AutumnWave / OnAir USB HDTV Tuners - Page 89

Ryan -

Thanks. After procrastinating a bit more I think I'll just keep it. It seems to run fine as long as I have the case off and eventually I'll just drill some holes in the cover and hopefully call it good. And if I procrastinate a few more months then I'll have had it for a year anyway and won't have to wonder if I should be doing something under warranty.

- Tom

Thanks for your response. I have also noticed the black screen when dragging the video display window to my second monitor (HDTV) using the 84. driver. In playing around last night, I found that either turning off the "Use DxVA (DirectX Video Acceleration" selection, or selecting the "3D surface" for the "Video Mixing Render (VMR)" in the "Dec/Encoder" option of the OnAir Creator software fixes the black screen problem, with two small catchs. One, when I slide the display window to a different screen, it causes the currently playing video (from a file) to restart from the beginning? Not sure why. And two, it runs the CPU usage up from 8-10% to 35-40%. Thanks for the pointer on how to solve the black screen problem.

I guess I was not clear in my earlier post about the video overlay I was asking about. (I forgot about the video overlay option in the OnAir software. That is not the one I was referring to. But it may be the one that recent posts have been referring to.) With the older NVidia display drivers, there is a feature called "Full Screen Video". You can configure the NVidia drivers to automatically start a full screen video overlay on a second monitor when displaying a video in a window on the primary monitor. This is done by setting the "Full screen device" option to be "Auto-Select" in the "Full Screen Video" configuration screen for the NVidia drivers. With this option selected, when I start a playing a video (live or a file) in a window on my primary monitor, it automatically also starts a full screen display of the video on my second monitor (HDTV), without any window borders, etc. This is true for most video applications, such as VLC and WMA as well as the OnAir Creator. It is the lack of this feature in later NVidia drivers that leads me to ask how you display full screen video on your HDTV. BTW, watch out if you only have one monitor enabled. In that case the full screen display shows up on the primary monitor and you cannot get rid of it unless you kill the application displaying the video. Kind of hard when you cannot see it to position the mouse over the correct button.

So from what you say, I guess that when you want to watch full screen videos on your HDTV you drag/slide the OnAir Creator video display window over to your HDTV and then set it for full screen mode. Is that the way you do it?

Greg

Yes, my second display is a projector and I don't use it daily. I fire it up for BD/HDDVD/some DVD and favorite HD OTA that's why I drag the video. the Watch HDTV program has a nice feature of display on second display by right click and select but does not work for me in vista. Unfortunately drivers don't retain useful features. But clone may work but I find it troublesome for BD so I drag and drop.

Unchecking DXVA resolves it. I do need to install the latest whql. 8600gts

Had a little disk crash and had to reinstall the OnAir GT drivers and program. I unplugged the OnAir GT when requested, plugged it back in when requested, moved the program files outside the WinXP "Program Files" folder when requested, but I cannot populate the channel list. "Channel manager" is grayed out on the menu.

What shall I look for? Thanks!

Ryan, thank you for your reply. It turned out that the driver "setup" program only extracted the drivers to the OnAirSolution folder, but did not actually "install" them. I directed the Device Manager driver install window to the folder where they were extracted, and now it works.

Thanks for the speedy reply!

Finally got Windows Media Center to work with GT--99%. There's one channel it won't work with but it's one with the best reception. Vista 32. I guess the only change is the latest whql nvidia driver.

WinXPPro/SP3, OnAirGT software and drivers 3.20p3, video Radeon X1950Pro with driver versions 8, 9, or no drivers at all (except standard Windows VGA).

If I let the OnAir Scheduler start with Windows, my video monitor never powers down. If I do not start the scheduler the video card stops sending video 15 minutes after the last use of the mouse or keyboard (as it should), and a few seconds later the monitor properly stands by.

Ideas? Thanks!

Any thoughts on the next Model of the GT to have a HDMI input port
Would be a dream for Satellite DirecTv/Dish users so we can get HD and not just SVideo.

My thought: ain't gonna happen, from AutumnWave or any other company. First, it's illegal, since it violates the whole idea of High Definition Copy Protection which all makers of HDMI devices must comply with. Second, the signals on an HDMI cable are uncompressed, i.e. decoded from MPEG-2, MPEG-4 or whatever, so the bitrate is much too high to record directly. I'm not even sure that USB is fast enough to carry it. So it would have to be recompressed before it's passed on to the computer. That would greatly increase the price of the GT (probably wouldn't fit in the case, either).

The best solution is probably to get the satellite company's DVR and accept its limitations. If your current receiver has component output the Hauppauge 1212 will compress that to h.264 before sending it to your computer via USB. Cable customers can demand a receiver with a working Firewire port that could record programs on a computer, but some cable companies set a Copy Once flag on most of their channels and Copy Never on some of them.

Adding Component inputs would be a nice alternative.

Adding ANYTHING to the OnAirGT is going to require either a breakthrough in developing lower power consumption components, or adding an external power supply. It is already right at, or slightly over, the USB power spec.

I'm using VMC w/TV Pack 2008 to watch/record ATSC programs. I have 2 GT's connected to my computer so I can watch one show while recording another or record two shows at the same time. Recently some of my scheduled recordings have failed and VMC's history shows 'Error Code: 771'. I've googled for that error code but have come up empty. Anyone here know what that is and why it's happening?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Does the OnAir GT have any capability to automatically adjust for the program aspect ratio?

