DivX, XviD, AVI, MOV, MPEG1/2, RM, TS and TP. Built-in MPEG2/SVCD/DVD codec.

SVCD/CVD switchable subtitle support.
------------------------------
GSpot
http://www.headbands.com/gspot/v26x/quick_start.html

Establishes what video and audio codecs are required to play any video. Shows framerate, duration, aspect ratio, bitrates, structure info, and more. Supports AVI, MPG, VOB, DVD, VCD, SVCD, MP4, FLV, MOV, QT, RM, SWF, WMV,
-----------------------------
Avi.NET
http://www.clonead.co.uk/

avi.NET will allow you to load in both MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 files and convert them to an AVI file that has the correct codec options set to allow perfect playback on your standalone AVI player. No other AVI conversion program is available whose number one priority is standalone player support.

avi.NET v2.2.2.0 - released 5th January 2007 - NEW
DVD/SVCD/VCD/MPEG1/MPEG2/HDTV to AVI Converter: Used to make AVI files (DIVX & XVID) from DVD or MPG.

avi.NET support package - released 2006
Contains: AVISynth v2.57 RC1, VobSub v2.23, XviD v1.1.2. (needed for avi.NET to function)

VirtualDubMod package - released 2006
Contains: VirtualDubMod v1.5.10.2, MP3 (professional) audio codec v3.3.2, AC3 audio decompressor v1.2.
--------------------------------
AUTO GORDIAN KNOT
http://www.autogk.me.uk/

This site is a homepage for THE tool for DivX / XviD backup utility. With support of DVDs, MPEG2 (such

as DVB captures and transport streams), MPEG1 sources along with AVI/DV sources encoding into your favorite MPEG4 format was never as easy as now!

Program features support of:
- DVD/VOBs(unencrypted from hdd), MPEG2, MPEG1, transport streams (including multi-program ones) and

AVI/DV input sources
- XviD or DivX(5/6) output formats
- AC3, DTS, PCM, MPA input audio tracks
- AC3, DTS, MPA, CBR/VBR MP3 output audio tracks
- two audio tracks in AVI
- external (vobsub) or internal (burnt-in) subtitles (with support of forced subs)
- HDTV input/output resolutions(upto 1920x***) and frame rates (50/60fps)
- automatic crop and resize based on compressibility of the source to achieve Best results
- automatic detection of input source: PAL, NTSC, FILM, HYBRID
- automatic deinterlacer and IVTC
- automatic split into CD-sized chunks for main video and external subs
-----------------------------------
HDTV2DVD
http://www.svcd2dvd.com/HDTV2DVD/default.aspx
HDTV2DVD is a new freeware tool to simply convert your HDTV material to DVD. HDTV captures are MPEG-2

Transport Streams at either 1280 x 720p or 1920 x 1080i resolution yet DVD is typically MPEG-2 Program

Streams at 720 x 480 (for NTSC). This means that to play HD material on a "normal" DVD player you have to convert the source. This is what HDTV2DVD does in a simple, user friendly way.
Load up your HDTV file (.ts or .tp), start the processing and HDTV2DVD will produce a VIDEO_TS DVD folder ready for you to burn!
------------------------------------
VOB2MPG v2.3
http://www.svcd2dvd.com/downloads.aspx#VOB2MPG

VOB2MPG goes through a whole DVD VIDEO_TS folder and joins up the various vobsets to produce MPG's for

the different titles. Requires .net framework 2.
-----------------------------------
ImgTool
http://www.coujo.de/ib2/index.php?act=module&module=include&incl_name=download
Popular tools to make an image (.ISO file) of a DVD Folder(VIDEO_TS) and also burn it. In Addition, the burning tool allows you to confirm and burn a DVD from VIDEO_TS made by any other application.

Joepic.

Thanks for the contribution.

I see many others in this thread with stuttering problems, so I don't feel quite so alone. I've got the Fusion 5 RT Lite card.

My board is a mATX and I've tried both available PCI slots with the same stuttering results. I've got the latest 7.1 catalyst drivers and also tried the last 4 releases. I've also tried the most recent 2 driver releases from Dvico. My video card is an X1300 w/ 128mb of RAM, Athlon64 3800 x2, 2GB DDR400, WinXP Pro SP2. I've tried all kinds of various settings in the Fusion software that all yield the same poor result.

I get the stuttering on all HD channels, regardless of signal strength. I happens on a 95% signal as much as an 83% signal. I'm pulling the signal from Comcast cable line without a STB.

Any ideas? Did I forget to check something?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

cornbuds--

I've seen periodic A/V jerks when using certain nVidia drivers but they go away when using other drivers without making any other changes. The Forceware version 84.21 from last spring seems to be good for most nVidia cards. I'm not familiar with the ATI cards and drivers, so I don't know what vintage to suggest to you, but I think that you're probably seeing a video card driver incompatibility with FusionHDTV. Perhaps the DViCo FAQ on their website has some tips on Catalyst versions.

Stupid question time. Reading my F5RT Lite documentation I see all the references to timeshifting . Ahhh, since the card cannot be hooked directly to a TV (it can't , can it????) is it describing timeshifting while viewing on the PC monitor? I use the card exclusively for recording because its tuner is far better than my MYHD 120. I use the 120 for playing and timeshifting (when the signal is strong enough) but would rather use the F5Lite if there was a way.

Stupid question time. Reading my F5RT Lite documentation I see all the references to timeshifting . Ahhh, since the card cannot be hooked directly to a TV (it can't , can it????) is it describing timeshifting while viewing on the PC monitor? I use the card exclusively for recording because its tuner is far better than my MYHD 120. I use the 120 for playing and timeshifting (when the signal is strong enough) but would rather use the F5Lite if there was a way.

It all depends on the video card in your PC. It would need to be able to support your TV via it's DVI, Component out or S-Video out.

The integrated Nvidia 6150 video on my ASUS mother supports all 3. I first had it hooked to my TV via component, I now use a DVI to HDMI cable. And as you have probably guessed, my TV is the only thing I have hooked to my PC, no other "PC monitor" is connected.


Ronnie

Cornbuds,

This is based on my experience with the (made by) ATI Radeon 9800XT, FusionHDTV5 gold and software 3.50.01.

Did you install the Catalyst Control Center with the driver? If so try uninstalling it and install the driver only package. With earlier versions of the Fusion software it made a big difference (and I've been too chicken to go back to using it.)

Unfortunately the latest ATI drivers are not always the best performing drivers. For me, the sweet spot for the Radeon 9800XT was Catalyst 6.2 with win2ksp4 and Catalyst 6.9 with winxpsp2. When I tried upgrading to a more recent driver the Fusion software started stuttering and I saw a drop in reported OTA signal strength. I have not tried the 7.1 driver (6.11 was the last I tested.)

While I get very nice playback with 85% OTA, I've heard that the QAM decoding wants a cleaner signal. You may want to speak with your cable company.

AllenDB,

In my limited experience, enabling timeshifting precludes standard recording. If you are methodical enough to remember to disable it before turning off the Fusion app it works well. Otherwise I'd continue to use the myhd. (I keep forgetting to turn it off and then get frustrated with missed recordings.)

Dirk--

Thanks, I'd missed cornbud's reference to "83%" signal strength on QAM. That is too weak/noisy for reliable QAM reception. You need over 90% on QAM and at least 70% on OTA for stable operation.

I had stuttering problem in the digital channels only. I swapped my Fusion card with my sound card and it went away.

Keith

Hmm, yeah, I have the CCC installed, I'll try uninstalling it and see what happens. Maybe I should try going back further with ATi's drivers if that doesn't help. I'm just not sure if I lose my AVIVO functionality if I roll back too far. I've never liked ATi's CCC, it just seems like it's made for people that buy HP's or Dells.....no offense HP or Dell owners! :p

Yeah, I can understand poor reception with an 83% signal, but certainly not a 95% signal - I get stuttering on every channel.

Thanks for the tip, I'll post back with results.

OK, Now it's time for my stupid questions... I know some of these are not directly Fusion questions, but they are Fusion related because I'm trying to tweak my Fusion HTPC to it's "best" settings...

Also these questions have nothing to do with stuttering/pauses/dropouts/ etc. They are all about image quality as in color correctness and noise in the video.

If I'm recording a scheduled transport stream via QAM in "minimize on silent" mode, does my video card drivers/codecs or anything else in my computer have any bearing on the recorded TP file? i.e. if I recorded the same stream with different video card drivers could the resulting TP file have more/less noise or better color depending on which video card drivers etc that I have installed on my computer?

Or is my computer just recording the 1's and 0's of the digital signal.

Is there any quality difference in recorded TP files from different tuner cards, i.e.- from a Fusion card vs. a MyHD card?

Is there any difference in the quality of recorded QAM TP files vs. recorded OTA TP files?

Again all of these questions are related to the information in the actual recorded TP files, as if I played the same recorded test files back on different systems would how I recorded the file make any difference in the playback image quality? Or is that all up the the playback systems decoders/drivers/settings?


Thanks!


Ronnie

OK, Now it's time for my stupid questions... I know some of these are not directly Fusion questions, but they are Fusion related because I'm trying to tweak my Fusion HTPC to it's "best" settings...

Also these questions have nothing to do with stuttering/pauses/dropouts/ etc. They are all about image quality as in color correctness and noise in the video.

{1} If I'm recording a scheduled transport stream via QAM in "minimize on silent" mode, does my video card drivers/codecs or anything else in my computer have any bearing on the recorded TP file? i.e. if I recorded the same stream with different video card drivers could the resulting TP file have more/less noise or better color depending on which video card drivers etc that I have installed on my computer?

{2} Or is my computer just recording the 1's and 0's of the digital signal.

{3} Is there any quality difference in recorded TP files from different tuner cards, i.e.- from a Fusion card vs. a MyHD card?

{4} Is there any difference in the quality of recorded QAM TP files vs. recorded OTA TP files?

Again all of these questions are related to the information in the actual recorded TP files, as if I played the same recorded test files back on different systems would how I recorded the file make any difference in the playback image quality? {5} Or is that all up the the playback systems decoders/drivers/settings?
1. No. 2. Yes. 3. No. (Although the capture settings will change the amount of non A/V data that are recorded together with the program, as well as the number of A/V PIDs that are included) 4. There can be if the cableco re-encodes the stream but, AFAIK, none currently do. 5. Yes.

