Hauppauge Colossus HD-PVR - Page 7

On DVBLogic people are getting frustrated as they just don't get any reply to both emails and forum posts even if they already paid for it.

Fredx21 is the person that maintains the dvblink for Colossus product. He was posting many times per day when working of the first 2 or 3 versions, answering everybody requests, questions etc. He basically vanished on April 20th. If you look at his history you'll see he posted 2 lines of text total since April 20th. That's the same date the pre-sale event ended. I guess he found out he would not make any money with this?

I don't know the exact story about Dvblink for Hauppage products but they are not supported by DVBLogic itself anymore. The passed that part to the guys at 1geektool.com few weeks ago and as I type these lines 1geek1tool.com is down??

.

I doubt Fred will completely walk away, even after the WMC driver came out for the HD-PVR they were supporting DVBLINK.

Also dvblink for Hauppauge was never made by DVBLogic. The 1 geek 1 tool guys made the layer that interacts with the DVBLink part that is made by DVBLogic.

I let my HTPC update to the latest drivers/showbiz for the Colossus. Now, when I am capturing content off my DVR using Showbiz and I maximize the ShowBiz the audio gets badly out of sync and the video slows slightly. The actual output file (ts) plays fine, and if I take ShowBiz out of being maximized the audio/video get back in sync. Anyone else seen this? Not a huge deal but I like having the screen maximized while capturing since most cases I am capturing my boys cartoons (of which they are usually watching as I capture).

How does this card compare to the Black Magic Intensity pro? Just bought the Black Magic and I'm wondering if I should send it send it back. I'm looking to capture HD video from my FI*S Motorola QIP7232 STB component outputs and some SD video from a VCR.

Windows Media Center does not see the Black Magic card(s) as a tuner, so it won't work. If that's your intention, send it back and get the Colossus.

I'm getting some interference on the component video. Very faint line scrolling up slowly. Driving me nuts.

Not sure which part of my equipment is causing the problem. Both cable PVR and PC the colossus is on are plugged into the same UPS.

Tried a cheap component to HDMI converter but the Colossus couldn't handshake properly with it. Figured it might allow me to further reduce the length of the component cable or maybe eliminate the ground loop by introducing the converter in the middle.

Running out of options. Had interference with the USB HD PVR but not the scrolling line and mostly only on bright scenes. Tried to switch back to it now it won't work anymore.

can't say for sure, but you might want to try swapping the colossus input cable..............the connector can be flaky...........one of mine was just bad and i couldn't record at all......very touch sensitive to plug............the 2nd one worked fine for me, so clearly the small connector into the colossus was bad here

Is Cinavia DRM used on any TV movies, including those shown on HBO or PPV on DirecTV, Fios or cable, and if so, will the Colossus carry it over to a copy preventing the playback?

That is, if you us a Colossus (or and HD-PVR) to make a copy of a movie from your cable or satellite DVR, and then try to play that copy later on a Cinavia enabled player, will it be blocked? My assumption is that since the watermark is buried in the audio track, if you copy the audio track, you copy the code, and the copy will carry the DRM, but wondered if anyone had experienced a problem with this. I don't know whether any cable or sattellite movies actually carry the watermark in the first place.

I haven't seen any instances where Cinavia was implemented on tv programming, only certain BluRay/DVD discs and movies playing in the theater. If for whatever reason Cinavia was implemented in tv programming then playing back on a Cinavia equipped player should trigger it in theory (right now I believe Cinavia is only required for Commerical BR players)

The reason I ask is because, according to Wikipedia's list, there are actually more "digital releases" on which Cinavia has been implemented than there are disks. And if they are putting it on digitial releases in addition to disks, there's really not much holding them back from putting it on the versions they provide to HBO, Starz, and DirecTV either I suppose.

I'm planning on getting a Colossus. Just wondered if this was going to be one more thing to make my life difficult.

Thanks for the reply.

As of now unless you are trying to play back with a commercial br player that has Cinavia enabled then you won't run into an issue, even if Cinavia is embedded in a TV show. Of course down the road if it is decided that Cinavia be implemented on a large variety of devices then we will probably have to rethink things!

I would think that Cable TV would get trickier. For example, lets say they decide to implement Cinavia in a new release appearing on HBO. A few years down the road this release makes its way to broadcast tv, or other channels that are copy freely. In this case then technically even though the channel is copy freely the content may not be.

Will be interesting to follow how this progresses.

Got this information back by email from Hauppauge in response to my email to them regarding the Colossus, in case anyone was having as much trouble as I was actually finding this information on their website:

The colossus is 6.5" long and consumes the following based on input:

HDMI 4.72 watts
Component 5.2 watts
S-vid/composite 4.1 watts

Sometimes responses were in fact few and far between to the postings. I posted there and wound up answering a lot of my own posts. But their product is a good one that I have had few issues with. I don't know much about the new Hauppauge WMC driver, as I am still using the DVB product. It just works wonderfully with my set up, and affords a way to change channels without having to use the blaster supplied by Hauppauge, becuase it works with other channel changing software. I would be happy to pay the full price for it, although I did take advantage of the introductory discount.

