Hauppauge WinTV DCR-2650 Dual Cable Card Tuner For US Market! - Page 8

I have TWC along with the DCR-2650 and am having the same issues. I replaced my calblecard and the TA once and verified the cables and signals are good. Come to find out the channels I (we) cant receive are SDV channels that require the TA however there seems to be a communication/driver issue preventing this. Hauppauge is aware of this as others are having similar issues with the MTR-700 tuning adaptor and SDV channels. Hopefully they will patch their driver/firmware soon so we can get all the channels.

The channels that work are great other then TWC flagging every single channel and show with the copy once flag...very annoying. Maybe I should go back to my analog capture off the box.

Yep, the cable technicians that came out to my house confirmed all the missing channels are SDV channels. And they said the tuning adapter status/data light is indicating the computer is not communicating with it correctly. So this is definitely a drivers issue on Hauppauge's part. IMO, whether this is a temporary issue or not, Hauppauge should let people know about this incompatibility on their product's page. Thats not right! i would've gotten a different tuner or waited. hope they will come out with a fix soon.

Did you run the digital tuner advisor? The ta will not work until that happens.

It is in media center extras of all places.

I totally agree, I think they felt they had addressed the TA issues with the last update but obviously something is still amiss.


Yes, that was the first thing I did as I believe you cant get WMC to recognize the digital tuner without it. It's just not playing nicely with the TA.

Actually it recognizes the tuner just fine, just not the ta. I keep asking because that is what happened to me. Also, if the tuning adapter is off, you won't get the sdv channels, but you will get the non switched channels.

I reinstalled the Digital Advisor and it had no effect, I also uninstalled it and then reinstalled to see if that would help and unfortunately I am still having the same issue. The TA is on, the status screen reports all is well and is acting like its trying to tune the channel but ultimately I still get the No TV signal error in WMC.

I had been using an HP WMC IR remote receiver but noticed my new 2650 has one built in. My issue though is that Sleep disconnects the 2650 and it won't receive the wake signal from the remote (system LED is red during sleep). Any workarounds? The HP didn't do that.

Ah, it's just as well. Windows seems to lose the tuners after roughly every other sleep/wake. Unplugging/replugging the USB cable fixes it. This sounds like a very common theme among all the cablecard based tuners. Any thoughts?
I'm using most recent drivers and firmware for the 2650.

It otherwise tunes fine. The cablecard swapped straight over from my TivoHD and paired without a phone call. Not bad for $125.

^ yes, along with me not being able to receive SDV channels, i also experience what you described above. Missed a few schedule recordings because of it. Yep i also find Unplugging USB or rebooting Windows will fix it.

I also have another problem. The DCR-2650 will loose TV signal when i start to browse the video folders i have inside the Media Center Video Library menu. It won't loose TV signal immediately, but once you start browsing thru the folders you have inside the video library, the TV signal will cease. This will cause interruptions if you have an active recording. The only way to get TV signal back is to change the channel in Live TV.

The driver/firmware for this device is not too stable. So people considering this tuner should be aware of this.

I agree, it is very unstable compared to normal tuners.

I figured it would be like this though, I planned on mirroring the tw dvr until it was wife ready...

My media center has been going since the beginning of w7 in this manner (with regular tuners). Maybe it will work in w8?

I live in the Buffalo area and just had FIOS installed today with this tuner. I was expecting several glitches during the install, however they wern't any! I went through the cable advisor a few days prior to the install to make sure it was ready to go. When the tech gave me the card, I inserted it, 7mc asked me if I wanted to set it up. A screen came up with all of the card info, etc,etc.. the tech plugged the info into his phone (they use blackberrys now to provision the equipment). After telling 7mc I was on the fios guide, I flipped to different channels and wala, I had tv without their set top box! I'm quite happy with this setup, have yet to encounter any issues. I'm glad I went the FIOS route, as I've been reading issues with TA and SDV channels.