1. No. 2. Yes. 3. No. (Although the capture settings will change the amount of non A/V data that are recorded together with the program, as well as the number of A/V PIDs that are included) 4. There can be if the cableco re-encodes the stream but, AFAIK, none currently do. 5. Yes.

Thanks for the answers. You verified what I "thought" was happening, but wanted to be sure.

FWIW: The reason I asked is I'm having a bear of a time with my setup getting color calibrated for both DVD playback using MCE/PureVideo/VMR9 and recorded QAM TP file playback using overlay. (Anything else but overlay and 1080i material on my system produces stuttering.) I can calibrate my monitor to get DVDs or HDTV looking awesome, but not both at the same time. Right now I'm using DVI out to my TVs HDMI port. Tonight I'm going to do some testing with the integrated component out on my ASUS M2NPV-VM motherboard to see if I get better results.

I think it all boils down to a color bug in the older Nvidia drivers and the Fusion software's issue with the latest Nvidia drivers. The latest Nvidia driver seems to fix the issue I'm having with getting both overlay and non-overlay playback calibrated on my monitor. But with the latest Nvidia drivers I get the "stuttering" playback with the Fusion software that is not there with the older 84.xx drivers.

Ronnie

I had stuttering problem in the digital channels only. I swapped my Fusion card with my sound card and it went away.



When I installed my Fusion card I had stuttering problems at first as well. I took the advice from this forum and swapped PCI slots. My card is now in my first PCI slot on my motherboard and the stuttering went away.

After I upgraded my nVidia video card drivers to the latest versions, some stuttering came back. Again, after reading this forum I found the newer versions of nVidia drivers don't work with the Fusion. You need to have nVidia 84.21 Forceware drivers ONLY if using a nVidia video card.

Trust us, the Fusion card does work very well.

Thanks for the answers. You verified what I "thought" was happening, but wanted to be sure.

FWIW: The reason I asked is I'm having a bear of a time with my setup getting color calibrated for both DVD playback using MCE/PureVideo/VMR9 and recorded QAM TP file playback using overlay. (Anything else but overlay and 1080i material on my system produces stuttering.) I can calibrate my monitor to get DVDs or HDTV looking awesome, but not both at the same time. Right now I'm using DVI out to my TVs HDMI port. Tonight I'm going to do some testing with the integrated component out on my ASUS M2NPV-VM motherboard to see if I get better results.

I think it all boils down to a color bug in the older Nvidia drivers and the Fusion software's issue with the latest Nvidia drivers. The latest Nvidia driver seems to fix the issue I'm having with getting both overlay and non-overlay playback calibrated on my monitor. But with the latest Nvidia drivers I get the "stuttering" playback with the Fusion software that is not there with the older 84.xx drivers.

Ronnie

UPDATE: (for anyone who might have this issue in the future. I'm not sure if this issue is with other Nvidia video cards and the Fusion but it is an issue with the 6150 built in video. I have an ASUS M2NPV-VM)

If you are using the Nvidia 6150 video to drive a TV, until Dvico fixes their issue with Nvidia drivers > 84.xx, here is the "best" hookup option that I can find to get both DVD playback using MCE/PureVideo/VMR9 AND HDTV playback using the Fusion software to both have correct color space.

If you use DVI or DVI to HDMI and install 84.xx drivers without doing anything else, you can calibrate your display to get both DVD and Fusion HDTV playback to look OK. But DVD playback will not pass BTB and WTW info to your display and the color space of 16-235 will be extended to 0-255. This causes color banding in gradations when playing DVDs. You can see it in Finding Nemo in the "Anglerfish" chapter (the fish with the "flashlight" thingy in the dark) along with other ocean water sceens in Nemo.

If you do the "VMRCCCSStatus" registry hack documented in the Nvidia 84.xx release notes (http://download.nvidia.com/Windows/84.21/84.21_ForceWare_Release_Notes.pdf) it will fix the the DVI color space bug and DVD playback will pass BTB and WTW info. You will have to recalibrate your monitor after the hack. But with this setup blacks get crushed with Fusion HDTV playback and the resulting image is WAY too dark. There is no good fix for the Fusion playback with this setup. I've tried tweaking the Nvidia overlay hue/saturation/brightness/contrast to fix the crushed blacks but doing so adds all kinds of other color issues into the equation.

The "best" solution is to use the component HDTV out of the 6150 to drive your TV. Using the 84.xx drivers "as is" with the component out still crops the color space to 16-235 and DVD playback will not pass BTB and WTW info causeing the color banding in DVDS. BUT the "VMRCCCSStatus" registry hack mentioned above also fixed the color space with HDTV component out on the 6150! You will still have to recalibrate your display after the hack BUT after applying the hack, the Fusion HDTV playback DOES NOT suffer from crushed blacks as long as you do not set the option in the Fusion software to use VMR. If you do use VMR in the Fusion software with this setup, the blacks WILL get crushed, but in normal overlay mode they do not.

Side notes:

The only downside with the above "best" setup is digital 480i stations will have about 20% of the bottom of the screen covered by a white/gray bar. If you check use VMR in the Fusion software, quit and reopen the Fusion software, the white/gray bar will be gone, BUT your blacks will now be crushed and ALL channels will be too dark. So it's not a "perfect" solution, but I can live with it! (Only a few people have reported the white/gray bar issue with digital 480i digital stations but I can recreate it every time on my system. It even shows up in the JPG snapshots that I take. I can post an example if anyone wants/needs to see the issue. I think it's a 84.xx Nvidia driver issue because it does not happen with the 9x.xx drivers but then we are back to the poor/stuttering playback issue with the Fusion software.)
I have not tried VGA breakout to component to see if it also suffers from the above issues so that might also be a workaround option as well.
If Dvico fixes their issue with the 9x.xx ForceWare drivers all will be good with DVI/DVI to HDMI connections. Nvidia has fixed the color issue I described above in the 9x.xx drivers (I think) but they cause poor "stuttering" playback in the Fusion software.
If you only use your PC that has the Fusion card in it to watch HDTV and not DVDs or other video formats, the above is a mute issue and you can get good results via the Fusion software and display calibration.
I have not tried using the BDA drivers with the Fusion in MCE because I use clear QAM so I'm stuck with the Fusion software for HDTV.

Hope this helps someone else out.


Ronnie

Does anyone know if I should be able to record simultaneously on my FusionHDTV 5 Express (in the FusionHDTV app, using QAM) and on my Hauppauge MCE500 (in MCE 2005)?

I purchased and installed a FusionHDTV 5 Express (the PCI-e 1x version) yesterday. The problem is that if I'm recording on the Fusion, starting MCE and viewing Live TV or starting a recording kills the recording on the Fusion. The reverse is also true, ie. if I'm recording on MCE and a Fusion recording starts it kills the MCE one (the Fusion recording doesn't work either).

I've tried several things but to no avail:

1. I've checked I don't have an IRQ conflict between the Hauppauge and the FusionHDTV. They were sharing the same IRQ before (19) although windows didn't flag this as a conflict. I've now moved the Hauppauge around and verified that all tuners now are allocated their own IRQ but this didn't make any difference to the problem.

2. I've played with the Tuner registry branch under HKLM. With only the Hauppauge installed there was one (A799A800...) entry listing the two Hauppauge tuner entries. After installing the Fusion, there are two entries added to the Tuners branch (71985F48...) which is at the same level as the Hauppauge one and another entry under the original (A799A800...) branch. All of the 'User Settings' under the Fusion entries had nothing in them (presumably as I hadn't set that tuner up in MCE, purposely). I tried setting the 'Disabled' setting to '1' (previously 0), and I also tried adding a DWORD 'EnabledForMCE' entry to the User Settings section (value '0') but still no luck.

I've searched around on the web and at the DVico site but I can't find anything indicating what the conflict is. It is like MCE is using the DVico tuner even though I thought I'd configured it to not do so. I have no ATSC reception where I am and am forced to use QAM (thus use the FusionHDTV app for recordings).

I'm running out of ideas as to what else to try so if anyone has other suggestions I would greatly appreciate their input.

Thanks

Machine Specs are:
MCE 2005 (with Rollup 2 and all latest updates)
AMD Althon 3500+
ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
2 x 1GB Partiot
GeForce 7600GS
Hauppauge MCE500
DVico FusionHDTV Express

Does anyone know if I should be able to record simultaneously on my FusionHDTV 5 Express (in the FusionHDTV app, using QAM) and on my Hauppauge MCE500 (in MCE 2005)?Once I get my Electroline drop amp, I'll run two coax cables into my PC and let you know (FusionHDTV5 RT Gold, Hauppauge PVR-150, WinXP Pro).

BTW - Can I install two FusionHDTV5 Gold cards into my PC and only use Fusion's HDTV software to tune seprate QAM channels? (I don't have OTA and BeyondTV doesn't (yet?) support QAM.) I don't know if the FusionHDTV software can run twice or recognize 2 cards. Specifically, I'd like to record 2 shows at one. i.e. Leno & Letterman, Heroes and 24, etc.

Once I get my Electroline drop amp, I'll run two coax cables into my PC and let you know (FusionHDTV5 RT Gold, Hauppauge PVR-150, WinXP Pro).

BTW - Can I install two FusionHDTV5 Gold cards into my PC and only use Fusion's HDTV software to tune seprate QAM channels? (I don't have OTA and BeyondTV doesn't (yet?) support QAM.) I don't know if the FusionHDTV software can run twice or recognize 2 cards. Specifically, I'd like to record 2 shows at one. i.e. Leno & Letterman, Heroes and 24, etc.

If it were me, I'd get a MyHD 130 as the second QAM tuner instead of dual Fusion cards and then use RECORD_THIS to do the record scheduling.