I wrote to Hauppage asking how to change the birate when using their MCE drivers

This is what I got, still have to try it:

We can't change the bit rate settings but we can change them in the Arcsoft Capture module and the change will carry over to Media Center as well. As shown below, in the Arcsoft capture module click on the Format Settings button. This will open up the Settings windows and you can increase the bit rate. Again, after you change the bit rate, the change should also carry over to Media Center as well.

You can achieve the same using Graphedit/Graphstudio (if you don't want to install the Arcsoft software). Simply add the Colossus encoder filter (don't know the exact name right now) and open its properties. This also allows adjusting settings for different resolutions (if you e.g. capture SD in 480i and HD in 1080i), as it always displays the values for the last capture (if you watched HD, then it shows HD settings, and vice versa for SD).
And yes, afaik it stays and Media Center uses these values.

Well, I'm actually trying to solve the problem that Arcsoft showbizz update just doesn't work. Where do I get graphedit/graphstudio?? thanks!

Ok found Graphstudio here:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tools...y=Name&hits=50

Now figuring the filter part.

Man, This is crazy, If I look at this screenshot that I found:

I can see that when he opens the TS Encoder 0 Properties he has Bit Rate settings

On mine that you can see here:


you can see I just have a few stupid options I don't even care about???

They may have changed the property page for the filter in the latest driver. I've been meaning to write a tool that exposes the setting, just haven't gotten around to it.

Well, I managed to get the property page but I had to install the Arcsoft ShowBizz coming with the card and update it. Trying to save me from installing it didn't work...

I'm now trying to figure out what settings I should use for both my SAT box and the Colossus.

With my Sat box, which is the canadian version of the Vip 211k from Dish Network, I can choose betwen 720p and 1080i. I guess 1080i is better but I wonder if there's that much programming actually broadcasted in 1080i? If 99% of the programming is in 720p anyway, wouldn't it be better to let the Colossus ( or HDPVR ) record it this way instead of asking to the Sat box to convert it from 720p to 1080i ??

And for the Colossus, I've set 11 avg and 16 peak, is it enough? What values you guys are using for TV recordings?

Thanks!

Actually the majority of HD programming is 1080i (exceptions are ABC, ESPN, FOX, ...). Your provider is rather converting to 720p to save some bandwidth.

Recording native format with the Colossus (or HD PVR) has caused problems for some people. Try it out and use it, if you don't run into problems. Otherwise it makes sense to lock the box to 720p.

As for the bit rates, that's a bit of a trial and error. Play around with that and see if you see differences (though the values you mentioned look reasonable). You may even lower the values a bit (I think the default is 8/13.5).
In the end it's also about disk space, which has become cheap.

Thanks. Will try to find some infos about how my provider, Bell Expressvu, handles HD.

Since I installed Hauppage MCE drivers last Saturday I only got 1 "video error" for which I simply had to close / re-open Media Center to fix. That's much better than DVBLink for me. Overall I'm very satisfied with my Colossus / MCE HTPC. I was watching America's got talent on my new 55" Viera VT30 last everning and boy that was sharp for a TV source!

Yeah Bell Canada only sends out 720p now. All 1080i signals that broadcasters send to them are converted.

Set your STB to 720p output. Having the box convert to 1080i isn't just pointless, it actually looks worse because the conversion leads to weird artifacts.

Guys,

Does anyone know if the Remote Control included with the Hauppage Colossus card is able to control Windows Media Center on Windows 7? I'm ordering this card for my HTPC to use it's DVR functions; and if I can use the included remote for basic WMC functions - I won't need to get a 2nd remote control just to control the WMC.

Thanks!!

Thanks you saved me some research

Yesterday I made a bit of testing to make sure 720p would look better and it did. It's a bit more sharp.

Since I have a 1080p TV I have to upscale. Have the choice to upscale with HTPC, Denon Receiver or TV. Since I have a Panasonic VT30 and reviews say it does a terrific job at it I decided to go for it. My HTPC is now set at 720p and will use AutoFrequency to automatically switch to 1080p when playing a BD or MKV and to 480p when playing a DVD. This way it will be optimal at all time.

I noticed something however, I have set my 720p recordings at a bitrate of 11 with max of 15. Even if I crank this up higher than this ( which is useless from what I could see ) I'm never able to achieve a recording as sharp as the original. If I connect my CableBox directly to the TV the image is more sharp than when it comes via the HTPC. That's just the way it is I guess? Are you guys able to see a difference between your recordings and if you were watching the source directly?
Thanks!

Update on this

I installed the 11.5 desktop drivers from AMD then deleted the Hauppauge drivers & software and reinstalled with the newest version from the website.

WinTV now works perfectly for capture.. only 30% CPU usage. Huge improvement. Going to try MCE for recording when I get a chance

Anyone tried to make an AVCHD with the Arcsoft software yet? I made a 4GB .ts capture, but when I try to make an AVCHD, Arcsoft is reporting the file size as over 10GB. I'm sure it has something to do with the framerate, but I can't find a fix. My Dish box is locked at 720p output and I'm capping over HDMI. For the moment, I'm just using tsMuxer to create AVCHD's, but I'd like to use Arcsoft, since it lets you add images and effects.

Hi, Sorry I don't have the answer to your question but I was curious to know, since you are using HDMI, if you had tested both HDMI and Composite and if you noticed a difference?

Right now I'm using Composite and I'm wondering if there would be a gain in quality switching to hdmi.