Hauppauge Colossus HD-PVR - Page 4

Has anyone used this with a Motorola DCX-700M ??
I'm looking to capture some of the channels that are not Clear QAM.

Composite Questions
I want to capture some older Laserdisc movies with Digital sound.
Will the Colossus capture Composite(analog picture) with Spdif(digital sound) ??
Does the Colossus do hardware based Comb-filtering ?
How good is the picture quality?

DC:cool

It will work with anything that does analog output.


There will be a slight reduction in PQ in any digital->analog->digital process. For the most part it is not noticeable though.

I have to ask why you want to do that though, it would be easier and probably cheaper in terms of time/effort to pick up a used DVD.

would you be able to record TV/movies using the component video cables, that you would not normally be able to record becasue of HDCP, if you were to record the same shows/movies via HDMI cables?

Depending on the type of content yes in the short term. Longer term probably not.

I’m Just a little confused from the Hauppauge website
It stats that Colossus has an HDMI input port, so you can record HD video at up to 1080i from a un-encrypted HDMI source.
Note: most cable and satellite TV set top boxes encrypt HDMI output, so you cannot record from these sources.

But then goes to say that Colossus is a High Definition video recorder for making real-time H.264 compressed recordings at resolutions up to 1080i. HD PVR records component video (YCrCb) from video game consoles and cable TV and satellite set top boxes…

So from that I got, If you use HDMI you cannot record encrypted HDMI content. But using the component video you are able to record any content as there is no mention of any encrypted sources using this method.

What would prevent/restrict recording using component video like HDCP does to HDMI?

There are efforts to close the analog hole (what the HD PVR exploits to record content) for some kinds of content. Right now it's limited to PPV, but may trickle down to other types of content as well.

I have the Colossus and I can record from my sony dhg-hdd250 recorder from HDMI without any problems except if the unit is set for DD SOUND OUT it does not work, I get the pic but no sound, the new drivers are suppose to work for DD out through HDMI but all I get is static.but its ok if set to analog out.

During capture the ATI driver is crashing and resetting, when using ArcSoft its happening within a few minutes of starting the recording, with WinTV the first recording in any session seems to work but the second causes the driver to crash.

With the 3/15 Colossus driver and the latest ATI drivers the ATI crash also kills the application. Previous ATI drivers crashed and recovered without affecting the application or recording.

Anyone else seeing this?

RE: DVD
There are quite a few movies still only on laserdisc that have never made it to DVD.

The picture on Laserdisc is Analog Composite,
Sound Usually is PCM 2 channel Digital (same as CD).

LaserDisc
Analog(Disc)-> Digital (processing in player,TBC/DNR)-> Analog(output).
The best players came in the mid to late 1990s, Unfortunately the CombFilter technology wasn't that good (best to use the Composite out).

DC

I just purchased the Colossus and was wondering if I could get a little help setting this up. I have it connectd from my DTV Sat box using the Component Video connection (Red, Blue, Green) and the audio connected by optical.

My first question is how to adjust video capture settings. When I click on the capture tab it just says Best, Better, Good, Fair. So what are the settings for Best?

And second how do I capture in 5.1? I have sound but when I capture it is only capturing Stereo?

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

I have the same issue with regard to the bitrate. With the HD-PVR, I adjusted it with TME. Colossus is shipped with Showbiz, also from Arcsoft, and which appears to have a similar, if not identical, interface.

If you press the format button, you are offered the opportunity to change from the default bitrate to a higher or lower value, and to switch from the variable to constant bitrate, the latter producing a larger file.

I was able to make changes to a lower bitrate than the default, whether using a constant or variable setting. But I cannot get it to go higher than the default of 8mbs.

I have installed the latest drivers from Hauppauge. Most folks do not seem to be having this problem, and I suspect it is a driver issue. I could also have a situation where the higher values actually are being saved, but just not reflected in the retained values shown on the capture page for Showbiz.

I have not had a chance to analyze the size of the captured files, or closely check for improved picture quality.

For 5.1 sound, I sent the sound output from my HR24-500 to the HD-PVR via optical cable. I only have the RCA cables attached to Colossus, and I think I am only recording stereo at this time. I will have to work on 5.1 after I get the glich in the bitrate setting figured out.

I also have a Colossus card and encounter the same issue. Showbiz will not save any settings above 8Mbps. Using the latest drivers as well.

Moreover, the WinTV program does not seem to work with the TitanTV website. I am unable to schedule any recordings from the browser - the wintvtvpi.txt log indicates that it is unable to match the channel over component inputs.

I guess like earlier Hauppage products, the first group of early users are their beta testers.

I am glad to know I am not the only one!

I updated to the latest drivers and now it is letting me cap 5.1. Still no adjustment in the capture settings other than best, better, or good. It would be nice to know exactly what those settings are.