Ronnie

BTW - Can I install two FusionHDTV5 Gold cards into my PC and only use Fusion's HDTV software to tune seprate QAM channels?Yes. And you can use either FusionHDTV or Record_This to schedule the simultaneous recordings. Of course, the latter can also schedule them on one each Fusion and MyHD cards. (The number of Fusion units per machine is limited by your available PCI slots and/or USB power, AFAIK)

I havent seen this posted or asked anywhere, but does the Fusion 5 support the Broadcast Flag? I have 2 Fusion 3s, and have trouble with one station in my area and would upgrade if I knew the 5 didnt support the BF in hardware at all.Can someone give a definitive answer on this? I searched this thread but only found "I don't believe that it does."

No PC tuner card "supports" the BF. AFAIK, no tuner anywhere (aside from the Motorola STB PVR used by some cablecos) does.

I just got the following back from DVico regarding my FusionHDTV Express recordings conflicting with my MCE recordings.

Hi.
Sorry about all your inconveniences.
Our software cannot use with MCE program at the same tine because we kill the MCE receiver filter when our software starts.
So we don't recommend to use our software while running MCE program.
We are sorry that we couldn't get you a good answer.
Thanks.

This seems a crazy design choice to me. Does anyone else here use Fusion tuners to record QAM (through the Fusion app) in parallel with MCE recording on other tuners?

Not as crazy as the MCE "design choice" not to support QAM tuning. ;)

I guess but I don't think MS was totally at fault there.

Anyways, back to the drawing board with my QAM integration. I'm closely watching the beta testing of the integration (kind off) HDHomerun QAM into MCE. This looks to be a very interesting project which may solve all my needs.

Has anyone used the fusion hdtv 5 express (PCIE) card? I'm having irq problems with the system forcing it to be shared with the video card. I have 3 PCIE slots and they all share the irq with the video card (so swapping it out of the question).

In addition to my last post.....
Should I be worried about the irq issue if there are no other problems?

If there is there no performance issue then, no, you "should" not worry about it. Sharing IRQs is not generally a problem for Fusion cards in modern systems.

Their is hope for QAM and MCE support.

There is a product that supports QAM for SageTV. Their site says MCE and BeyondTV "Upcoming Features". I e-mailed them this morning waiting for a response.

http://www.evo4tv.com/main/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx

Digital Cable Capture for your Windows based SageTV HTPC!

*Integrated EVO Console application that:

Has a built-in channel viewer for discovering/viewing your scanned channels (uses your current MPEG decoder)
Manages mulitple tuner devices (PCs not tuners - yet)
Manages channel maps
Writes the Sage Encoder entries into the Sage properties file for you
Control EVO Services/Sage Service startup dependency
Manage all TCP/IP ports for Sage and the EVO Console
*Runs as a Windows Service

*Auto start encoders by passing parameters to the Console

*The EVO Device (PC) can be controlled via HTTP commands

Supports the following
QAM cards:
DVICO's Fusion 5 Gold PCI card
PCHDTV cards (PC5500, HD3000)
AverMedia A180


Upcoming Features
- Multiple tuners per EVO-SOFT device
- MCE support
- BeyondTV support
- ATSC(OTA) support
- Open SDK (for the extreme techies)
- and many more!

Has anyone used the fusion hdtv 5 express (PCIE) card? I'm having irq problems with the system forcing it to be shared with the video card. .

I use a Fusion Express card with a PCIe video card (Nvidia 7600GT) with no irq conflicts. The motherboard is an Asus A8N-E.

Unfortunately I am encountering other issues with the Express board and / or software but they are not due to irq conflicts.

Can someone explain what this "Integrated EVO Console application' actually does? I read the site but I'm still confused. It looks like I would have to get sagetv. I already have the fusion & pchdtv cards.
Running the fusion software I get the local hdtv channels off of my analog cable but I can't use the EPG function.
So what does this application offer me?
Thanks

I think they idea is that you take an old PC, stick a bunch of QAM tuners in it, run the EVO software, and stream ATSC to other PCs on your network. To me, it appears to be similar to a homebrew HDHomeRun.

The Evo forum is pretty empty, so it is hard to tell how well it works.

-Dave

Can someone explain what this "Integrated EVO Console application' actually does? I read the site but I'm still confused. It looks like I would have to get sagetv. I already have the fusion & pchdtv cards.
Running the fusion software I get the local hdtv channels off of my analog cable but I can't use the EPG function.
So what does this application offer me?
Thanks

It would not offer you much.

EVO is a way (an elaborate "over the top" one at that if you ask me) to get QAM tuning integrated into SageTV.

I'm personally perfectly fine with using the Fusion software to record and view my QAM stuff and using MCE to watch DVD's. All it takes is a few mouse clicks (or the Fusion remote) to go between the two. I guess if you are a diehard SageTV fan and also wanted QAM tuning, it would be an option for you.

JMHO

Ronnie

Hello! I am the lead engineer for the EVO products. I will try to answer questions if possible.

joepic - suggested I stop by and read the thread.

I think they idea is that you take an old PC, stick a bunch of QAM tuners in it, run the EVO software, and stream ATSC to other PCs on your network. To me, it appears to be similar to a homebrew HDHomeRun.

Thas is a pretty good quick answer, but we are trying to offer more than the HDHomeRun. Our app is completely integrated - runs as a service, has tools that easily managed your scanned channels, allows channel viewing right in the app, etc. We are also looking to provide STB firewire support also in the future.

MCE/BeyondTV support is something that we are going to release ASAP.

The Evo forum is pretty empty, so it is hard to tell how well it works.

We beta tested for about 2+ months before going live with avid users from the SageTV group. - just ask Kirby or Insomniac over there - its rock solid!

Let me know if there is anything else that I can clear up.

Tim

The next conversion I did was to create an .MPG file and the DVD folder structure (VIDEO_TS) files on my HD using the FREE software HDTV2DVD.

First - thanks for this excellent post. One of the reasons I went with the "Gold" version was to get the FusionConvert software. To date I have had very limited success with getting a useable mpg file out of it because the sound ends up getting out of synch. Have tried numerous settings but it is just not reliable. The company support page has a cryptic FAQ that blames defective input files. Interesting, the above free solution works great on the same files that get out of synch in FusionConvert.

Since I want to stream to a wireless laptop, what I really need is something that can convert and shrink the size in one step. Ideas?

Ok, searched the thread, but no one really answered this question: Does the Fusion5 have to be connected to the sound card via an internal cable in order for the sound to be played out through the SPDIF? I'm using a Chaintech AV-710 and the inputs are really close to the lid of the case - actually, too close. Need a card for Super Bowl Sunday!

Ok, searched the thread, but no one really answered this question: Does the Fusion5 have to be connected to the sound card via an internal cable in order for the sound to be played out through the SPDIF? I'm using a Chaintech AV-710 and the inputs are really close to the lid of the case - actually, too close. Need a card for Super Bowl Sunday!

Not sure about the lite but I do not have the internal cable hooked up with my 5-gold and the audio is sent to the SPDIF out on my motherboard. All I had to do was set the fusion software to SPDIF+directsound. If the fusion software is set to 2 speaker or 5.1 speakers (not SPDIF), it passes the audio out the spdif still but only PCM stereo.

Ronnie

Does anyone know if I should be able to record simultaneously on my FusionHDTV 5 Express (in the FusionHDTV app, using QAM) and on my Hauppauge MCE500 (in MCE 2005)?

I purchased and installed a FusionHDTV 5 Express (the PCI-e 1x version) yesterday. The problem is that if I'm recording on the Fusion, starting MCE and viewing Live TV or starting a recording kills the recording on the Fusion. The reverse is also true, ie. if I'm recording on MCE and a Fusion recording starts it kills the MCE one (the Fusion recording doesn't work either).

I've tried several things but to no avail:

1. I've checked I don't have an IRQ conflict between the Hauppauge and the FusionHDTV. They were sharing the same IRQ before (19) although windows didn't flag this as a conflict. I've now moved the Hauppauge around and verified that all tuners now are allocated their own IRQ but this didn't make any difference to the problem.

2. I've played with the Tuner registry branch under HKLM. With only the Hauppauge installed there was one (A799A800...) entry listing the two Hauppauge tuner entries. After installing the Fusion, there are two entries added to the Tuners branch (71985F48...) which is at the same level as the Hauppauge one and another entry under the original (A799A800...) branch. All of the 'User Settings' under the Fusion entries had nothing in them (presumably as I hadn't set that tuner up in MCE, purposely). I tried setting the 'Disabled' setting to '1' (previously 0), and I also tried adding a DWORD 'EnabledForMCE' entry to the User Settings section (value '0') but still no luck.

I've searched around on the web and at the DVico site but I can't find anything indicating what the conflict is. It is like MCE is using the DVico tuner even though I thought I'd configured it to not do so. I have no ATSC reception where I am and am forced to use QAM (thus use the FusionHDTV app for recordings).

I'm running out of ideas as to what else to try so if anyone has other suggestions I would greatly appreciate their input.

Thanks

Machine Specs are:
MCE 2005 (with Rollup 2 and all latest updates)
AMD Althon 3500+
ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
2 x 1GB Partiot
GeForce 7600GS
Hauppauge MCE500
DVico FusionHDTV Express

I think your problem is the media center receiver service. When you start media center the service might be "locking" every tuner for use by media center. Even if it isnt 'EnabledForMCE'.

Been using Dvico software to record hd OTA without problems.

Is there any other kind software to record HD material other than using
Dvico software which saves the files as .tp
I tried saving as .mpg files but the quality wasn't as good as the .tp files.

What other files can HD material be recorded as? Any one had any experience with .mkv HD files?

I can confirm the FusionHDTV 5 Lite PCI Card does not work with Windows Vista.

I thought I would try anyway since someone claimed he had it working. No Go. I guess I will ebay my FusionHDTV 5 Lite card and get a Gold RT card from Digital Connections.

Are others experiencing luck running the Gold Card with Vista ?? If so, how did you install the drivers. Did you install the Fusion software first, then install the Vista Driver package separately after that?

Ok, searched the thread, but no one really answered this question: Does the Fusion5 have to be connected to the sound card via an internal cable in order for the sound to be played out through the SPDIF? I'm using a Chaintech AV-710 and the inputs are really close to the lid of the case - actually, too close. Need a card for Super Bowl Sunday!

You don't need the internal connection in order to use the SPDIF on a AV-710. I've 3 of these cards and they're great. :)

Hello,
Anyone using the Fusion HDTV5 Lite with a Matrox G450 Dual head card? Any problems? Thanks, Paul

I can confirm the FusionHDTV 5 Lite PCI Card does not work with Windows Vista.

