MyHD MDP-130 - Page 332

Laserfan.......

after learning my lesson in '99 I only keep the OS
and what it needs to run on the boot(or internal)
drive...my setups for the MDP are all on the external drives
so if I only have to reinstall the OS, I only need to restore the shortcuts,or load playlists,channel lists and reservations
from the saved files but as I said earlier one set up is on a
refurb emachine (gateway product) and I'll never do that again because I got what the bastards call a medialess
machine. From 9:30pm Sunday night to 4:00am Monday
morn I was nursing a sick 'puter. Now I thought I had
wiped the hard drive clean (eventhough the utility I
was using reported only 76gig on what is 'posed to
be an 80gig drive) if it really had done that then emachines'
restore DVD should not have worked but it did,not only
that but there was no splash screen to redo the registration
instead it garnered info from the previous install and cut
the capacity of the drive to 50per cent of what it was.
So not having any utility to get rid of the Gateway crud,
I'm taking it into a shop on Wednesday to turn the drive
virgin again so I can downgrade to my own W2K pro plus
they are making me a nVidia driver CD for the motherboard,video and get Realtek AC97 for the audio
section. I could do that myself but I only have a 256K
connection to the 'net (yeah...choppy YouTube) and some
of those suckers are huge and I don't have the time.
Lesson learned, I'm sticking to "rolling my own" or if
I ever buy of-the-shelf again,make sure there are separate
disks for the OS,Optical and magnetic drives,mobos and
what's on them, for if there are any DIYers out there you know that you get disks for each part you buy, letting you choose what updates to d/l and when.

Like you I bought two MDPs and may buy one or two
more because checking the logs I never had a application
error or fault from the 130s its all system..aka
MICROSLOP!!!! & XP seems to have so much hidden crud
I'm staying with 2000 pro even when I have to go driver
hunting!

I'm sending this on my 'spare' reliable,pure Intel P3
and watching TV at the same time with the second
130.
To repeat...Lesson learned.

If you reinstall the OS, most applications also will have to be reinstalled as most of them do some combination of adding entries to the registry, add files to the Windows system folder (typically c:\\windows\\system32), etc. A very small subset of programs will come back to life if you simply restore shortcuts, playlists, etc., but the majority of apps will need to be reinstalled.

I did have an MDP-130 in a dedicated Shuttle box at one time--with the OS and MyHD only it was easy to keep "clean". But when the Shuttle got flakey I moved the MDP to my main video server/editor/ripper etc. machine and it gets all sorts of junk installed on it.

Owing to the recent BSOD problem, I am slowly re-building this machine to its former glory, but keeping multiple Acronis images along the way. I also have a (very, very nice) program called Ashampoo Uninstaller which keeps track of what every newly installed program does to the hard drive, and finally I have turned-on Windows "System Restore" which I've never done before.

I was due for a "housekeeping" exercise on this 3-yr-old machine anyway, but surprised it was the MDP130 that ended-up inspiring it... wonder what I did in Windows to freak it out? May never know.

Yes, but the way I learned, I do a re-install of, say
Word '97 and all my preferences and set-ups are
not lost during a re-build. Its been so long though....
I think its as simple as directing the installer to my
own folders rather than the default
path to the programs folder of winblows, is what I meant to say. I'm sending this out on my old reliable all-Intel P3
with the duplicate MDP-130 in it. Though with 5400rpm
drives and just 733Mhz CPU and only 390 megs available
(after shared video) it strains a bit to play back ".tp" files
recording is fine but some times it will lock on play back
and going into the logs its always a lack of resources
info message, not a clash with W2K or fault with MyHD
software. You know as well as I do that the irony is
PC133 ram though old is actually more expensive now,
therefore rather than blow 200 on two 512 sticks, I'd rather
put the funds in for a modern Intel board that uses the
cheaper DDR or DDR2. I'm saving my pennies just for that
in the next month or so.

edit: the above are CDN prices including GST & PST
so yes two sticks of PC133 at approx 80 bucks comes
to 200 after taxes. I know I've been kicking XP,
I don't knock users of XP but I'm not about to buy another thick "QUE" book
I may someday buy XP pro IF the price ever drops to 100 CDN or US $.
www.9software.com currently has it for 137, tigerdirect.ca was selling it
over the summer for 149 but has returned it to 170, the only thing I
may miss is cleartype, I don't like remote assistance though I see that you can turn it off and as for keeping the clock straight, the ppl who run the atomic
clocks have free utilities going way back to old Win3.1!
My main beef with XP is portability I don't like this activation idea, registration
should be enough.