I have seen them posted somewhere before. I think it was on the UK Hauppauge users board. My re-collection is that the best setting is around 13 mbs, better than the bitrate indicated on Showbiz.

I had the Colossus set up and performing flawlessly in Media Center using using the dvblink software and ethernet channel changing.

But then I decided to try and get WinTV7 working also. Bad move. I noticed that the disc that came with the Colossus did not appear to install the Extend feature, but when I downloaded and installed cd2.3d, WinTV appeared to be broken, so I downgraded back to the version that came with the card, and had it working -- mostly. But then I got a "no tuner found" notice in wmc. Fixed after much trouble this weekend, but I have not tried to reinstall WinTV7 until I hear from others.

Has anyone gotten them both to work together, and do any of you have extend working with the colossus? Is extend supposed to work with Colossus?

And is there a way to change channels in WinTV 7 without using the supplied blaster hardware? I do not like having the transmitter taped to my directv dvr.

Did that several times, and still ran into trouble. Question: Are the latest "base" drivers on the Colossus support page the only drivers that are needed for WinTV v.7, so that, after having installed the prior version of WinTV7, one can just install that over the old version and expect it to work? Or does WinTV install addional drivers over and above the "base" drivers in the .zip download on the website?


Did that several times also, removing the old drivers, rebooting, whether instructed to or not, and then re-installing off the 2.3d cd. Ths usaual result was a totally non- functional WinTV, with no tuner avialable, but with the colossus shown in the confiuration tab for TV channels as "available" What finally seemed to work was using hcwclear.exe to remove all drivers and WinTV applications, and installing the latest base drivers and not trying to re-install WinTV.


Understood, but not liked!! I had a nice clean front to my HR24, and now it's got the IR transmitter scotch taped over the IR receiver. Glue on the back did not work with HD- PVR, and it does not work with Colossus either.

But the question that I need answered is does Extend work on WinTV 7 for the colossus? I would like to stream video and set recordings remotely. I am not exlusively a windows media center kind of user.

Finally, a process seems to be grabbing colossus at boot up, and preventing Showbiz from capturing the stream. This had been noticed before, but it was certainly noticable over the weekend when I was wrestling with the above- mentioned problems. The problem could have been a wrong driver, I will admit, but sometimes, when I saw the colossus capture process running, I could end it, and that would free up WinTV and Showbiz to run the streams.

I do not have media center to automoatically start at boot up, so I find it difficult to see how it could have been the culprit.

I need for Showbiz to work properly becuase I have to have a practical method to get shows off my Directv HR 24. If I cannot find a reliable way to do that, I would be better off with the HD-PVR, and might wind up doing the unthinkable: returning colossus and keeping HD-PVR, which as been quite reliable for me, contrary to the experience of some. But I did not buy mine until August of 2010, after all the bugs had been worked out.

Colossus has plenty of bugs to work out. Its video quality is only as good as the HD-PVR, and certainly not better. And with TME 2, HD-PVR is more functiional than Colossus at the present time. For one thing, the promised higer bitrate of the colossus is not yet available as far as I can discern from Showbiz, as it seems to be limited in that program to 8mbs. WinTV, I understand, can go higher, but I cannot get it to work.

Woe is me!!

I have a few questions so I can put together my final parts list.

I assume it works with Windows 7 Media Center, why then would you use the included WTV software?

Component Capture with Toslink or is it Optical only?

HDMI Capture (for D*TV) does not work, with WMC only WTV?

Are you using the included drivers or dvblink drivers?

Thanks

Aren't they the same thing?

I am not sure I understand your answer. Cd2.3d does not seem to have extend. Nor did the version that came with colossus. You must have to order the CD to get extend.


As I have posted before, the bitrate changes do not stick in Showbiz on my copy. Does yours work? Other posters have confirmed the same problem. You can lower the bitrate below the default 8mbs, but if you try to set it higher than that value, Showbiz returns to the default setting on Showbiz. Now, it could be that the higher values are actually getting recorded, and the changed setting is just not showing up in Showbiz. I have not examined that issue.

Someone just posted a link to the values I was talking about when I replied to your post. These values are the bitrate settings for WinTV 7 "Good, Better, Best" Reminds me of the old Sears marketing scheme from the 60's and 70's:
http://www.shspvr.com/smf/index.php?topic=12348.0

For anyone interested, my review of the Colossus went up today.

Great! I know DVBLink drivers will work with it but I hope native support is better than with the HD-PVR.

No, Toslink is a Fiber Optic cable and Optical is basically an RCA jack. Some devices have both, some only have one.

Great technical review, considering you write DVRMSBox, it shouldn't be shocking -

Are you sure you don't mean coax?


babgvant, those video samples you mention would be nice, or at least screenshots. The bitrates don't seem that useful to me without seeing what they get you.

All three or a particular res?

Looks like a standard RCA type connection where I have them, shall I take a picture?