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Hauppauge HVR-1600 - No analog channels

post #1 of 6
2/3/13 at 12:37pm
Thread Starter 
Finally got around to upgrading my machine, and I'm having no luck with my HVR-1600 card. Here's the specs:

AMD/ASUS Motherboard
Windows 8
HVR-1600
WinTV v7 2.6d
Time Warner Cable (I have verified the signal on both coax lines going into the card with a portable CRT TV)

After setting the WinTV software up, it finds no Analog cable channels, though it does find quite a few Clear QAM channels. Several of those channels play perfectly in HD, and the ones that have some "blocky" issues might just be TW's fault.

If I program an analog channel manually and tune to it, I actually get good sound but the video is unwatchable. Its just a little bit off, like it needs to be fine-tuned. On Channel 12 (public access) you can actually see a picture but it is skewed at the top and the color is off. But that one channel is closes to being right.

How do I fix this? I'd have to assume that the board is supposed to fine-tune the channels on its own. I'm hoping it isn't shot; don't want to buy another board right now.

Appreciate any help.
Blue
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post #2 of 6
2/3/13 at 2:50pm
How old is the 1600?

I personally had 4 of these from just before they supported clear qam (in fact one was old enough not to, though all bought at around the same time) that each eventually lost the ability to tune analog I could notice more and more snow in recordings during their demise. I also have a few more newer ones that still work completely (one in a system of mine, as well as systems I've built for others) and really do like them. Digital still works on all (though OTA only on one I mentioned) and 3 of the 4 bad ones still allow analog svid or rca input so I dug out some old vcrs and use them for tuning. Now that I have my cablecard tuners, I rarely use the analog tuners but there are some shows I like to since I don't like copy once showing up on them but usually I buy (or receive as gifts) those series on dvd anyways.

I've been thinking of recapping them like I do for old monitors and motherboards (but its been awhile since I looked at them as they are inside machines but I recall at least some (if not most) being "solid state" polymer rather than electrolytic but no obvious signs of bad ones so I'm not sure it would do any good. I'm also not sure what is "in" the encased tuner but may decide to try and open one up (perhaps start on an older 150 that I have lying around just to see if there are caps inside which is something I can easily fix) as it seems like the problem may be there since "svid" still works.

I can't verify windows 8 compatibility at this time. I remember a similar problem showed up for someone who had more than 4GB of ram as the original drivers had problems... at the time I had to go to a foreign site to get the proper 64 bit drivers as the US site didn't have them but I'm sure that is rectified now but may be a problem if you used the cd (the version you stated though should be more than adequate for that as I think it was 6 or prior that had the problem.
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post #3 of 6
2/3/13 at 9:06pm
Thread Starter 
The board is at least 5 years old. Over the last year or so the analog tuning has gotten worse but it was still watchable. I thought that the cable line going to it was bad; never really looked into it. Now that I have it running in my new system its obviously much worse, but if there are components that are reaching end of life that would make sense.

I'd be very willing to open it up and replace some caps, resistors, whatever if I had some assurance that it might fix it. I've repaired quite a few WG arcade monitors in the past, so this sort of thing is definitely in my wheelhouse smile.gif. Please let me know if you decide to open your board up, or if you find something online that shows someone that's had success with it. My only reservation at this point is that the clear QAM does work quite well, and I don't want to risk wrecking the whole board till I get the info.

Thank you for the response -- good info.
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post #4 of 6
2/4/13 at 9:56am
Not to dispute the previous poster but my 1600 is still chugging along on my Win 7 system using WMC and MediaPortal. In fact, it's a strong performer given its on-board encoder! Seeing as you're using Hauppauge's WinTV software could it be conflicting with your Win 8 ? Or are you using no WMC functionality at all?

Consider loading MediaPortal 1.2.3 and see how it does there... it's FREE
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post #5 of 6
2/4/13 at 3:27pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Hornfeck View Post

Not to dispute the previous poster but my 1600 is still chugging along on my Win 7 system using WMC and MediaPortal. In fact, it's a strong performer given its on-board encoder! Seeing as you're using Hauppauge's WinTV software could it be conflicting with your Win 8 ? Or are you using no WMC functionality at all?

Consider loading MediaPortal 1.2.3 and see how it does there... it's FREE
It's certainly possible that it's a Windows 8 issue; hard to say. My previous build was on Win 7, and while the analog tuning wasn't great it was still better than it is now.

I tried to isolate the problem by using PotPlayer to watch TV. That opens the tuner at the device level, and it has the exact same problem. I'm open to trying MediaPortal, but I'm not confident that it would help since PotPlayer doesn't work either.

I found a WinTV-HVR-1250 for $55 online. I'm wondering if I should just buy that. My #1 need is to be able to watch hockey games on my PC (and through the WinTV Extender), so that card would probably be fine for that.
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post #6 of 6
2/5/13 at 3:37pm
Thread Starter 
I couldn't get MediaPortal to work on this machine, so I went back to the old Win7 machine. Installed the card there, installed MediaPortal, and same bad reception problem. I guess something has gone bad with the card.

Everybody talks about Hauppauge's great service; I've sent them 2 requests and have heard nothing back. The first one was over a week ago. mad.gif
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