OK users of XP tell this dinosaur what this activation of XP (or Vista)
entails, is it as simple as getting a second set of numbers(other than
the key on the COA sticker?) and punching them in and can you do
it more than once as long as you register it via the on-screen form
to the same individual? YES........I don't know this.....
I was first impressed by the MyHD in that unlike the CDN made
ATI products it could run on Win '98. (yes.....I'm an old fart!)

I just installed a MyHD 130. For the most part all is well.

I've looked through the Meta FAQ as well as flipped through quite a few pages of this thread and didn't see what I was looking for. My questions for now would be...

1) I downloaded and installed the new drivers (the exe file) and it created some type of error where when I'd launch MyHD it wouldn't open the program. Clicking on the MyHD icon on my desktop produced and error and the program would not launch. Do I need to delete the old drivers prior to installing the new ones? Or, take some other approach? MyHD runs fine with the old drivers on the installation disk.

2) Clicking the on screen display button for changing the sub channels does not change to a sub channel...is there a setting I'm missing for flipping through the sub channels with the osd?

3) This is probably a local thing, but I can't seem to locate my HD channel 7 on MyHD. On my comcast system with the QAM tuner in my LCD TV upstairs it's 7.1. The sub channels for 2, 5, 11, and 32 are the same...I just can't seem to find 7 or 9? Any thoughts?

This sounds like the "Start in HD Mode" bug that was introduced in later versions of the SW. The workaround is to uncheck Start in HD Mode. But since you can't get into the program to do that, you'll have to do a registry edit. Run regedit and search for START_AS_HDMODE. If the REG_DWORD value is 1, change it to 0.


This only works if you disable Virtual Channel Mode. But you may want to leave it enabled for other reasons. IIRC, a channel scan with it disabled will find only one subchannel in each RF channel.


These may be on cable channels above 125. The older software that you're probably using couldn't tune above 125; the current version can.

Thanks a bunch. Unchecking 'Start in HD Mode' worked like a charm. I'll leave Virtual Channel Mode enabled...it'll be fine like that. I'll have to re-scan to see what I get above 125.

Thanks again.

If you want to use Start-in-HD mode, PM me your email address and I'll send you a test file from MIT to fix this problem. (I'm going to be offline from now until Monday sometime when I get back to the States, so don't hold your breath right away)

Thanks. For now I should be fine with it as is. I'm not 100% sure what the start in HD Mode is...is it just so it starts in full screen? If that is the case that isn't important to me. I'm only watching on my PC monitor.

Another question I had concerned dragging the overlay window to a random size. I thought I read somewhere where dragging the window to a random size created a inferior picture than using one of the menus to resize the screen. It looks like that may be the case but it's not real drastic so I'm not leaving out the possibility it's my eyes playing tricks on me because of what I thought I read. Again, no big deal either way, just curious if this is the case.

Thanks again for the tips and pointers...I'm sure I'll have another question or two to toss up here before too long.

You install with the code, the OS "phones-home" with some data (i.e. sends details to Microsoft), which makes the install "legit". If you install on another machine with the same code, or if you change the hardware of your current machine, you will need to call Microsoft. Tell the person in India your sob story, and they will give you a new code. Without the code, the OS won't continue to work.

--Dale--

If you install on a second machine AND continue to use the first machine, you should be purchasing a second license.

HD Mode sends the decoded HD output of the MyHD card to its own connector on the back of the card (and to the DVI connector if you have the DVI daughterboard). When it is off the card(s) can "pass through" compatible video from another source, typically the output of the computer's video system. If your computer monitor has a VGA input, you would connect the VGA output of the computer's video system to the VGA input of the MyHD card, using the special octopus cable you got with the card, and connect the card's VGA output to the monitor with another leg of the same cable.