I thought I would try anyway since someone claimed he had it working. No Go. I guess I will ebay my FusionHDTV 5 Lite card and get a Gold RT card from Digital Connections.

Are others experiencing luck running the Gold Card with Vista ?? If so, how did you install the drivers. Did you install the Fusion software first, then install the Vista Driver package separately after that?

I've had good experience running the latest Dvico drivers in Vista Ultimate RTM with the RT Gold card, using the Dvico supplied software.

I haven't had much luck getting the Vista driver package loaded - the instructions are somewhat confusing to me. If I do manage to get the drivers installed as shown on the Dvico site for this card - I start having problems with the Dvico software locking up while scanning channels, and generally being unstable.

As for media center - at some point along the way it stopped recognizing that I have a tuner card at all. It's Vista RTM on a clean install so codec expiration should not be an issue. I was hoping to be able to use the Media Center Reset utility to put it back to defaults, but the Beta 2 version I downloaded says it had expired.

Right now the card works with the installed DVico drivers and software. Since it appears that I can't do QAM in Media Center right now anyway - there's not much point in trying to get it to work.

I've had good experience running the latest Dvico drivers in Vista Ultimate RTM with the RT Gold card, using the Dvico supplied software.

Thanks for the reply about Vista and FusionHDTV 5 Gold. I have one more question. Are you saying the latest version of Fusion Software includes the Vista 32 bit drivers? Is there no need to install the extra Vista driver package?

Their website is very confusing regarding this. I have a message in to them r(DVICO) ight now but it has been unanwered so far.

Here is the Dvico response to the question of "can a FusionHDTV Lite 5 card work on Windows Vista." They claim it can, I can't seem to get it to work.

____

Hi.
You can install the XP driver under the vista 32bit and you can play our software or MCE program with Lite model.
Lite card is based on the Conexant Fusion878A chipset, which does not supported by Conexant anymore for Windows VISTA 64 bit or X64 driver.
We regret to say that We don't support the Lite model on VISTA 64 bit.
If you didn't buy card, we recommend to buy the GOLD card.
The GOLD card is supporting the vista 32 bit and vista 64bit and we received the Vista premium logo.
Thanks.

Thanks for the reply about Vista and FusionHDTV 5 Gold. I have one more question. Are you saying the latest version of Fusion Software includes the Vista 32 bit drivers? Is there no need to install the extra Vista driver package?

Their website is very confusing regarding this. I have a message in to them r(DVICO) ight now but it has been unanwered so far.


I'm saying that no - the latest version of the Fusion Software does not include the Vista 32 bit drivers (at least - nothing similar to the vista driver package). When I install the fusion software I get all of the devices you would expect to see with a normal XP driver install (WDM Audio Capture, BDA Receiver, BDA Tuner, WDM Crossbar, WDM Tuner, and WDM Video Capture).

With the vista drivers (and this is only my understanding of the documentation on Dvico's site) I'm guessing I should only see three devices - a Unified A/V Stream device and two Unused Device Function devices. This is what I'm getting when I install the Vista driver package.

Based on that - I'm guessing that the drivers that come in the latest version of the software are NOT the Vista 32 bit drivers unless there's been a drastic change somewhere that I'm not seeing documented. It is all pretty confusing - following their install procedure for the Vista drivers didn't really work for me, and I ended up having to remove/add them in manually.

I'm saying that no - the latest version of the Fusion Software does not include the Vista 32 bit drivers (at least - nothing similar to the vista driver package). .

I have Vista on a dual boot on my system, so I'm not real worried about messing up my system. I will just reinstall Vista when it's messed up. Here's what I've found so far with FusionHDTV on Vista with a FusionHDTV lite card.

I went back again and tried to install Fusion 3.50.01 on Vista 32bit. It would not install correctly with Vista User Account Control (UAC) turned on. I turned it off and tried again. The install completed, seemingly OK, but upon reboot I was still missing three drivers. I had Vista do a driver search on my C Drive for each error message. It found all three drivers, presumably in the temp install folder somewhere on my C drive, and the install was complete. To my complete utter surprise it was working. FusionHDTV 3.50.01 on my new copy of Windows Vista with a FusionHDTV LITE card. Wow. But then...no sound. I had to go into my audio mixer and bring up the source bar. This is an apparent bug they claim to have fixed in the newer beta version. I was also getting random Fusion dumps upon changing channels. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't.

I did find that the newer nVidia beta Vista drivers ( ForceWare Release 100
Version: 100.54) now do not stutter anymore with the nVidia 6200 card. Thanks nVidia for that.

I've had good experience running the latest Dvico drivers in Vista Ultimate RTM with the RT Gold card, using the Dvico supplied software.



I guess I s hould have scanned more than the main page for notes..

I just installed Vista Business, and I can get the 3.50.01 software installed, it scans channels, etc. But when I start, I get a message that it switches the color scheme to Vista Basic, and a few minutes in, it crashes.

Anyone have this problem and fix it? I really don't want to get the PCI-E card if I don't have to.

I just installed Vista Business, and I can get the 3.50.01 software installed, it scans channels, etc. But when I start, I get a message that it switches the color scheme to Vista Basic, and a few minutes in, it crashes.

Anyone have this problem and fix it?

The message about switching the color scheme to Basic is normal. If you don't want to see this, you have to turn off the new AERO feature in Vista. Then you won't get this message. It has nothing to do though with your other problem

Dvico wrote me and said they are working on a new beta ( #2 ) that will work on Vista. They know about the program crashing problem. I am using Business Vista as well. It looks like FusionHDTV will work with Vista Ultimate according to Dvico.

Here's the response I got:

Hi.
Sorry about all your inconveniences.
Which Vista version did you install?
Ultimate ? or Business?
If you install the Ultimate version, you can use the DxVA decoder without crashing.
But if you don't install this version, we have some problem with video decoder.
Please be patient and we will update it when we have improved for this.
Thanks.

Here is the Dvico response to the question of "can a FusionHDTV Lite 5 card work on Windows Vista." They claim it can, I can't seem to get it to work.

____

Hi.
You can install the XP driver under the vista 32bit and you can play our software or MCE program with Lite model.
Lite card is based on the Conexant Fusion878A chipset, which does not supported by Conexant anymore for Windows VISTA 64 bit or X64 driver.
We regret to say that We don't support the Lite model on VISTA 64 bit.
If you didn't buy card, we recommend to buy the GOLD card.
The GOLD card is supporting the vista 32 bit and vista 64bit and we received the Vista premium logo.
Thanks.


i get massive audio/video chop when viewing OTA HDTV using either MCE or fusion software(3.6 beta, 8800 gts with 100.59 drivers, X2 4400+). any new recordings are identically munged. i can use Vista MCEor fusion software to playback stuff i recorded on XP silkily smooth though.

remote control program (not that I need it)crashes.

fusion software crashes unless third rendering optionis chosen.

anyway,it's completely useless.

I just got the Dvico USB Gold edition and am trying to run it on MCE 2004. The Fusion software works fine, but i would like to actually run it on MCE's software. Is it even possible or do I have to upgrade to MCE 2005?

i have been trying to find the exact answer to this but am still not quite sure. The HDTV5 Lite QAM will not work with MCE 05'? Are there any work arounds to get full NTSC/QAM working with a media center type app, or just use the fusion one? Thanks.

Vista Ultime and Dvico FusionHDTV5 Gold seem to work perfectly in Vista Ultimate, at least with the 3.6 Beta drivers. It even lables the station for you when you scan the Digital Channels. Nice added feature, finally.

What sort of utility do you use to convert the .tp recordings to .mpg ?

I have tried the Dvico converted application but it runs awfully slow (x0.5 or x0.7).

Thanks.

What's the purpose of the .mpg file?

How do you even type in a digital channel using the Remote?

I understand I have digital channels on my favorite (HD local channels), but how the hell do I switch between Analog and Digital TV. Honestly, ATI's HDTV wonder has a remote thats 1000x better.... but oh well.

What's the purpose of the .mpg file?
I just have multiple pc at home 1 has the dvico card and 2 have an ati aiw. I just want to sometime share something I have recorded. So the simplest format is .mpg which can be play with the wmedia player.

As can the TP files be played by media players, including WMP if you have an MPEG-2 codec installed, as you must to play mpg files anyway. As I suspected, you don't need any "conversion".

What sort of utility do you use to convert the .tp recordings to .mpg ?

I have tried the Dvico converted application but it runs awfully slow (x0.5 or x0.7).

Thanks.

How old is your software, the last time I used it, it was extremely fast! It must depend on what is the .tp stream? (I converted a Clear QAM recording, so that might have been the ticket)

As can the TP files be played by media players, including WMP if you have an MPEG-2 codec installed, as you must to play mpg files anyway. As I suspected, you don't need any "conversion".

Not unnecessarily without doing something to the recorded files first. I cannot play QAM recorded TP files from my FUsion5 in WMP or MCE unless I run the recorded TP files through TStoATSC.exe first. I'm not sure if this is the issue he is having or not with the TP files. If it is, it is a lot quicker to use TStoATSC.exe on the TP file to correct whatever the issue is instead of trying to convert them to mpg.

BTW: MPC will play the QAM recorded TP files without running them through TStoATSC.exe first.

My OTA recorded TP files do not have this issue.


Ronnie

How old is your software, the last time I used it, it was extremely fast! It must depend on what is the .tp stream? (I converted a Clear QAM recording, so that might have been the ticket)
Well, my software is pretty new, it is the 3.6beta and the machine is also fast (amd fx-60 2.8Ghz). But the recordings that I am trying to convert are HD qam clear recording (Heroes or 24). And the .tp are almost 8GB each.

Found a new beta on their ftp site last night. Any one tried it yet?

<< Changes in 3.6Beta2 (3.51.05) >>
---------------------------------------------------------------
1. Added the DxVA decoder compatible with Vista OS.
- With the ultimate or premium version, you can also use the MS video decoder.
- In the current version, the non DxVA decoder doesn't work properly.

