newmagic - hvr2200

DaMaxx · **14th July 2008, 09:20 AM**

Almost ready to chuck in the towel......

I am currently on my third tv tuner, 1st Compro, 2nd Divco, 3rd Hauppage HVR-2200, all giving varying problems of stuttering or not working at all.

I have just recently up dated my mother board and CPU to ASUS P5E-V HDMI and INTEL CORE2 DUO E8400 3.0GHZ, Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro, MTRON MSD-SATA3035-32GB soild state hard drive in a Silverstone LC16M case and Vista Ultimate. (Highly recommend the SSD for anyone who can afford it. Totally silent and as fast load time as it gets. Easy spouse tick of approval excpet for the bill......

)
The graphics are onboard with the Asus motherboard with HDMI output.

I am still getting the same problems with TV. Either a minor stutter with audio and picture or on some channels, a complete lock up for 10 - 20 seconds and it does not seem consistant with particular channels!

I tried to get onto the Newmagic site to see if they have updated drivers compared to the ones on the disk but thier site seems to be down

If anyone has the orginal download or any sugestions on where to start next would be much appreciated.

TheRob · **14th July 2008, 11:28 AM**

Have you considered that you may have a signal problem coming off the antenna?

If the same problem is persisting with three different tuners, then it probably isn't the tuner. You've changed mobo and processor, so perhaps it's got nothing to do with your media centre at all, but is too low signal strength/quality from the antenna, or indeed too high a signal strength - both can cause the problems you are describing.

logifuse · **14th July 2008, 11:43 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaMaxx

I tried to get onto the Newmagic site to see if they have updated drivers compared to the ones on the disk but thier site seems to be down

If anyone has the orginal download or any sugestions on where to start next would be much appreciated.

HVR2200 Vista Drivers

Justin

DaMaxx · **14th July 2008, 11:48 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheRob

Have you considered that you may have a signal problem coming off the antenna?

If the same problem is persisting with three different tuners, then it probably isn't the tuner. You've changed mobo and processor, so perhaps it's got nothing to do with your media centre at all, but is too low signal strength/quality from the antenna, or indeed too high a signal strength - both can cause the problems you are describing.

I had not even thought about too high signal strength. Being a sparky I have gone over kill on the ariel, coax, connectors, come to think of it, EVERYTHING!

I will have a bit of a play when I get home tonight and see what damage i can do.

DaMaxx · **14th July 2008, 11:50 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by logifuse

HVR2200 Vista Drivers

Justin

Cheers Justin. New magics site must have been down for the week end. I was able to download the drivers no problem.

TheRob · **14th July 2008, 12:06 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaMaxx

I had not even thought about too high signal strength. Being a sparky I have gone over kill on the ariel, coax, connectors, come to think of it, EVERYTHING!

I will have a bit of a play when I get home tonight and see what damage i can do.

Yes, it's a bit counter-intuitive. But I've come across this a couple of times. PC tuners (or perhaps it's just digital tuners in general) seem to be quite sensitive to excessive signal strength. The Bit Error Rate (BER) plummets with too much signal and leads to skipping and freezes.

If this isn't your problem, though, it could still be a singal issue. I'm sure you've done a great job on the antenna and cabling, but unless you can actually measure both digital signal strength and BER then it's difficult to difinitively rule out something like low signal strength or transient impulse noise as a problem. I live in a bit of a difficult reception area. My house is brand new and had a professionally installed, quality antenna and good sheilded cabling. I'm an electronics engineer, so I looked at the specs of this as the house was being built and thought it looked pretty good.

After moving in,though, I had all sorts of problems with skipping and dropouts. I got an antenna guy in and he discovered that there was some interference signals being picked up by the antenna in the low VHF band. Because my signal strength was marginal on a couple of channels, I'd get regular dropouts. I changed to a "digital bands only" antenna system (a high gain band 3 antenna and phased array band 4 antenna through a filtering diplexer). This eliminated almost all of my stuttering and dropout problems. I still get occaisonal glitches on ABC, but not enough to cause any pain.

So moral of the story - don't rule out signal or antenna problems until you've been able to measure what's going on.

DaMaxx · **14th July 2008, 01:35 PM**

Cheers Rob.

I am lucky enough to be working in the same office as a heap of comms people that are profesinal ariel installers. They just reinterated exactly as you said, I might be better off if I have no luck with my checking my connections, etc, that I will be better off trying a pure digital band ariel.

I always blamed my pc tuner due to the fact that my samsung TV has perfect quality reception.

Will keep you posted of my outcome. Who knows, might be a lot of other people out there that have this problem also?

logifuse · **14th July 2008, 01:47 PM**

Do you have an antenna at your office that you could use for a test - I don't mean taking the antenna home, I mean taking your VMC to the office?

Justin

DaMaxx · **14th July 2008, 02:10 PM**

Justin

I like your idea but I will probably have to take an aerial home to test it due to the fact that my office is on the side of an open cut mine and recpetion here (from what I have been told) is almost non existant.

DaMaxx · **14th July 2008, 02:40 PM**

Just spoke to our wholesaler and they are giving me two to try and see which one works best for my area (latrobe valley Vic). Will hopfully be able to post a solution tonight.

Thanks again for the input gents. A new set of eyes always sees something obvious.

DaMaxx · **14th July 2008, 06:49 PM**

Gents, thanks for your assistance. I went home and installed a new antenna and RG6 quad sheiled coax and i am in HTPC heaven!!

I just asumed that because the TV had goo reception that it could not be my signal.

Thanks again Justin & Rob. I am cracking a cold one for you both while I am recording South Park and watching City Homicide.