This is a common misunderstanding. The overlay image is not HD. Not even if you expand it to fill a screen that is set up to display HD resolution or better. The only HD output comes directly from the MyHD card itself. The overlay is just for convenience when you don't need HD quality. It's like a thumbnail of a JPEG picture. Some people leave it off all the time. I toggle it on and off, depending on how I'm using the system.

Please excuse me for jumping in with a stupid question. I'm sure I must be overlooking something.

I can't see how to toggle back to "overlay mode" if the overlay isn't there to "right-click" on to get access to the "Configuration" menu.

I usually don't "Show the Remote", so I can't use that.
Is that the only way back?

I would like to try using the HD only mode to see if that clears-up the Fusion crashes that sometime occur at the end of a recording. The crashes seem to be caused by having the MyHD overlay open at the start or sometime during a Fusion capture.

It scares me to think I might not be able to get back to overlay mode, as I use it while surfing & watching TV.

What am I missing?

Thanks For Responding,

I'm not sure I understand the question, how are you hooked up? I have a MyHD icon displayed in the task bar when it it active, right clicking on it will bring up a menu to show the Control Panel or Show the Overlay Window or to Exit MyHD, double clicking on the screen when MyHD is playing in HD Mode will take you out of HD mode. Does any of that help?

There is a setting 'Clip Mouse to Overlay in HD Mode', I'm not sure, but I suspect that it needs to be set to enable double clicking to get out of HD mode, but when selected it keeps the mouse glued to the Control Panel whether the overlay window is enabled or not.

Just double click the mouse or hit the escape key.

I never use the overlay by still get the end of recording Fusion crashes, so even if you figure out the MyHD angle, I'm not sure you'll find an end to your suffering with Fusion stability.

--Dale--

Press -- when MyHD has the Windows "focus" to toggle the overlay window off/on.

One thing that seems to help for my end of recording Fusion crashes is to disable the Automatic Application Exit in the Fusion Agent. It's a bit of a pain to manually close the Fusion app, but at least it does not crash, and if I am doing unattended recording, it does not hurt that the Fusion app is already running. I also find that it is less of a problem with 3.61 and 3.62 than it is with 3.63.

-Dave

Thanks To All The Dedicated That Responded

I don't have the icon in the system tray, until, as TPeterson wrote: "Press -- when MyHD has the Windows "focus" to toggle the overlay window off/on."
I can then right click to restore, but then the icon goes away again.

As sengsational wrote " never use the overlay but still get the end of recording Fusion crashes......." So I guess its back to the Fusion sw development team....

I'll try the Fusion Agent tweak (as per DPlettner) to see if that helps, as long as Windows will still take the machine to standby with the app still running, that will work.

Again, Thanks All!

Actually, having Automatic Application Exit disabled, as I suggested, will prevent the PC from going into standby. The way I deal with this is that I have a scheduled task that does a 'shutdown -r -f' right after prime time ends, and then I have a 'hibernate.exe' scheduled about five minutes later. When I am away from home, this process ensures that a crashed Fusion app is reset for the next day's recordings.

You might still want to see if disabling Automatic Application Exit helps. In the Meta FAQ, Terry posted a very clever Power Options batch file that includes a check for hung programs, and issues a 'shutdown -r -f' if it finds any. Perhaps there is a way to modify Terry's batch file to test whether the Fusion software is recording, and if it is not, close the Fusion software, and if the Fusion software crashes, issue a 'shutdown -r -f' command.

One more tip. If you use RT to schedule programs, there is an AutoJoin command that joins reservations for back-to-back programs on the same channel into a single reservation. In my experience, this command greatly increases the chances that only a single Fusion reservation will be needed each night. For example, tonight one of my Fusion tuners has a single reservation to record Desparate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters. Even if the Fusion software crashes at the end of the recording, I will have recorded both shows, and my scheduled tasks will ensure that the Fusion software will be ready to record on Monday.

-Dave

If you want to run three or more machines........