** We added the FAQ of VISTA. Please refer to the FAQ of VISTA in advance.
[ VISTA FAQ ] http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/Eng/Sup...ct=CAT&CATID=16

2. Fixed the problem in which a secondary monitor didn't work with analog channel properly.

3. All aspect ratio are available with remote button.
- you can see the OSD when pressing the aspect ratio button.
- With the VMR renderer option, OSD function doesn't support properly.

4. Fixed the problem in which a secondary monitor didn't work with analog channel properly.

5. Fixed the problem in which the access violation error was occurred when PIP recording.

6. With multi devices installed,
- Fixed the problem in which recording was stopped at the midnight.
- Fixed the problem in which the PIP device was recorded to 4 GB.

7. Fixed the minor bugs.

I have an nvidia 7300 which would work via svhs but changed HDs and reinstalled everything and now I can not get output to tv. I am very much a newbie at this and need a very simple how to. So far I have gotten 2 cards to work but in both cases have no clue as to how. I would appreciate a tutorial how to or if someone has the time and patience an interactive walk thorough.

What I prefer to do is record in transport stream then transcode to full resolution to xvid so I can get programs to fit on dvd. I do not have a hdtv yet but will and want to keep as much resolution as possible as possible for when I can afford the hdtv. In the meantime I use svhs with my sdtv.

Stan

Hi, thinking of picking a Fusion card up. I like that it can tune ATSC and NTSC. Only thing is I don't want to pay for the HDTV tier on cable. I'd rather buy an antenna and receive it OTA.

Problem with Fusion's card are they only have one coax input. I know I could use a splitter in the reverse direction to hang an antenna and cable off the single input, but I've heard of some interference between the two and degraded signal quality.. Does anyone know of a splitter specifically for combining ATSC OTA antenna and NTSC cable? Or could I buy a filter to filter out the HDTV frequencies on the cable line?

If not I'll have to live with an A/B switch and manually change them (or buy a 2nd card).

Hi, thinking of picking a Fusion card up. I like that it can tune ATSC and NTSC. Only thing is I don't want to pay for the HDTV tier on cable. I'd rather buy an antenna and receive it OTA.

Problem with Fusion's card are they only have one coax input. I know I could use a splitter in the reverse direction to hang an antenna and cable off the single input, but I've heard of some interference between the two and degraded signal quality.. Does anyone know of a splitter specifically for combining ATSC OTA antenna and NTSC cable? Or could I buy a filter to filter out the HDTV frequencies on the cable line?

If not I'll have to live with an A/B switch and manually change them (or buy a 2nd card).

Odds are you will be able to get your local HD clear QAM channels via cable even with limited access or basic cable. You usually don't have to have the digital tier to get your local HD channels via cable if you supply your own tuner. But I think it is up to your provider. I have Comcast limited access cable, the cheap $12 a month service, and can get ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CW, PBS, and INHD all in HD with my Fusion.

You can use an rf A/B switch to connect both antenna and cable (sequentially) to the Fusion's rf input. You cannot use a reversed splitter for that. The cable and OTA frequencies overlap, so making such a connection would result in a mess.

<< Changes in 3.6Beta2 (3.51.05) >>

7. Fixed the minor bugs.

hmm well i hoped they fixed the major bugs too, haha.
tuner stutters non-stopand get so many access violations and can'tset up this or that'sit is not even funny.
hope this version will work.
or maybe they have given up on supporting the fusion 5 lite? :(

I just edited the c hannel list using 3.6 Beta... it found about 300 Digital STations, 3/4th of which where encrypted. It has never found THAT many before..

Wonder if that means something? :)

...
tuner stutters non-stop ... :(
I have the same problem with this beta2. I thought at the beginning that it was my comcast feed that was bad. But it happen on all channels and my tv does not have any problem.

I noticed there is stutter with 1080 but not with 720 on my system.

I noticed there is stutter with 1080 but not with 720 on my system.

Change your decoder option to Zulu HDTV (DxVA) Video Decoder.

See if that helps.

I have the same problem with this beta2. I thought at the beginning that it was my comcast feed that was bad. But it happen on all channels and my tv does not have any problem.

yeah, still does it with beta 2 for me too when running vista home premium on nfroce4 AMD board with X2 4400+ CPU and 1.5GB ram, nvidia 8800 GTS,fusionhdtv5 lite. maybe it is the nvidia drivers and 8800 gts combo though? no idea who is at fault at this point: MS, nvidia or DVICO.
perhapsit is because the tuner is sharing an IRQ with one of the IDE drives.i guess i can try yet another slot combo....
if i boot into XP instead it works.

not sure why these hdtv cards are always such a pain. every single one i'vehad has among the worst issues of any product i've ever put into a pc.

if i boot into XP instead it works.Why not stay there? Is a working HTPC not the objective?? :o

A bit off topic, but I was wondering something...

Does anyone have any errors trying to setup a PCI Express HDTV5 tuner and installing it on the same system as an ATI X1900 AIW on XP? I did, and the drivers kept on giving me incompatability errors..one or the other program did not seem to like each other on the same system...

If anyone gets it working flawlessly, please LMK. I Was thinking of getting the USB version(Assuming it comes with SVideo connection and dongle) or the PCI Express as a n upgrade.

The USB unit does come with S-Video and audio input dongle. No experience here with either PCI-e Fusion or ATI cards.

Change your decoder option to Zulu HDTV (DxVA) Video Decoder.

See if that helps.


Yeah, I already tried the other decoder options. I just reverted back to my previous working version and everything is fine again in 1080.

I'll try again on the next release.

Does the NTSC picture quality on the gold card actually look better than on the lite? Are the ATSC engines/circuitry in these two cards the same? TIA!

Why not stay there? Is a working HTPC not the objective?? :o

true, but eventually I want to be mostly using vista (already would like to be). it's not a pure HTPC but also my main PC for working, email, photo editing, everything.
but anyway, i need to stick with XP bootups mostly for the mean time. at least that does work, so it's not THAT bad of a situation really, just a little annoying. eventually it might become really annoying though, if everything is working in vista and tv still isn't (so far 2 chanell PCM out is broken, powerdvdultra is broken and fusiohdtv is broken, some demos and games are broken others are same or better, haven't tried lots of stuff yet though).

With HDTV PC tuners, you already have one foot on a bleeding edge. There's no point in putting your other foot on a banana peel (unless, like me, tinkering with stuff, rather than watching the TV shows, is your bliss). If you really want the best shot at a working HTPC, you'll stick with the previous generation of OS and balance of PC hardware. Pushing the state of the art in more than one direction at a time is a masochist's game.

A year from now, WinV may be a pretty good HTPC OS. Right now, it's still soiling diapers.

Hello folks. I have a peculiar situation regarding a HTPC that I built last Tuesday. My church records 5 services weekly in 720P with both Sony Z1U and JVC xx110-HD cameras. Both are official HD cameras. We normally dump firewire out at 19Mbps top JVC HD pro decks. We then ship off tapes to a daughter church for the following week in Michigan. Now is where the thread becomes relavent. We need to timeshift live HD from our video booth. te timeshift is for an additional sanctuary opening elsewhere on the campus. There is nothing under $100k to do the job. There are three gurus in the church, I am the RF guru, also a network producer and ABC engineer. The ABC guy says S3 TiVo an ATSC signal we generate locally. After deliberation, cost indicates no way to ATSC but good idea. I say, do QAM, i will set it up. I move ahead on Monday with the S3 TiVo setup and figure out the hard way that it WILL NOT WORK. S3 TiVo QAM tuner requires CableCARDS for unencrpted use and we are not in a cable system so again we are hosed. In a bind on Tues. night, I call DC in Huntington Beach and discuss a HTPC with QAM. I bought a Fusion 5 PCI Gold from Steve in a do-or-die situation. I slammed a 3Ghz. P4, MSI Neo3 945 mobo, 1G dual channel ram, Nvidia 7300, 400GB SATA2 HD, XP Pro SP1 (WHAT I HAD) server together. Like clockwork, all went well. I setup QAM64 with 720P fed from camera to firewire MUX, then to Firewire / ASI bridge to Blonder Tongue AQM on channel 55. Struggled with rates and clocks but perfected the outbound signal. Came into Fusion with +17.5 db and padded down to -3 for 100% signal on meter.
Problems: QAM 256 jsut would not work that night, maybe modulator, maybe PC, dunno.
Horrible audio fuzz in background (found out due to mobo sound card. Installed Wed. afternoon, Turtle Beach XX and now super clean audio.)
QAM 64 channel id's as source 550 not, 55 even though no subchannels exist and it is on RF 55.

For a live performance, I had to run the system untested. I got QAM256 to run at 3PM, event at 6:45 PM. Then the Fusion worked WELL on 256, for two hours. 30 mins before trial by fire beagn, system threw "unexpected error with fusionhdtvapp.exe and must close. oh crap.I had installed Service pack 2 for XP pro wen after the apps and drivers for fusion were installed, on Tues Night. The Turtle beach came after fusion on Wednesday at 3:45 PM. QAM 256 turned on at 3PM. 4 PM full failure occured. Stuck, I reinstalled the full fusion package (after deinstall) and still dies. Ran over to BC booth and reset camera, ASI bridge, mod, and reset to QAM 64. Rebooted PC cold and bang...problem gone. QAM 64 ran perfectly for 3.5 hours of timeshift.
So my questions are...anybody having any success with QAM 64 or 256. We are upgrading cams to JVC250's which are near 30Mbps at 1080i and I will need QAM256 to work weekly for this system. Also, I will need to try to record and timeshift, meaning I need to add another Fusion to PC for dedicated record so first one can timeshift. At 1081i, QAM256 must work or we are hosed. Is SP2 necessary and could that have been the dealbreaker on Wenesday night. I will be trying to gut the PC and install fusion after full XP updates as a test.
Is anyone using two fusions and does it seem feasible to timeshift with one and record with another???? or should I build a second server to do the dedicated record??? there is a definite bottom to our pocketbook and another 1200 buck PC hurts. Lastly... we are trying to escape a hundred buck per month DV tape expense by using QAM to Fusion recording to produce video on a cheaper media. Our thoughts are record HQ video with fusion and either burn to an HD DVD as a file, or mail a USB drive weekly back and forth to Michigan, or internet send 50-60GB. A bluray was considered but weekly expense will double, not decrease. The HD DVD is too expensive also as we will need about 4 of them. You may ask why not edit our 50MB tapes to other forms, too time consuming. It is not produced video, I need it raw for transport back east. Has anybody taken a Fusion TS or MPG file and hauled it over internet successfully??? Has anyone tried to play balc the TS or MPG's from Fusion thru a Buffalo Media Server, etc??

