Hauppauge HDPVR-1212 Owner's Thread - Page 4

What h.264 decoder are you using? Right click on the video while playing and select Filters. The only decoder I've found so far that works well is CoreAVC Pro.

Get the most recent CoreAVC Pro. ffdshow doesn't work right with 1080i HD PVR files (seems to be ok with 720p files though).

Updated: September 26, 2008 (Included all the TS files on a separate site)

Here's my experience thus far with the HD-PVR.

I've always had an on-and-off interest in capturing gaming footage. For the past few years, my main capture device was an ATI TV Wonder Pro capture card. I'd capture in DVD-standard MPEG2, then used MPEG-VCR to cut out any useless footage (A great product by the way!). Finally, I used Gordian Knot to convert the MPEG2 captures to DivX AVI. The results were okay for a while, but weren't exactly spectacular. After getting a new Desktop last December and rewatching some old captured footage from years earlier, I knew I needed to update my capture device/method. Plus the ATI card was discontinued and wasn't even fully compatible with Vista.

Basically I wanted to replace my aging setup and be able to capture HD video. Researching this on various sites and forums, I found a number of affordable products:

SKnet Monster X:
Like the HD-PVR, captures in 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i. But nearly impossible to obtain outside of Japan. I also didn't feel comfortable getting drivers/support from a Japanese language website. And there was the little extra hassle of finding a D-Terminal to Component adapter.

Earthsoft PV3/PV4:
Similar issues as with the Monster X.

Leadtek Winfast PxDTV2300 H:
When I researched this, it was not readily available in North America (I think it still isn't). The price was pretty good, but none of the overseas retailers seemed to ship to Canada. As well, there was little information/user-reviews on the card. It only captures up to 480p.

BlackMagic Intensity Pro:
This was my choice before learning about the HD-PVR. Upon further research, my excitement turned into disappointment. According to the company support site, the Intensity Pro is apparently not certified for use with Dell Workstations (My current rig is a Dell Precision 390). It was also a bit pricey. While it apparently doesn't have 480p recoding, it does have HDMI recording (Provided the source doesn't have HDCP) as well as compressed or uncompressed capturing. The uncompressed picture quality is said to be quite nice (Though there are mixed opinions about the MJPEG compression). If I ever get a suitable machine with a RAID0 setup, I wouldn't mind purchasing an Intensity Pro.

In the end, I ended up with the Hauppauge HD-PVR (Model 1219, Revision C2). Easy to setup and lots of information/feedback in various forums. After making several test captures, I'm quite satisfied thus far with the capture results. I tend to wonder about the performance of USB 2.0 connected devices vs. internal devices, but the HD-PVR has been doing its job great so far. It was great to see captured footage running at 60fps. Once I get an HD STB, it will be a joy to archive sports and various shows. Setup was quite simple and the driver/program installation went off without an hitch.

Basic specs of my PC are:
Vista Business 32bit
Intel Quad Core Q6600 (2.4Ghz)
4GB RAM
8800GT PCI-Express 512MB

My main purpose was to use this device to capture game footage. There is a 1+ second input/sound lag if you're going by the preview window. Luckily, the HD-PVR's Component out passthrough worked perfectly with my VGA Box.

My PS3 is still unavailable at the moment. So I've been capturing using a PS2 (480i.480p), Wii (480p) and an Xbox 360 (720p, 1080i). I'm now capturing using official Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony component cables (My older videos were captured using cheap third-party MadCatz/Gamestop ones. And they weren't half-bad, so if you're on a budget, pick some up) and standard stereo. The capture settings were 5Mbps (480i source), 6Mbps (480p source), 13.5Mbps (720p, 1080i sources). All Constant bitrate. I'm using the GraphEdit/rcTVCap command-line method of capturing, which uses very little PC processing power (I was getting random jitters and artifacts when I captured using the Arcsoft Capture Module). Personally, I found 720p yielded the best captured footage.

Here are some TS files outputted from the HD-PVR:
http://16bityouth.com/pat/hd-pvr/

As been said by other users, the TS files produced are not easily editable. Whether it be doing simple cuts of commercials or importing them into your favourite video editing software. Apparently, the VideoReDo guys might be adding support for H.264 TS files, but nothing yet. One program that does work in some ways is H.264 TS Cutter (http://www.h264tscutter.de). I've had mostly good results with it and CBR TS files.

For the time being, I'm pretty happy. I'm no HTPC or video expert, so the ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre and MPC are fine for my purposes (Viewing captured content on my PC). As said, the output H.264/MP4 file is highly uneditable and is a mother to convert. I'm by no means a videophile or video expert, so I'm not too sure if this product is suitable for hardcore video editors (Seeing as how it's so restrictive). For myself and my applications, I'm more than satisfied with this product.

And while I would recommend the HD-PVR for capturing HD footage, I would not suggest buying this product if you're looking to take amazing-looking screenshots. Since there is no access to the component-in signal (The blurry preview window doesn't count), any captured images will only look as good as the outputted TS file (Which, of course, has slightly lower quality than the original video input). Plus, at least with my Vista installation, the ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre doesn't even capture images (There's a command in the context menu, which when selected does...nothing).

Random problems that maybe others can help me with:
-With VBR TS files and MPC, if I seek using the progress bar, the video goes from 60fps to 1fps. The video has be re-opened and played back from the beginning to fix the issue.
-The preview window in H.264 TS Cutter doesn't seem to work with VBR TS files. I can still cut, but I have to rely purely on numeric values. If the video is paused once or if I seek within the progress bar, the preview window hangs.
- MP4 encoding using TMPGEnc Xpress has become a hassle, so I moved back to DivX 6.7 AVI files. Basically with VBR MP4 encoding, I was getting random intervals of artifacts regardless of the bitrate. With CBR MP4 encoding, I would get bad stuttering. And with both, 2-pass encoding would takes AGES. Which makes sense, but 20+ minutes for a 1 minute clip seemed a little off. So basically, while I love TMPGEnc, are there any tutorials for proper conversion to MP4 using the HD-PVR TS files? (In other words, not simply an all-in-one video conversion application that takes control of everything)

Thanks for those who've been suggesting ways to fix the above issues. Any other comments or general tips are welcomed!