On local Channel 9 KETC, right now I am seeing:

9-1: 4:3 programming with black pillars at left and right

9-2: Appears to be 16:9 programming transmitted in 4:3 with letterboxing, then further stretched horizontally, leaving black bars top and bottom

9-3: Appears to be 16:9 programming transmitted in 4:3 with letterboxing, then further stretched horizontally, leaving black bars top and bottom

9-4: Appears to be 4:3 programming stretched to fill 16:9 frame

I have been advised that they transmit 9-1 in 16:9 and the other three in 4:3, and it is my receiver that is stretching the program. Am I stuck with manually switching the OnAir's aspect ratio for each program?

Thanks!

Dan in St. Louis:
First, if KETC is cramming 1 HD and 3 SD channels into their broadcast bandwidth, shame on them. But that's not the problem at hand.

Some of these displays could and should be fixed by AutumnWave in a future version of their app, and some are out of their control. The proper aspect ratio for each digital channel is sent with the channel, but the current app ignores that and sticks with the selected window dimensions, stretching or squeezing the image to fit. It correctly assumes that analog channels are 4:3 and changes its frame to match if necessary. I'd prefer that it would keep the selected frame and letterbox or pillarbox the picture in it as necessary, keeping the proper aspect ratio.

But 4:3 and 16:9 (and wider) content will be with us for the foreseeable future and they will often be pillarboxed or letterboxed when the image's shape doesn't match the frame. There's no easy way for software to determine that and correct for it automatically. The viewer needs to do that manually. The OnAir app lets you change the frame through a menu option, the SCREEN button on the remote or with Ctrl-H, -J, -K and -L on the keyboard.

The worst case is a 16:9 image letterboxed in a 4:3 frame which is then pillarboxed in a 16:9 frame. That gives black bands on all 4 sides. You want to zoom it to make the picture fit your screen as well as possible without losing anything (filling it in all directions on a widescreen display). You can get there with the Zoom Navigator but it should be easier. It might be possible to code a couple of programmable buttons on the remote to zoom in and out, but I haven't researched it.

It's not illegal to receive HD programs, you just can't record them in HD. You now receive HD via a coax connection to the OnAir
The OnAir USB HDTVs due not record in HD. DirecTv receivers do not have a coax out port that was the reason for the question

Actually, there is a way. It's called Active Format Description (AFD). It's transmitted as part of the video stream, and indicates how the video should be displayed. For instance, a value of "15" is for a 16:9 picture that can be safely center-cut for use on a 4:3 display. The value "10" is used for 16:9 image that has information in the side areas that would be lost in a center-cut. This should be shown as a letterbox on 4:3 displays.

The problem comes in when a piece of video is distributed in 4:3 with a 16:9 letterbox already build it. This shows as a "postage stamp" on a 16:9 display. In this case, the letterbox has already been "burned in", and can't be removed. When everything is eventually distributed in 16:9 exclusively, the AFD can be effective (as long as it is changed back and forth as it should be). But any legacy 4:3 that has a letterbox built in will still display wrong.

It's a confusing pain-in-the-butt from the broadcaster's side!

Thanks, ebo. Maybe at the same time they could eliminate the two useless digits after the decimal point in the signal strength window (actually, signal-to-noise ratio window).

Which brings up an interesting observation:

Using TSReader, most of my local stations are between -12 and -18dBm signal strength. These same stations generally show >30dB S/N ratio in OnAir. For example, they bounce around between 29 and 32dB.

However, one local shows +3dBm in TSReader, and the S/N is actually worse -- about 20dB -- in the OnAir application. So... overload is possible!

The illegality would come from making a device that accepts input via HDMI and effectively tells the source (as all HDMI receive devices must), "Don't worry, I won't allow your precious HD content to be saved to a generic file that could be posted on the Internet" then turn around and do exactly that.

Even if it had a coax output it would not be 8-VSB-modulated ATSC, for the same reason. There was briefly such a device as an add-on for a specific model of Dish receiver, so it wouldn't be a big technical problem to make, except that it would now need to transcode MPEG-4 to MPEG-2.

What makes you think this? The OnAir records precisely the ATSC transport stream that it receives in the rf channel--it's as "HD" as you're gonna get from a TV signal.

Look at the options for recording, 720x480 is the best you can do, that's not HD.

The best the OnAir can record is 720x480 so their data is protected, no decoding required, that's done in the HR2x or H2x
Yet another restriction for the US public.

That's for the S-vid input isn't it? S-video doesn't support a higher resolution. There is a component recorder that does HD.

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

Please check recording options, SD recording only. We are on the OnAir GT thread, The box you link to requires other software to convert your recording to Mpeg4 before you can burn a DVD.

That's for analog
See the manual.
ATV Video Encoder (for recordings)
· Type
· Resolution
· Quality (including slider)
· Use VBR (Variable Bit Rate)
· Closed GOP
· Inverse Telecine (IVTC)

Type - Set to either MPEG1 or MPEG 2. Typically MPEG 1 is used for Video CD (VCD) formats, while MPEG 2 is used for higher quality DVD or SVCD formats.

Resolution - A screen resolution can be chosen from the dropdown list. Remember, this setting only applies to Analog TV. (Digital TV is always recorded in whatever resolution it was broadcast in.)

Thanks, that's why I would like HDMI or Component input interface. There is no coax out from DirecTv HR2x or H2x boxes

Component, me too. Unless Ryan can add hope, talon95's link looks good. I've been following the AVS thread.