Oops, here is lastly for sure: I got "max headroom" type stutter about 10 times in 2 hours of live video. I know for a fact that the RF system (hard line .500 backbone between two points) was not the issue. As I was not able to record the event, only timeshift, I couldn't tell if stutter was on the input side or output video only to projectors. Is stutter normal for the fusion??? Would disabling hard drive write caching possibly stop potential memory dumps to the HD at poor times??

Sorry for the long post. I have read about 30 pages of this thread on Steves word (Digital Connection) to try to gleen as much info regarding the product. If the Fusion will not be rock solid stable in a fully dedicated environment, then maybe someone could recommend a card with QAM tuning capability that would give better video performance. Not looking for whistles or bells, no EPG, just exceptional video performance and Timeshift/record at full HD.

Best Regards and Thanks in Advance :)

PS: Be advised, I have measured the thresholds fo the QAM section of the Fusion. It wants about 0 dBmv on its input to give 100% quality, their meter is a funciton of S/N ratio and BER, not RF level. On ATSC, -20dB to -30dB easily gives stable performance on this card. Measured per my Sadelco Displaymax 800. I was suprised how sensitive the ATSC tuner was, WOW it performs well!! Typical ATSC tuner on a Pioneer PDP-6070 HD or DirecTV H-20/H-10, about -15dB.

The ABC guy says S3 TiVo an ATSC signal we generate locally. After deliberation, cost indicates no way to ATSC but good idea. I say, do QAM, i will set it up. I move ahead on Monday with the S3 TiVo setup and figure out the hard way that it WILL NOT WORK. S3 TiVo QAM tuner requires CableCARDS for unencrpted use and we are not in a cable system so again we are hosed.
According to the Tivo Series 3 FAQ, (http://www.tivolovers.com/Series3-FAQ.html) manual unencrypted QAM recordings work OK. The cablecard is required for scheduling/guide data and ease of use.

This guy (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=319121#post4422534) even reports his specific experience of doing so: "My Cablecards are supposed to be installed on Saturday, so I've been using manual recordings of the clear QAM channels."

I read the same post "prior" to even buying the S3Tivo. I set the TiVo up on several diff. loca cable systems, none have dig. spectrum that starts below 78, the end of hyperband. Unless the QAM channel is mixed in with analog CATV, there is no way for the TiVo to tune to those channels. I digress. I am sorry to have provoked a redirect of the thread. Just trust me, according to hours long calls with TiVo, my own experimentation, etc, the likelyhood of the TiVo tuning a QAM channel is NIL. Buy one, set it up on a cable system and try it for yourself. Maybe he was watching analog channels and was deceived. there is a strong chance that occured.
Any advice on the fusion card performance, using two of them in same machine, write caching disable, etc. That was what the intent of the thread response was. I do appreciate the info on the TiVo though.

crusty1--

I suggest that you try the FusionHDTV 3.6beta2 app on the DViCo ftp site to do your recording + timeshifting job with one Fusion card. I have in mind that you would just set FusionHDTV up to record the feed to HDD and then you would use VLC or even Media Player Classic to display the file, timeshifted, as it's being written. You can't do this with the earlier FusionHDTV apps because they don't allow read-during-write access to the capture file. (Well...there is a hack posted in the new software thread that allows it)

crusty1--
I suggest that you try the FusionHDTV 3.6beta2 app on the DViCo ftp site to do your recording + timeshifting job with one Fusion card. I have in mind that you would just set FusionHDTV up to record the feed to HDD and then you would use VLC or even Media Player Classic to display the file, timeshifted, as it's being written. You can't do this with the earlier FusionHDTV apps because they don't allow read-during-write access to the capture file. (Well...there is a hack posted in the new software thread that allows it)
This is getting TS off a Fusion card closer to getting it on my TV. Now, can I add the file even before its completed to the MYHD playlist?

Of course this is all pretend as if I had a system to record/play it on.

Now, can I add the file even before its completed to the MYHD playlist?Absolutely. (Also, you can play it on a TViX while it's recording, which--come to think of it--would be another option for crusty1 that would be cheaper than a second PC if he doesn't like the VLC/MPC idea)

You might want to look at Silicon Dust's "HDHomeRun" unit. It contains two QAM256 capable tuners in a box that streams the raw transport stream(s) out via ethernet.

On the minus side, it does not have any fancy high-level software for playback like most HD tuner cards do - although it is supported by a lot of DVR apps like sage, mythtv, and MS Media Cente, mediaportal, etc.

The plus side is that there are no special device drivers required, you just send the unit commands via a regular socket and it sends out data, the vendor uses an open-source library that provides a basic API for talking to the unit with support for MS Windows and Linux (and likely Mac OS X). Thus it is probably the easiest QAM tuner to integrate into a custom application if you can write software or can make do with the command-line utilities the vendor provides.

http://www.silicondust.com/

I can vouch that it works fine for QAM256 channels above 78, I have a unit that is used to record stuff in the 80s every day.

Just don't use it on a congested network, it is all real-time so lost packets are permanently lost, there is no facility for retransmission.

New FusionHDTV 5 RT Gold owner here. So far I love the hardware. Not so crazy about the software though, I think I've been through every version on their FTP site so far and keep coming back to the FusionHDTV3.50.02 version. The newer ones seem to have a problem with preset recordings? The requester comes up like its going to record and it never does...unless someone has a hint or a fix.

Running on an old Dell 340 Precision Workstation with 1/2 gig of RAM, a Pentium 4 2.8 processor and nvidia Geforce 5600 FX card. Added a SATA card and a large hard drive for the files and seems to be working out great. Would like to output directly to my Samsung TX-R2678WH HDTV though (plenty of inputs.) What would be the best video card I could upgrade to, staying on the nvidia side?

I'd avoid the latest-greatest gamer vid cards, as they're way overkill. OTOH, the 4000MX seems not to handle 1920x1200 over DVI properly because of a hw limitation, so the best bet is probably something like the 6200 which works very well with Forceware driver version 84.21 (but not later versions, AFAIK).

Edit: Just realized that your DTV may have VGA input instead of DVI...in that case the old MX440 or MX4000 is fine.

I'd avoid the latest-greatest gamer vid cards, as they're way overkill. OTOH, the 4000MX seems not to handle 1920x1200 over DVI properly because of a hw limitation, so the best bet is probably something like the 6200 which works very well with Forceware driver version 84.21 (but not later versions, AFAIK).

Edit: Just realized that your DTV may have VGA input instead of DVI...in that case the old MX440 or MX4000 is fine.Funny you should mention that, here's what I have on my wish list at newegg.com: PNY VCG62256APB GeForce 6200 256MB 64-bit GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X Video Card.

Thanks for the info!

Thanks to all for the help. I will look into the QAM ethernet streamer, that may fill a void absoultely. I have the machine here at home, I am not a CABLE client so no QAM available. I have reinstalled XP pro, all drivers, updates, sp2 etc to the fullest prior to addressing the Fusion card. Installd 3.50.01 as I left the original disc at church, was running 3.51.00. Left machine burning all night. CBS, ABC, NBC all recorded last night in HD from ATSC. My signals are no lower than 95%/26dB on the control panel. My 4 bay is a wicked performer and have tested many tuners of sorts, there is no rf issue. Watching cpu consumption, holds around 26% all day, but on KCET-HD, 1080i, DD2ST, 19.4M, my cpu use drops oddly to 0 and pokes back up. At the same time, I get a still frame. Tried other channels, ABC, NBC, CBS both at 720P and 1081i, get NO frame drops. This is during records of course. I have found that the third option in config, ZULU with VMR seems to work much better than DxVA and I have it at highest. Also, task priority is at normal, don't even know what it does. Well, I am/have downloaded the 3.6 beta and will install in the next 48 hours. Please fill me in on the potential playback mechanisms that exist. What playback software will render the best video. I am recording to .mpg, not .ts as the transport stream has a harder time being interrpreted but "stuff". Oh and yes, I ahev turned off hard drive write caching and there has no noticible difference in any direction. The fact the KCET has video issues and none other concerns me. I am now worried about the QAM signal I ma generating off-site. Could it have been the problem or one of the problems? Thanks again to all who posted responses.

I have successfully installed a DVICO Fusion Express HDTV video capture card on Windows Vista without jerky playback in Media Center. At first, the playback in Media Center was very poor; I experienced many dropped frames while viewing HDTV in Media Center until I figured out all the tricks.

I am using only an antenna (no cable or satellite), and live in Washington, DC. I receive 8 analog NTSC channels and 11 Digital ATSC channels.

I have the following Setup:
FusionHDTV Express
Vista Home Premium
Motherboard: ABIT NF-M2 nView
On-board graphics: GForce 6150 connected via VGA cable to LCD monitor w/ full driver w/ Nvidia Control Panel (Vista comes w/ drivers).
CPU: AMD X2 3800+ 65W AM2

Directions for a working setup:

1. Before installing the card, install the latest FusionHDTV and driver software. You may need to create an account on the DVICO site find the page with the latest software. At this writing the FusionHDTV software is 3.6 Beta 2 and the driver is 6.0.94.0.

2. In the User Accounts Control Panel, turn off User Account Control (UAC). This will let you save your preferences in HDTV.

3. Turn off you machine & install PCI Express Card.

4. Run the FusionHDTV app. Scan all digital and analog channels.

5. Edit the FusionHDTV configuration. I have changed the default settings set to the following:
General Tab: Use VMR Renderer Checked
Video Tab: Zulu HDTV Video Decoder (The first option in the drop-down list of four); Use VMR Renderer Checked; Highest Quality.
I think it resulted in the smoothest playback. With FusionHDTV 3.6 Beta 2.

