MyHD MDP-130 - Page 410

Black Friday I made my first ever BF purchase, online from Tigerdirect an Intel 330 180GB SSD, my first SSD. I figured to put it in my HTPC. It was slow in coming and finally it arrived a couple days ago, but I haven't installed it yet. Of course, I intend to have it as my boot and applications drive and will likely divide it into two equal partitions and multiboot. I'm having second thoughts, wondering if I shouldn't replace the motherboard/CPU and even the OS (running WinXP now). Here's my HTPC currently:


Gigabyte GA-K8n Pro motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (socket 754, FSB1600, E6, Venice, 90nm, L2-512KB). I believe this is actually about a 2.0 GHz CPU.
BFG Tech GeForce 6600GT OC 128MB DDR3 AGP Dual DVI Video Card w/TV-Out
2 sticks Crucial 1GB PC3200 400MHz 184-pin DDR Memory - CT12864Z40B, 2 GB total
Corsair vx550w PSU
USR Model 2977 PCI hardware modem
Hercules GTXP soundcard PCI with breakout box
MyHD HDTV 130 HDTV PCI
MyHD HDTV 130 HDTV daughterboard
3 IDE HDs: Seagate Barracuda: 120 (boot), 160, 200 GB
Samsung H501LJ internal 500 GB SATA running on Silicon Image siI3512 SATA chip in BASE mode
NEC ND-2510a IDE DVD/RW burner/player (I've gotten some coasters lately, am wondering if the burner is going bad)

Terry has said that he thinks the Silicon Image SATA controller is responsible for the occasional lockups I was getting and I'm inclined to agree now. I used it recently and got another lockup, so went back to my external USB 2.0 WD green 2TB HD for the MyHD buffer.

I'm wondering:

1. Using that lousy controller for my boot/applications drives seems like maybe not a good idea.

2. I still get annoying lip synch issues, and can only think that the motherboard is somehow responsible. Well, the sound card could be the culprit I suppose. My workaround is to hit the pause button repeatedly until sound/video synch up again, sometimes requiring 1/2 dozen or more presses.

3. XP as an OS is getting long in the tooth and Microsoft support is scheduled to terminate in April 2014. Plus, XP doesn't have built in support for SSD's, and that coupled with the primitive nature of the Silicon Image SATA controller would, I suppose, mean that I would have substandard performance and reduced life span from the SSD, and I have to wonder if there would be other potential problems.

So, what is a sensible upgrade path for me? I could plop in the SSD and see how things go. Could get another MB/CPU/OS, even another HDTV card. I'd appreciate some comments!
Edited by Muse - 12/9/12 at 8:41am

Hi,

 

 

Drivers must be signed after passing testing. Starting with W7.

 

AFAIK the MyHD driver does not meet either requirement and there is no one to try.

 

I remember seeing a method where an untested and unsigned driver could be installed and used on W7 64 Bit. But that may have been a beta version only method.

 

These words are for a different audience and perhaps so not clear to readers here:

 

 

http://www.tandycoco.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=152#p152

 

The bottom line is that Windows is driven by their customers that are running thousands of machines in one building and at several different sites. There are a huge number of companies doing the same. Security is their main requirement.

　

 

Years ago I remember reading about a site that every error message that appeared had to be logged, investigated and fixed. Every one! They had three systems and required two to be working perfectly at all times. Remember, I worked on Super Computers. Every bug seen by a customer we received a report and had to understand and fix.

　

 

Once years ago I came out of a steak house on S De Anza Blvd in San Jose and turned my Radio Scanner on, it being high fire season.

 

The person in charge of a system came up on an unauthorized frequency saying "OK we have had a failure, switching to backup system".

 

"..."

 

"OK, no data lost! Great work team"

 

To me pressing the reset button to fix something is nothing, on most systems it is a gigantic event.

 

Trying to get around security like adding an untested and unsigned driver will be impossible with W8 IMHO.