Thank you Dale, thank you Geoffrey, I was also recently
told that you could do it over the phone if you don't mind
being in electro-menu hell.

It is a good idea then to hold on to your old OS discs
if all you need is a base OS to run something else(like the
MyHD) because if you like to tinker XP doesn't give you
room for that, I was told verbally a maximum of three-reinstalls then you need a new code aside from the code on the COA sticker.

Good argument for sticking with W2Kpro SP4, as before
I'll probably miss cleartype,especially on larger displays
'cause when I was in Staples, the guy let me turn it on
when viewing the 32inch Viewsonic and what a difference in the on-screen text. I'll miss the lightshow of Media player 10 when I insert a music CD 'cept I usually do that in summer when I sit on the front stoop while reading my newspaper, to take advantage of the free light, so I'm not watching, therefore MP9 is good enough.

I noticed since getting re-connected that a lot of s/w is
like that now and what used to be freeware they now want you to pay and pay or settle for crippleware versions.

I'm looking to put together a new machine, but I plan on going a pretty cheap route if possible, I'm looking to drop in an Athlon 4800 or something in the 5000 series. I most definitely want to use MyHD in the machine, and just looking for suggestions on a decent mobo to use that seems to be pretty stable with MyHD, I figure that the mobo is probably the biggest problems with any hardware conflicts that mess up the MyHD card(it will have the Daughter card installed with it on this machine).

Although you can always disable the dual core, I'd go with a single core to save cash on the MB and the processor. You CAN run with dual core enabled, but there are a few limitations (see the MetaFAQ*).

--Dale--

*and I'm experiencing (again, grumble, grumble) a dual core limitation not mentioned in the MetaFAQ: No video output without tinkering. But two "--" with the app selected gets me there, but that's WAF hostile.

That's why I asked for some recommendations on the motherboard, I'm sure there are surely several people running with similar setups without much trouble. I guess the Video card could cause conflicts also, so I'd like to hear some combinations that people are running without problems. I would at least like to know that someone is running the same basic system I end up with.

Two questions:

1. Is it just my system or did the colors at AVS Forums change? I used to have a dark blue background and yellow text, which I really liked (easy on the eyes). I now have light blue-white background with black text. Is there a way I can get the old colors?

2. I programmed a capture last night of the 7th game of the ALCS, giving it 4.5 hours duration. After about 2 hours and 36 minutes the recordings terminated for some reason. I found this out when the game stopped in the 6th inning or so. Argh! Why might this happen? I run AVG Free antivirus, configured as defaulted. I have a number of times had a problem with this in that I'll be watching something full screen and suddently MyHD goes to the overlay window and I have a dialog that my virus scan has completed, so evidently the AVG Free is doing an automatic periodic scan. I haven't looked into configuring that because I have responded by going full screen by hitting the HD button and ignore the "problem." Not only was the recording last night far less than the 4.5 hours programmed, it was not in the File Play List of the File Play Setup tab of the MyHD application. I don't recall this having happened to me before and I've been using the cards for a few years. Can anyone comment on my prematurely ending recording?

I'm running the MyHD 120 with daughterboard, what I think is the latest MyHD application, XP Pro, plenty of HD space. Thanks.

Did you try the drop-down list of themes at the bottom left of this page?
What was state of MyHD program and/or PC after this? Had the machine crashed? We're talking Windows here, so at least one peculiar event every few years is actually rather expected, no?

Did the color change on the forum happen right around the same time as the recording cutting short? If it did, something tells me it was more than a coincidence, and that something went squirrelly in your system.

No problems of that sort on my dual core system. MyHD works perfectly (except for the DVD restriction, of course).

I've found no unadvertised problems with dual-core CPU on both ASUS and Foxconn socket 939 Nvidia 430 chipset integrated-video mobos, but I suggest that anyone looking to set up new MyHD system--especially if it's to be made with low-cost components--stick with a single-core CPU. You can thereby put together a very inexpensive system (e.g., AM2-IGP mobo with 1-GB DRAM, quiet 500-GB HDD, fanless CPU cooler, and MDP-130) and see exceptional HDTV performance. Put the extra bucks for the second core into a non-MyHD PC.