Read from a couple people saying why Hauppauge didn't have the fan inside the HD PVR turn on when you just had the preview window open without recording since the chip is still working. Maybe this is a new change but with my C2, I definitely hear the fan turn on when the preview window is opened and off when I closed the program.

Really happy with this C2, so far it's perfect with none of the occasional freezing I encountered with the C1. With the C1, you never know when an occasional 1-2 second freeze is going to occur in the preview window and when that happens, the video during the freeze is cut from the recording.

I had to babysit every recording to make sure I had a glitch free recording. Now I think I can leave it unattended without worrying about these glitches. Will need to babysit more recordings to make sure the C2 is 100% reliable.

Will TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress convert the HDPVR's .TS files quickly into .mp4 files without re-encoding?

Dave

No, TMPG reencodes everything unfortunately. Does a great job though, if you need to reencode.

I was able to do this by demuxing with TsMuxerGui and then muxing with Yamb -- as long as the MP4 file wasn't over 4 GB.

What about transcoding from mpeg-4 to mpeg-2 for the purpose of editing with VideoRedo?

(or if not, a similar transcode solution?)

FYI, once it is finally released, a commercial solution might be to use Ulead Videostudio 11.5+ Currently, the software will work with the raw TS files that the HD-PVR produces, but they have no audio. This is because the Ulead software is actually expecting an AVCHD compliant video stream with DD audio, and not AAC audio. In order to edit my videos, I have to use Arcsoft to create a disc folder, just so that the audio is converted and is compatible with the Ulead software. I am actually looking forward to the new driver, as it should save me a step. Videostudio does offer NEARLY frame accurate editing, which means it recodes the video, and depending on your hardware can be very slow. I don't mind as I'm looking for a very clean way to edit out commercials.

You can do that, though I'm not sure why you'd want to.

Wouldn't it make sense for them to update the arcsoft to use 5.1 when they release the new driver?

I don't think some of the people on this forum realize that when you convert/edit a compressed video format that each time you convert or edit you lose some of the picture quality? ( a visible amount of picture quality)

My guess is that most do. With the highest bit rate (13.5 mbps) I can tell no difference when viewing a 1080i HDNet resolution test pattern. So what's you point?

I'm sensing some smugness here. Let me guess, you're one of those lossless advocators who thinks anyone who edits and re-encodes is an idiot? Or as a general rule, believes any re-encoding results in worse than VHS quality (Or some warped logic) without doing his/her own tests. I guess we should not try to edit our videos or do what we want with them and the stuff we buy.

Not quite true. You can edit with absolute 0 quality loss. If you take a digital file and remove a part of that file (editing), the remaining parts are identical to the corresponding parts of the original.

Give that your sample cap was fine for everybody else the problems were with your computer, not the HD PVR. A new hardware rev is unlikely to help.

Folks,

I was one of the early adopters who could not get the HDPVR to work properly. My puter was an old single core, I couldn't get glitch free recordings, I couldn't burn a readable disk....PS3 couldn't see the files...just a mess. I ended up returning the unit.

Have since upgraded to a super uber quad core computer. Decided to give it a second try. Received my unit today.

Popped in a DVHS recording...recorded perfectly without a glitch. Burned files to a DVD+R DL...popped it in my Ps3....perfection. Used the highest bitrate...perfect glitch free playback....and I must admit it did look great.

Gonna experiment with lower bit rates....but it looks like if you have the right machine...this box is great.

I just got the hd pvr today and I am curious to know others experiences when watching 720p vs 1080i video. I tried it in sagetv and recorded with the arcsoft software. 720p just plays so much smoother and looks even sharper than 1080i. I am not sure why but 1080i looks very bad on the hd pvr as opposed to when I used to watch it straight from the cable box to the tv. Anyone else notice this.

My 1080i looks almost identical (I need to adjust some settings on my TV between the two inputs though, just haven't gotten around to doing it).

Do you have hardware acceleration. I am wondering if that could be the issue.

Yup, I get hardware acceleration.

I'm with you. I think the problem is that the Arcsoft is just terrible at deinterlacing, but looks fine with a progressive source. My solution has been to just force my cable boxes to output 720p, and I'm happy enough with it for now. I'm hoping another decoder option comes along that works well with SageTV that will allow us to get better results with 1080i recordings.

I dont think it would be the decoder that is making 1080i sources look like that because I have viewed 1080i recordings with ffdshow, coreavc, cyberlink. All exhibit the same ghosting and blending images. Not smooth at all. We need to be able to choose a new on the fly encoder, that would help.

It's a hardware encoder...how would you suggest doing that?
If it's a hardware issue that causing the ghosting with 1080i content, then the only thing that might help is a firmware upgrade.

Either way, I agree that playback of 1080i content isn't all that it should be, and improvement is needed somewhere.

Well hopefully within the next few months hauppauge and arcsoft will work together to bring better firmware out. Till then I will be recording to 720p.

Has there been ANY word regarding the new driver? I don't need updated Arcsoft software, just a version of the HD-PVR that can save the DD 5.1 content for use with Ulead Videostudio.

Yes a new driver will be out in a few weeks. It is in Beta testing for some time now...............Brian

There's nothing wrong with the HD PVR's 1080i encoding. Any isses you see are in the AVC decoding or your graphics card's handling of the video (method of deinterlacing, scaling, etc).