 

SHF

　

　

　

　

Dealing with the increasingly strangling security "features" of Windows 7 (I'm using 64 bit Ultimate on this laptop), is one reason they are dragging me kicking and screaming from XP Pro. Every time I open my email program on this machine it screams at me (yes, a loud warning blaring electronic chord of some kind) and displays a message asking me if I really want to chance letting this program make changes to the machine. Well, I'm told that after MS stops support for XP in 2014 it won't be viable. I know that there are an awful lot of XP machines out there in the world. I suppose it's a done deal, that MS would never reverse their decision to stop supporting it.
- -
Terry (or anyone) is it possible that I'd get good SATA support on my lowly
Gigabyte GA-K8n Pro motherboard with crappy Silicon Image siI3512 SATA controller by dropping in a PCI SATA card? Or is it a lost cause? Or something else?
Edited by Muse - 12/9/12 at 8:42am

That board looks really old... still has floppy controller, has AGP and no PCI-e for graphics, and limited to first generation DDR. I'm guessing that its controller H/W is of SATA1 (150MB/s) vintage. Does the BIOS let you choose "AHCI mode" for your SATA configuration, or is your SATA controller limited only to IDE/RAID?

If there's no AHCI support, I personally would not mount a SSD on it. The only way I myself would be assured that your board's SATA H/W would work with SSD is if the manufacturer has released a BIOS update that specifically says that it does.

Otherwise, if you can find a PCI SATA card that at least supports SATA2 (300MB/s) and AHCI, then it could be worthwhile trying to attach a SSD to that system. IMHO
Edited by Vlad Theimpaler - 12/9/12 at 12:08pm

I checked this morning. The SATA support in the BIOS is "BASE" or "RAID" that's it. I have it set to BASE right now with the lone 500GB SATA internal HD drive on it. It seems to work OK for basic data storage and I used to write real-time encoded MP3 files to it, but it's really not good for MyHD rips. Playback causes occasional lockups, and of course, those entail a reboot of the machine accompanied by a need to find where I was in playback. Terry asserted that this was probably caused by the Silicon Image SATA controller, and I've decided that he was correct.

I saw nothing that mentioned AHCI in the BIOS. I was looking specifically for that. Then again, I did not see it in my Lenovo T61's BIOS, however I believe that people say you have to run the Middleton BIOS in a T61 to get SSD support. I don't know that I'm going to mount an SSD in that machine soon, but I'm vacillating on which machines to use for the two SSD's that I bought and received last week: an Intel 520 series 120GB and an Intel 330 series 180GB. The choices are my HTPC I just described in this thread this morning and either of two Lenovo laptops, a T60 and a T61.

I really doubt that Gigabyte has released a BIOS that would support AHCI. In fact, I have the most recent BIOS installed on that machine, it was stated at their website that this BIOS (version 14) was necessary to support my specific CPU version. There is another SATA connector but I don't know that it would be worthwhile to even try installing an SSD on it. I was trying to figure out if I could even boot from it. I imagine that theoretically I could.

Hi,

 

Sounds like something is wrong, MS reduced the number of UAC popups on W7 from Vista. I am willing to help you to fix this using PM. You must have installed it wrong.

 

I am getting an UAC alert for IE to access the clipboard. My Vista laptop finally failed and I now an using my W7 64 bit one. I just fixed that.

 

I heard that MS was going to release a public KEY for XP making all copies authorized, even stolen ones. (To reduce requests to their KEY server.)

 

Ending support does not mean that it will stop working, just that security fixes will not be made. And they may continue if the number of users using XP Mode VPC request continuing.

 

If you practice "Safe Computing" it will not be a problem. My HTPC is back to running with no Virus software. All downloads are made to my laptop where the Virus software looks at all files first before loading on my HTPC (Does not happen very often, the HTPC software is very limited.)

 

SHF

I think that it's a lost cause, Muse. I think that your options are to stick with XP, MyHD, and PATA HDD or dump the lot and jump to a new HTPC platform, such as the cute little Zotac Nanoboxes plus HDHomerun tuners (using CW_EPG to schedule captures) and a software player such as VLC or W7's built-in Media Center. Your old mobo is almost certainly not going to wring most of the performace available from that SSD.

Thank you. My first thought is that I am used to the MyHD time shift functionality, allowing me to step into any recording at any time, FF or REW by any amount I configure. This works for me except for some annoyances that can be worked around, specifically lip-synch and the occasional system lock up. Also, of course, I need to be able to control it all (at least during playback) from a chair away from my keyboard, i.e. with my universal remote. Do VLC and Media Center offer these advantages?