6. Save the settings.

7. In the User Accounts Control Panel, turn back on User Account Control (UAC).

8. If you want to view NTSC channels in Media Center, install an MPEG2 decoder plug-in. The DIVCO board does not have an MPEG2 encoder chip, so it cannot digitize NTSC analog channels. Media Center also does not have a MPEG 2 encoder, so it cannot digitize analog channels either. The software I use, MainConcept MCE Encoder, has a fully-functional demo version that places a watermark on the screen. The reason I need to view NTSC channels is that PBS broadcast different programming on ATSC than NTSC, and there are NTSC-only programs I want to record.

9. Install the Cyberlink DVD 7 trial. You need the MPEG-2 decoder included in Cyberlink DVD. The Microsoft MPEG-2 decoder does not work well with video recorded by the DIVCO Fusion Express. The video plays back very jerky via the Microsoft Decoder.

10. Change Media Center's default MPEG-2 Decoder using Vista Media Center Decoder utility from The MediaCenter Expert . Change the default codec to Cyberlink 7.

11. Start Media Center.

12. Run the wizard. Media Center should find all you analog and digital channels. You may need to add or remove some channels manually.

13. Set up your favorite programs to record. You're all set to go

In conclusion, the DVICO card works very well - if you can get it set up properly. It is not ready for the average consumer. You also need to spend at least $50 to get a MPEG-2 Decoder, that put the total price at $250 for the card and decoder.

After installing iTunes 7.02, I could no longer use the Cyberlink MPEG-2 decoder in Media Center. Media Center would just crash anytime I tried to play anything. I had to uninstall iTunes & Cyberlink DVD and then reinstall Cyberlink DVD. To get it working again.

New FusionHDTV 5 RT Gold owner here. So far I love the hardware. Not so crazy about the software though, I think I've been through every version on their FTP site so far and keep coming back to the FusionHDTV3.50.02 version. The newer ones seem to have a problem with preset recordings? The requester comes up like its going to record and it never does...unless someone has a hint or a fix.
I reported the problem to DVICO. I received a reply, recording is a known problem in 3.6 beta2 and they plan to release a fixed file and patch ASAP.

There is a newer file posted already, still called "beta2" but with a new timestamp. I've not yet tried it myself but I understand that it is supposed to address some of the "known issues" with the previous one.

The fusionhdtv.exe and zuluhdtv2.dll files were updated in the download. A short test did have scheduled recording working (manually set and titantv scheduled, I haven't used the episode guide yet.)

"EPG" = Electronic Program Guide, not "episode guide". ;)

That's what I get for typing in a hurry. I meant "program guide".

Soon I'll be sounding like my mother, "hey! get me that thing over there, the whatchamacallit, you know what I mean."

on KCET-HD, 1080i, DD2ST, 19.4M, my cpu use drops oddly to 0 and pokes back up. At the same time, I get a still frame. Tried other channels, ABC, NBC, CBS both at 720P and 1081i, get NO frame drops. . . . The fact the KCET has video issues and none other concerns me. I am now worried about the QAM signal I ma generating off-site.

I don't have a solution, but I note that KCET is PBS and I have similar problems, sometimes, recording on my PBS-HD station (KRMA-DT over Comcast in the Denver metro area). I regularly record "Austin City Limits" on this channel on Saturday evenings. Sometimes, it records with no problems, but other times, such as last Saturday, I get a file where the audio plays fine but the video is a continuing series of photo stills, each lasting for 10 seconds or so. Very odd. I don't have this problem recording from any other channels. I have not monitored CPU usage during these recordings so I can't say whether I get the drops you've noted.

I record exclusively over QAM as well.

Derek

Derek--

I don't know what the "PBS problem" is either, but I think that you can avoid the bad recordings by setting FusionHDTV agent to "minimize on silent mode" for captures. That will prevent the video renderer from being active and should allow the transport stream to be recorded without any hitches.

Thanks, TPeterson. I'm already set to "minimize on silent mode." To be honest, I'd chalked up these weird recordings to just random error, a computer hiccup or something. It wasn't until I saw crusty1toast's post above that it occurred to me it might something other than random. I'll see what happens this Saturday.

Derek

If you're set for minimize on silent mode, then the file problems virtually must be from signal quality issues on that station. Perhaps there is some RFI on your cable that's affecting that one station--or maybe it's even too high a level and is overpowering the Fusion's front end. Do you have another DTV tuner for comparison?

I bought the DVICO Fusion 5 HDTV a few weeks and have been watching this thread. I have a problem though with 8 additonal scan lines at the top. Is it my cable company (Charter in Glendale, CA) that is doing this?

I bought a Westinghouse 37" LCD HDTV 1920x1080p. However, when I maximize the FusionHDTV app for a 1080i broadcast, I get 8 blank lines at the top and presumedly am losing 8 lines at the bottom. Even when I record the transport stream and play it back in WMP, I get 8 blank lines at the top. Is there a way to correct this (a) realtime in FusionHDTV; and (b) in recorded transport streams?

Yes!The folks who post here are the ones who have problems. The DC tech knows about all the units that they ship to happy customers. ;)Yes the 6200 is fine. Just be sure to use the nVidia 84.21 Forceware and not the newer versions, which have HDTV bugs.Some of us also prefer the stability and user interface of MyHD over the FusionHDTV offerings to date, but the gap is definitely narrowing.

Well, I jumped in. After 3 installation attempts, I got the Fusion USB gold up and working...sort of.

1. Overall poor performance. I could not adequately resolve studdering. Seems it would come and go. Didn't seem to correlate to PC load. Tried using 4 different USB 2.0 ports upon recommendation of tech support. No change.

2. Remote function was intermittent, and never really improved. Couldn't determine if my unit or remote or both. Could not easily determine if I had the latest software. From what I could determine, the software on the web site was an older version that what was on the installation disk I received.

3. Recording worked. In my area, scheduling on Charter was not supported, however.

4. Channels did not line up, nor are editable, which was a previously known limitation.

I was attracted by the portability of a USB type device, but now seems to be a potential perfomance bottleneck.

After 3rd software install, the tech support guy (nicely) says, "well, I haven't much of a clue at this point...what do you want to do? Rtn?"

I opted to return the unit. I was promptly credited the price, less a 15% restocking fee.

I have a low end unit now (USB2.0 TV box) that is NOT HD, but works well, and records and meets my needs without the "alpha and beta testing" seemingly required by the fusion product at this time.

Just wanted to give my experience for those looking for a simpler solution. I hope I can return to this topic in the future with better results.

.02

I bought the DVICO Fusion 5 HDTV a few weeks and have been watching this thread. I have a problem though with 8 additonal scan lines at the top. Is it my cable company (Charter in Glendale, CA) that is doing this?

I bought a Westinghouse 37" LCD HDTV 1920x1080p. However, when I maximize the FusionHDTV app for a 1080i broadcast, I get 8 blank lines at the top and presumedly am losing 8 lines at the bottom. Even when I record the transport stream and play it back in WMP, I get 8 blank lines at the top. Is there a way to correct this (a) realtime in FusionHDTV; and (b) in recorded transport streams?Yes, the "blank" lines are part of the transport stream sometimes. Did you try changing the "Cropping" settings on the Video tab in FusionHDTV configuration?

Well, I jumped in. After 3 installation attempts, I got the Fusion USB gold up and working...sort of.

1. Overall poor performance. I could not adequately resolve studdering. Seems it would come and go. Didn't seem to correlate to PC load. Tried using 4 different USB 2.0 ports upon recommendation of tech support. No change.

2. Remote function was intermittent, and never really improved. Couldn't determine if my unit or remote or both. Could not easily determine if I had the latest software. From what I could determine, the software on the web site was an older version that what was on the installation disk I received.

3. Recording worked. In my area, scheduling on Charter was not supported, however.

4. Channels did not line up, nor are editable, which was a previously known limitation.

I was attracted by the portability of a USB type device, but now seems to be a potential perfomance bottleneck.

After 3rd software install, the tech support guy (nicely) says, "well, I haven't much of a clue at this point...what do you want to do? Rtn?"

I opted to return the unit. I was promptly credited the price, less a 15% restocking fee.

I have a low end unit now (USB2.0 TV box) that is NOT HD, but works well, and records and meets my needs without the "alpha and beta testing" seemingly required by the fusion product at this time.

Just wanted to give my experience for those looking for a simpler solution. I hope I can return to this topic in the future with better results.

.02You don't describe your PC in the above but my guess is that either its USB ports have marginal power available or your CPU/video gear wasn't up to rendering HDTV resolutions. Many others have installed the USB Fusion tuner with good results. I'm glad that you have a solution that works for you.

How do you use the remote for the Fusion5 RT Gold to type in Digital channels? this is frustrating. The remote is a POS. You can't configure the arrows, and I wish the arrows would control your mouse instead. Who needs arrows to flip channels when there's a channel buton? For this reason I like ATI's HDTV wonder remote, but I need a QAM tuner, so I had to settle for this..

How do you use the remote for the Fusion5 RT Gold to type in Digital channels? this is frustrating. The remote is a POS. You can't configure the arrows, and I wish the arrows would control your mouse instead. Who needs arrows to flip channels when there's a channel buton? For this reason I like ATI's HDTV wonder remote, but I need a QAM tuner, so I had to settle for this..
did you try the "live" button? doesn't that toggle between digital and analog?

i have read posts about and experienced first-hand the problem of the fusion software crashing when it is finished with a capture, but has anyone ever officially contacted DVICO regarding this, and if so what was the response? my impression on this software running two 5 cards in the same machine is at best buggy. oh to combine the stability of mdp cards and the ability to have more than one on a machine.

i have read that tpeterson says the gap between the two is narrowing, it can't happen fast enough.

Yes, the "blank" lines are part of the transport stream sometimes. Did you try changing the "Cropping" settings on the Video tab in FusionHDTV configuration?
Hey that worked, thanks. I didn't realize by default the Fusion5 app overscanned HD content.

I just upgraded to FusionHDTV3.6beta2 (went from the guy diving to the couple on the couch ;-)

Anyway, back with the older version, I could play HD content smooth as silk while MyHD was recording. Now it's jerky, you know, especially in a panning shot.