So, I'm confirming that FIOS cable cards seem to work fine with this tuner.

I just purchased my 2650 recently and after a few hiccups, mainly with W7 Media Center, I have it working "almost" flawlessly with my Verizon Fios cable card. But.... as folks mention, I lose the tuners pretty much anytime I cycle power on my HTPC. It's not until I unplug / replug in the usb can I get them to show back up. USB is plugged directly into ASUS P5N32E-SLI mobo, and everything else works great. But this plugging and unplugging the USB to get my tuners back is gonna drive me crazy.

I guess I am having the same problems as others. I've had my 2650 for a couple of weeks. The first time I set it to record a program it worked no problem. Now when ever the computer goes into sleep mode the system light goes red which I guess means the unit has turned off since it won't record any schedule programs. After I wake the computer up it will eventually come back on or I can unplug the power and turn it back on. I have emailed support but no answer after a day. Any suggestions? Thanks

We probably need to go into advanced power and change the way that usb is handled in sleep, specifically usb selective suspend setting. Any thoughts?

I received my 2650 on Saturday and had it up and running in about an hour... I have all of my stereo equipment in a built-in cabinet next to my TV and I was out of outlets and cable jacks so I had to run a splitter and install a second power strip.

After hooking everything up, I went through the Media Center setup guide and I think it failed to recognize the tuner the first time, but eventually it got it. I called Comcast to activate the cablecard and the lady on the other end sounded less-than confident in her ability to do so. She did ask me for all the numbers that were on the screen so I was optimistic that this would work. After I hung up, I finished the set up and immediately got the guide and some HD channels.

Unfortunately, I wasn't getting all of my channels... I was getting ABC, NBC, CBS, etc., but not A&E, MTV, TLC, etc. Also, the picture looks really stretched out on the screen. I wasn't sure if it was a non-HD picture, or if the picture was so stretched that it appeared to be non-HD.

The next day I called Comcast and got transferred to the cablecard department. The guy wanted to confirm that I was using a Tivo and told him I wasn't, I was using a PC. I sat on the phone with him for a while while he went through some menu and answered a bunch of questions. He only asked me two or three questions though, one of which was what operating system I was running. After sitting on the phone in silence for 15 minutes he told me that he was at the end of his "walkthrough" and that he couldn't fix the problem. I made an appointment for a Comcast guy to come out, because that was the only option he gave me. After I hung up, all of my channels magically appeared, so I'm assuming something he did on his end resolved the problem.

The next problem related to the aspect ratio had to do with the settings within WMC. I was attempting to change the aspect ratio on my TV and the computer's settings without any luck. I also went through the set up menu in WMC several times, but nothing seemed to work. Eventually, I noticed that if you right-click while the live TV is playing, there are zoom options and for some reason, some of my channels were at "Zoom 2" instead of "Zoom 1." I changed one of the channels back to Zoom 1 and that seemed to fix all of the other channels as well.

I'm still working out some kinks with regard to the DVR features, but so far (knock on wood), it's worked pretty well. I love the WMC interface. It is so much sleeker than the ugly Comcast menus that look like they're from 1998. Also, the onboard DVR function is wonderful. I never had a DVR from the cable company because it was so expensive every month... gotta love free!

Kevin

You will pay with your time, it is after all a windows box.

^ you make this sound like its Microsoft's fault for all the problems that we are having when in reality everything points to Hauppauge's poorly written drivers. I've been using Media center since 2005, and Win7 MC for over 2 years. The Win7 version is solid as a rock. It never fail on me when using with my previous digital Qam tuners. It is only now with the DCR2650 I'm having all sorts of glitches.

I love posts that add absolutely nothing to the topic... like this one. But wait.. I'm not done....

For what it's worth.. the gui on W7 media center blows away the FIOS crap, even the newest gui that rolled out. And my install went incredible smooth all things considered. And putting a powered usb hub on my 2650 seems to make the tuners disappearance go away.