I could, of course, stick with my current system, although I don't know that I can find a solution to the lip-synch issues with the current main board. I could get another main board, I've seen one or two recommended here, they are probably not available new now but I could maybe find one used.

I can put my 2 SSDs in a couple of my laptops, alas. The performance won't be state of the art but I'm told I will get a pop.

The program I'm getting the messages for is Forte Agent 1.93x, my long time email client. I run a separate installation of it on each of my networked machines. One advantage of that is if one of the installations gets corrupt I can drop one of the other functioning installations on that machine instead -- One of the neat things about that program is that it is completely self contained. IOW, you can copy its install directories (along with subdirectories) and drop them anywhere and the program will function properly. You can even run it off a USB stick, if desired. However, as you suggest, doing this and bypassing proper installation may be what's causing the messages. I will try running the installation program and see if the messages go away thereafter. I can restore the data afterwards. If that doesn't work, I'll send you that PM. Thanks!

While the software is defective  , the tuner the greatest , Fusion is one of the three programs I use for playback.

 

The Fusion remote I got with my Fusion 5 is clearly setup to control Media Center but I have never used Media Center with it. The remote that came with the Fusion7 Dual looks like it also can control Media Center as well as the remote for Fusion7 USB.

 

Bottom line for fusion, it cannot be used IMHO for CW_EPG captures, nothing to do with CW_EPG but instead the problem is with it's defective software.

 

For playback, it works most of the time offering fast forward and reverse. (For me, any reverse is likely to crash the program, but I am the only persion in the universe with that problem.)

 

It can be programmed to control VLC but I have not done that. I remember a report that someone has.

 

VLC I control with my wireless trackball as well as almost everything else on my HTPC including the on screen keyboard.

 

The third playback program is MyHD.

 

My RCA RCU810 remote which is programmed using JP1 allows programming down to the machine code level. It controls MyHD, Fusion, The HDTV, Stereo, VCR (Disconnected) and X10 home lights (Broken and X10 has NO replacement) The FM  HD controller needs to be added.

 

So, with the trackball in my right hand and the remote in my left, my HTPC is working great (Except when Fusion crashes, with Fusion7 Dual, if timeshifting is turned on, fusion must be uninstalled in safe mode and then reinstalled.)

 

Actually the registry just needs to be edited in SAFE mode.

 

My HTPC's desktop is displayed on my HDTV's DVI input (for Fusion ) and it's VGA input  for MyHD. I can do PIP, PBP and POP controlling the sound on Fusion and MyHD.

 

Are those XInfinity and AT&T ads getting to you?

 

SHF

Edited by SFischer1 - 12/10/12 at 4:23pm

Yes, as Nani sort of explained along with that other stuff.

If you want HW playback, the cool thing these days is a streamer. I use a TViX N1 or M6620 for playing recordings from my HTPC. The TViX parent company appears to have gone away, but I think one can still get their boxes (albeit maybe without any support). There are other (cheaper) options, but I've not read very good reviews of most of them.

I usually don't watch ads. I do sometimes with my hand on the remote. I timeshift 97+% of the time with MyHD and have my FF and REW set to 10 seconds and have "Numeric keys enable FF multiples" (misquote, but that's the gist) ENABLED. This lets me FF 1x, 2x, 8x by pressing the appropriate button. If I need to REW I hit the REW button numerous times quickly. I don't get a lot of lockups these days since going to my external USB-connected 2TB HD for the MyHD Buffer. I have a batch file accessible on my desktop that empties the MyHD Buffer. It's pretty peachy except for the lip synch issue and now-only-once-in-a-while lockup (not enough that it matters a whole lot now).

My reception with the MyHD 130 is adequate for my recent viewing, which is just the networks (Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC) for the most part, so the superior Fusion tuners may not matter for me, unless I change my viewing habits, which could happen, of course (don't know what I'm missing, right?). I have been using TitanTV to set up my timeshifts, mostly. TitanTV is a little kludgy getting to the correct day/time in my experience, but it's usable. Have never used Cliff Watson's scheduling utility, should maybe have a look at it, but I'm not much into regular watching of anything (at times I have been into it, however, and could again, of course).

Your post, I read it once, will have to digest it! Your nickname is Nani?
What is HW playback?