I have a Radeon 9000 graphics card, and ATI video driver, if that makes a difference. During the installs of the Fusion software, I remember a panel giving you the option of altering the install based on the speed of your computer and the kind of graphics you had. Question: were the choices the same for the earlier version compared to the beta version? I think one of the options was something about ATI or Divx or something like that? Dang, I should have paid more attention. Is there a way to figure out what was selected? To change without a reinstall?

Or maybe the beta just takes more oomph to playback than the earlier version?

--Dale--

All of the same options are effectively available in the Config Video dialog. I suspect that the current DViCo DxVA code isn't working properly with your present ATI driver (or you may need to reinstall that driver). A good diagnostic is to open up Task Manager's Performance tab and watch the CPU use while you tune 720p/1080i stations and try the various FusionHDTV Video config options.

All of the same options are effectively available in the Config Video dialog. I suspect that the current DViCo DxVA code isn't working properly with your present ATI driver (or you may need to reinstall that driver). A good diagnostic is to open up Task Manager's Performance tab and watch the CPU use while you tune 720p/1080i stations and try the various FusionHDTV Video config options.Thanks for the suggestions. It's good to know the choice during the install is selectable later. Looking at the CPU utilization is a good idea, unfortunately, I didn't have it at the time. As far as I know, "nothing else" was running at the time, but on XP that means about 30 threads are active! Maybe the symptom only appears when the botnet controller has me working on something (just KIDDING, I hope!).

Bottom-line in my case is that it just started working fine again, without my doing anything. I did have a reboot in there somewhere.

--Dale--

Aha. I smell an incomplete installation in that case that's now finally completed.

Hint (probably elementary) for all of you keeping an eye on CPU usage with this card, check your anti-virus software. I just switched to NOD32 from McAfee and got a huge drop in over all CPU usage.

AVG is my fav. It's very unobtrusive and easy to keep current (not to mention free for personal use).

Is list anywhere available as to what "D" channels are what? My FusionHDTV digital scan list goes from D79 to D1140 coming over a Brick NJ Comcast cable feed.

In most cases, the "D" numbers relate to the rf channel number and its subchannel*. If you mean a list of what D number is what TV/cable station the answer is, "no". The cablecos assign stations to rf channels and subchannels in whatever way pleases them. The "channel numbers" that they communicate to customers are completely unrelated to those physical assignments and also vary according to cableco whim.

*The exception to this is when the cableco passes along the OTA station's "PSIP" information which identifies it with the "traditional" (NTSC) channel in some way. For those channels, FusionHDTV just shows you the PSIP-derived "virtual channel+subchannel" in the D number.

So that is why the list can be different with a new scan? All we can do is blindly navigate through the channels to see if there is something we want to watch??

The list can change for a number of reasons, including cableco changes in channel line up and mistakes in deconstructing the channel content on a given scan. The most common source of change is from Video On Demand channels, whose subchannels come and go as subscribers request service. The main channels (OTA HDTV and basic/"expanded basic" cable) change much less frequently. My HDTV channel assignments, e.g., have not changed since Comcast started carrying the OTA DTV stations two years ago. However, the PSIP info on them has individually come and gone several times in that period so that FusionHDTV has sometimes listed them with D numbers for their physical channels and other times for their OTA virtual channels. Welcome to DTV where everybody's on the learning curve. ;)

(Sorry for asking nebee/dummy questions, as this is all new to me)....

On my FusionHDTV scan list some of the channels are "Ch D118 (D118)" and others are just "ChD812". What does this mean (what is the difference)?

The first number is the "channel" and the second is the "service name", which is the call letters of the station if the cableco is passing along the PSIP. All of my list entries (with 3.51.05, aka "3.6 beta 2") have both. I don't know why yours is incomplete. Which version of the app are you using?

3.51.05. Could it be I don't have something set up correctly?

Definitely possible. If you didn't follow carefully KAXKID's Procedure (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7600356&&#post7600356) for reinstalling FusionHDTV, it's an almost certainty. ;)

Another channel question:

I don't see how to utilize titanTV with my FusionHDTV Gold USB box. The listing I get, after signing up for titanTV does not coincide with my FusionHDTV channel scan list at all..... And the manual directions fo the "EPG Program" are very confusion.

What simple step-by-step directions can you suggest for using TitanTV with the FushionHDTV setup??

From your previous questions, I gather that you're using cable QAM tuning. TitanTV only works with FusionHDTV for OTA recordings and the EPG only works for cable or OTA stations that have PSIP data present. Likely, most of your QAM channels have no PSIP.

The solutions are: (1) Go read up on AllenDB's Record_This and try it out. It works for both OTA and QAM (but not yet[?] for the 3.6 beta app, so you'll need to drop back to 3.51.0). (2) Be patient for a while for the CW_EPG addon program version 2.0, which will work with the 3.6 and newer FusionHDTV apps and both QAM and OTA.

OK, thanks.

On my previous digital channel listing question, I found the following bug listing:

In the Reservation List, digital channels are displayed confusingly. For example, Channel D56 shows up as "D5561", not as "D5-56-1", nor "D56-1" -- there appears to be an extra "5". If this is significant, it should probably be delimited somehow.

Could that be why my scan listing (like D1110) makes little sense. Might be actually be D1-11-0 (not that that is alot clearer)?

One more question (and then I promise to just lurk for the rest of the evening):

Is this the best forum and thread to gather FusionHDTV information and find out about new software releases?

I lied. Make it two questions:

What is the CW_EPG addon?

I doubt it. On my setup D1110 is rf 111 subchannel 1.

1. No, check the 3.50 software thread in this Forum.

2. Check the Cliff Watson EPG thread in this Forum.

Can someone here give a quick rundown of the differences between the lite and gold card?

CyberEStore says the gold supports Vista, but I suspect this is just a driver update. Is it?

Also, their website has Power Recording listed on the lite page, but the text references the gold card.

I am confused.

Can someone here give a quick rundown of the differences between the lite and gold card?

CyberEStore says the gold supports Vista, but I suspect this is just a driver update. Is it?

Also, their website has Power Recording listed on the lite page, but the text references the gold card.

I am confused.

lite has no svideo inputs for one.

has anyone gotten the lite version to work on vista 32bit? anyone?

Is list anywhere available as to what "D" channels are what? My FusionHDTV digital scan list goes from D79 to D1140 coming over a Brick NJ Comcast cable feed.

Do these look familiar? (I think these are for Philly-Comcast)

80.1 ABC
80.2 NBC
81.21 PBS
81.22 CBS
106.41 CW
116.41 WPHL
116.42 FOX

If you search this board (not this thread) I think you will find others might have the list you are looking for already posted.

No, my listing looks nothing like that. I have not, however, tried a re-install of the software.

I did figure out titantv last night before bed. It's kind of funky, but works. However, I set it up to capture a PBS (analog) broadcast before going to bed. It was listed in the scheduler, so at least I got that far with it.

However, in the morning I found an error window on the screen (something about a syntax error) which had things pretty tightly locked up. It took me some time with Task Manager to be able to shut down the computer.......

Please help. I installed Vista premium home edition on a clean new drive. I have a fusion 5 gold card. And have installed v.3.50.01 of the software. All I could scan and tune on cable were analog channels and there is no sound. I then uninstalled that and installed v.3.51.05 (v.3.6beta). Now I get a "EP45: autentication failed" error as soon as I start the software. And no abiltity to scan or tune any channels whatsoever.

how can I fix this?? It's been working perfectly fine with XP sp2. thanks

I installed Vista premium home edition....how can I fix this??Go back to XPSP2 and wait for the pioneers to take all the arrows. ;)

No, my listing looks nothing like that. I have not, however, tried a re-install of the software.Well, that's your first mistake. :(I did figure out titantv...in the morning I found an error window on the screen....Was this an OTA PBS broadcast that you scheduled from the ANALOG tab in the TTV grid?.

TP that's not the answer I'm looking for. I like Vista now. Someone please tell me how to make it work (see above). thanks.

TP that's not the answer I'm looking for. I like Vista now. Someone please tell me how to make it work (see above). thanks.

I know TPeterson put a ;) on his comment, but I totally agree with his reply... My guess is you will need to give Vista/Dvico at least a year for good Vista/Dvico support. If you read back through the years of Fusion post here, you will see that it has only been the last few releases of their software that I'd consider to be pretty much ready for primetime in XP.

The WinV for HTPC adopters today are pioneers (recognizable by the arrows in their backs). If you want to be a WinV pioneer, that's fine, but don't expect a lot of hand holding about how much those arrows smart. Likely nobody else knows the answer either, so just keep shaking the box and see what falls out.

I can confirm the FusionHDTV 5 Lite PCI Card does not work with Windows Vista.

I thought I would try anyway since someone claimed he had it working. No Go. I guess I will ebay my FusionHDTV 5 Lite card and get a Gold RT card from Digital Connections.

Are others experiencing luck running the Gold Card with Vista ?? If so, how did you install the drivers. Did you install the Fusion software first, then install the Vista Driver package separately after that?

I was able to make 5RT Lite pci card to work with Vista Ultimate (32 bit...64 bit did not work). Installed 3.5.2 software, skipped driver install, and manually installed the drivers. Using Dvico's software, I can view all unencrypted QAM channels without any problem, although I have to manually bring up the volume *every time* I start the software. Also, I was able to use the card in MCE...but only ATSC. Neither software was able to pickup analog cable stations, as I believe Vista does not support BT878 on the tuner card.

Ultimately, I went back to XP for this card, as I was not completely happy with the picture quality on Vista. Too bad, since I really wanted to use Vista MCE (my XP is professional version, not MCE).
--
Sang

I had similar problems trying to get the card to work in vista. Same error number also. I did get it working for a little bit. Never got it to save the channels right. I installed vista as a dual boot, so I just boot into XP when I need to use the card.


Anyone have any experience using the USB version with an Intel Imac? I'm looking for a Mac HD tuner.

Thanks

Yes, I dual boot as well. And will probably continue to do so for some time. I will play with different drivers and tips as they come along. Vista is ok but seems more like a "frosting on the cake" so to speak as compared to XP's latest iterations. I question it's real value at the moment. I remember questioning the need for Win95 when that came out. Was more hassle for me at the time then I thought it worth. In fact I was quite happy with DOS.

t.b.