As for paying with your time as it's a windows box... what are you suggesting we do? Run out and buy a mac? Stick with the STB's our providers charge us out the arse for? Just curious.

The time I've invested is paying off extremely well now. I'm editing the recordings, taking out commercials, streaming them to other PC's in the house, making DVD's, etc.... Guess if you're smart enough you can pull this off and you'll spend just a few hours to get it working.

Happy Holidays!

I would rather spend my time facing the windows box, than bending over for an Apple

Besides, no matter how much you may be willing to pay Apple, they won't do half of what Windows can do.

Although, I am sure an Apple person would gladly pay $3000 for a PC that has "apple" logo on it.

This gives me an idea, I have an old G4 case, I am sure I can fit a modern board in it, and load up Windows 7 in Media Center mode, and sell it to some Applephile for a decent profit.

I've been running a media center for years now and there are all kinds of problems with windows drivers, mc, crashes, volume disappearing, etc.

If you've had good luck, then that's great. There are a lot more variables with a cc tuner and ta. The more devices you add to windows, the more unstable it becomes.

What I meant by paying in time, is that the cable company dvrs are very stable. They are not as useful, but my wife can pick it up and use it nearly all the time.

One of the biggest problems I've had is turning on the mc pc, only to find out that it has blue screened and no recordings have happened for a week.

Wow, I've been running my HTPC for almost three years now and have had no problems aside from a buggy HDMI audio driver from Intel, which was fixed in under a month. My wife has zero problems using the Logitech remote to control everything. In fact, she uses the HTPC for 100% of her TV use (live TV, DVR, Netflix, DVDs/BDs).

If you're getting blue screens, it's generally a driver issue or a hardware failure. If it's a driver, the blue screen will list the file. If it doesn't list anything, it's usually bad RAM.

Also Hauppauge Support $ucks too. I have emailed them 4 times about the issue of the unit turninng off and no help what so ever.

Maybe I'm not catching your wording correctly.. but if your computer is asleep, then the system light will go off on the 2650. That's how it should be. Your computer has to "wake" on its own, which is should if it's scheduled to record something, then it should turn on the 2650 automatically and record. The unit will not record if the PC isn't on. Am I missing something here???? ( I've just owned my 2650 for a week, so I'm still learning )

My issues have been that the tuners have been disappearing when the my PC powers back on. But I recently connected it to a powered hub and it seems to be working... so far.

So you are saying I can't schedule a recording while I'm away because the the computer goes into the sleep mode. I was using a usb tuner stick and it would record my programs while the computer was in the sleep modeand I assumed this unit would do the same.

WMC will wake the computer to record and then go back to sleep when its done. If its not working then its WMC's fault or a setting on your computer. The tuner has nothing to do with when to wake the computer, it has no scheduling ability.

No, he is saying you need to use more cash to buy a powered USB hub after you just paid good money for a brand new DCR2650 so that you won't miss a schedule recording when your computer wake from sleep.

And for the other people that are using a tuning adapter, they will either need to buy another brand of Cable Card tuner (ie ceton 4) or rent a DVR/set top box from your cable company so you can receive and record all the other channels that your newly purchased DCR2650 fails to receive.

haha

no, computer will wake. but Hauppauge's driver will fail to wake the tuner every other time, missing your schedule recordings.

Nice knowledgeable information from a newbie. That's not what this forum is about little boy. Go back to playing Angry Birds on your mommy's Iphone if you can't add something worthwhile to this thread.

Your setup, for whatever reason, is not waking up from sleep mode, or getting hung up somehow with maybe the login screen??? I've set my HTPC to boot directly back into Media Center from sleep following the guidelines laid out here:

http://experts.windows.com/w/experts...ike-a-dvr.aspx

Also, in W7 Control Panel / power settings / change plan settings / advance / usb settings / usb settings selective suspend.. I've disabled that.

So far I've nailed 100% of the recordings coming back from sleep mode.

Chill dude, your post didn't add anything but anger to the thread.