HW (hardware) playback is what MyHD has that the other PC-based players we've mentioned don't. Although most of them use the GPU's hw acceleration and that's nowadays pretty good. But the streamers are every bit as good as MyHD at playing TS files. E.g., I haven't tried the Roku myself, but it would be a fairly cheap experiment and I'm sure that there's a thread dedicated to it on this forum to get a reading before blowing 50 bucks.

Yeah, I guess that HW acceleration is why I've never noticed that when MyHD is making a recording I don't notice a problem with other activity on my HTPC, and as you can see that PC is not especially powerful. It's really one reason to like the MyHD cards!

I ran into a lot of posts about Roku and a plethora of other streaming video options a few months ago when I shopped for blu-ray players. I bought a couple (one to play European disks). They both support streaming. I haven't experimented with that yet, so far have just played DVDs and a few blu-ray disks.

Actually HW playback has nothing to do with DTV recording. But MyHD's HW playback can explain why a low-powered PC can play a DTV recording while making several new recordings without problem.

I spent almost two hours yesterday trying to get my email client to launch in Win7 64 bit without my confirmation to let it make changes to my computer. A clean install of the installation executable did that, and it also put it in the Add/Remove Programs screen. I then, after some trial and error managed to migrate my former data over, all seemed peachy until I tried to launch a URL from an email message. "The DDE Server cannot be found" or something like that. The reason seems to be that I use a utility provided me by a user of my email client, I got turned onto it in the usenet group devoted to Forte Agent email/newsgroup software. The utility launches URL's cleanly in an open browser window. I think I was having problems with URL's launching in new windows only, and I didn't like that. Well, I have determined (again, I'd forgotten) that the launching works well enough if and only if I run the email program in Windows XP SP3 Compatibility Mode. However, doing that makes the messages happen when I launch on my Windows 7 machine. It's not a big deal because there's no real need to close the program most of the time. I leave it open when I put the computers into suspend. For the time being, I'll just accept these conditions.

a_nani_mouse, that's really cute!

Nani, that link you gave I've been reading for the last 1/2 hour and I think it may have the info I need to get over my lip synch issue:
- - - -
post #23 of 36 says:

I agree with Joe. With the speed of todays processors there are a lot of options out there that can take the place of the MyHD dual core issues (DVD playback, streaming, etc...) But like Joe, I use MyHD to watch all of my recorded .TS files. It has the best calibrated output to my TV for watching TS files.

The one "bug" that I wish would have been corrected is the menu sloth bug. I get lip-sync issues if I use the workaround of using my sound cards SPDIF out. I get around it by hitting play on the first file in my list and then bringing the file menu back up. The scroll up and down is then very quick.


Ronnie
= = = =
"MyHD" into the Twilight Zone - General Discussion

= = = =
Well, maybe not. I don't even turn on my AV receiver when I play back MyHD timeshifts. The connection is by S/PDIF, but I get audio from headphones from the card, not from the receiver. A workaround could be analog audio to the receiver, I guess it's worth a try?
Edited by Muse - 12/11/12 at 6:14pm

Then xp die-hards will learn what I went through using the unofficial updates to keep 2000 running, at least until
Adobe,Mozilla and Java stops supporting XP and they too will run to the msfn.org board for help.
Like I did three years ago before migrating earlier this year.

In my quest to upgrade my computer equipment, one thing I've been wanting to do for years is a different motherboard in my midtower system, which has my MyHD MDP-130 + daughterboard. Besides the occasional distressing lockups, I have very frequent lip-synch issues, and I think a better MB will likely put an end to that (I hope!!!). I'm using a very antiquated Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro Motherboard. A thread I started at Anandtech forums concerning a possible addition of a PCI SATA card to my current motherboard has elicited some suggestions for a replacement motherboard. Several seem interesting, including this one from Asus:

Asus P8B75-V

What do you guys think? It's not cheap nor super expensive as motherboards go. It has 3 PCI slots, so I presume I could retain my PCI modem in addition to my PCI sound card as well as the MyHD cards. Pretty upgradable too, and it has an SATA 6GB/s connection, so I may be able to get the full potential from one of my 6GB/s SSD's. I have no idea what CPU I'd want with this, suggestions very much appreciated, operating system as well. I remember seeing discussions about limitations running multicore CPUs with MyHD cards. I searched for and couldn't find a MyHD megafaq, seem to remember there being one. Links or straight up discussion here appreciated!

Is that a reasonable MB to support MyHD?

Also suggested was a Foxconn H61AP LGA 1155 Intel H61 ATX Intel Motherboard. It's cheaper, doesn't have as much upgrade potential, has 6 PCI slots!!!

With either of these systems I'd need at least one extra graphics card, I believe, to support dual monitors (which I occasionally use with my desktop, but like to have the option).

That thread at Anandtech
Edited by Muse - 12/19/12 at 5:37pm

What an anachronism the Foxconn job is! Not only does it have 6 PCI and only one PCIe, it also has a parallel printer port! Of course it lacks any digital video port too.

I'd go with the ASUS one, where you might not even need to add a video card if you're willing to use VGA for one of those two monitors.

Yes, you need to read up on the MetaFAQ w.r.t. multicore CPUs and MyHD.

Edited by SFischer1 - 12/19/12 at 8:21pm

Thanks so much for the reply. Yes, I figured I might get by with VGA for Monitor 2 in dual display. Please, can you put a link here to the MetaFAQ. I wasn't able to locate it today. I sure don't need a parallel port, my printer plugs into my wireless router. However, I could use at least one com port. My MX-700 remote is programmed by virtue of a com cable that plugs into the remote. Suggestion for a processor appreciated, but I know it might not be an obvious thing. I probably don't need the fastest processor.

I've never had an Asus mobo but always known they enjoy a high reputation. I'll look closely at Newegg for combo deals. Looks like this upgrade is gonna cost. Hey, there's no way around it. I have a lot of legacy hardware (and software!) and people keep needling me to move on from it. PCI this and that, com port stuff, firewire, XP. It amazes me that USB has proven to be such a persistent phenomenon. Whoever designed that, kudos! I suppose that USB 1.0 devices still work on USB 3.0 ports. Seems like you can get a USB device to do almost anything... except act as system ram or CPU!

Hi,

 

 

MyHD MDP-130 Meta FAQ

 

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=647837

 

I made a post to try and keep it around, last post was 9/06/2010

 

SHF

Thank you, bookmarked and I've already learned a lot of stuff from it this morning. For one thing, evidently I won't be impacted by the multi-core/multi-processor/hyperthreading restrictions because I do not stream MyHD video on my network, do not play DVD's with MyHD. Nor do I do Firewire recording to D-VHS tape player using MDP-130 software. I assume that means I can pick any processor for that Asus MB and be OK with regards to MyHD. If that's not true, someone please advise. Thank you.

The reason for lack of posts in the MyHD MDP-130 Meta FAQ, I suspect, is that it is so comprehensive that all one needs to do to find answers is to do a search within the thread.

And as to this dedicated thread for the MDP-130, this one still gets action (after almost 8 years!) because folks like Muse want to continue using it, and need advice on the challenges of bringing it up to new H/W and OSes.

I think that the MDP-130 was one of the finest ATSC tuner/MPEG2 decoding PCI cards on the market. Unfortuanately, I had to retire mine a few months ago when I upgraded to Win7 x64. To this day, I have something of a sentimental attachment. I still keep it around, but it's in storage ATM.

Aren't my posts being read?

Go AMD, Go Sempron. with the Sargas 145, Biostar, ASRock and yes ASUS, I have one of each,
AM3/AM3+,... ASRock in the new PVR and ASUS for the workstation upgrade, getting rid of Intel based mobos
altogether.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=19-103-888&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2#scrollFullInfo
Edited by browncoat - 12/20/12 at 4:00pm

I was planning on retiring mine in favor of a pair of HDHomeRun dual units.

Unfortunately, the software doesn't support WinXP very well (at least not on the hardware that is running the MyHD cards). But, the HDHomeRun is the first ATSC tuner that I have seen that is clearly better than the MDP-130.

I have two antennas pointed at different cities with about a 90 degree difference in their aiming. The HDHomeRun setup was confusing because each of the two boxes saw all the channels from both cities, even though each unit is connected to only one antenna. To make sure, I disconnected one of the HDHomeRuns from the network, and indeed was able to get a viewable signal from every channel.