Hauppauge HVR-2200 Gold Coast RESOLVED

[NewMagic]

Hi,

After much work and assistance from several forum members Hauppauge and Microsoft have got to the bottom of the Ch10 issues experienced by some users in the Gold Coast (and possibly other) regional area. It turns out that the problem (which is also experienced on some other brands) was not the fault of the HVR-2200 card or driver, but rather a combination of issues resulting from the broadcast and the way VMC behaves. For those interested in the technical details please see below. We have posted a beta driver and registry mod to get around the issue:

Beta driver for testing is here :

http://www.newmagic.com.au/support/f...PreRelease.zip

and the required registry mod here :

http://www.newmagic.com.au/support/f...AutoOffset.zip

To install, you should use the hwclear.exe found on the original HVR-2200 CD to remove the old drviers. Then reboot and install the driver above. The registry patches have a "Yes" and "No" version so that you can apply the change then undo it with the "No" version if you need to. Run the "yes" .reg file and reboot. Make sure you delete any exsiting channel list and rescan services. You should then find all services working including Ch10 GC. Once we have some more feedback we will produce a release version, but the patch will always be a separate reg file as applying this globally to our driver could cause issues in other areas.

Please report your findings to me directly at mark@newmagic.com.au.

Thanks to those members who helped us get this sorted out.

For those interested here is the technical description of the issue:

Each TV broadcast contains an entry in the transport stream which indicates the frequency on which that stream is being transmitted. However, in some cases in regional areas of Australia, local repeaters are used to re-transmit streams created for metropolitan areas. For example, Channel 10 Brisbane which is transmitted on 226.5MHz in Brisbane metro is retransmitted off Mt Tambourine Gold Coast on the much higher UHF frequency of 725.625MHz. However, the frequency tag within the transport stream is not altered and still has 226.5MHz. This is not necessarily a problem in itself, but it is for MCE under certain conditions.

In Australia the centre frequencies for broadcasts are on either xxx.000 MHz or xxx.500MHz boundaries, except in some areas where, due to overlap issues, the centre frequency is shifted either up or down 125kHz. This is the case for Ch10 Gold Coast which is shifted from the 'normal' centre freq of 725.500Mhz to 725.625MHz.

In Vista MC, to be properly certified, a tuner driver should only tune these offset services when explicitly asked to do so. That is, a tuner should not find Ch10 GC on 725.5Mhz but only when asked to tune 725.625MHz. Many card drivers do not behave this way and actually tune Ch10 when asked for 725.5MHz. The HVR-2200 behaves as required by Microsoft and only locks the service when asked to tune 725.625MHz, as it should. However, due to a 'bug' in media centre, when it is given a lock on an offset frequency, and the tagged frequency is way off that frequency requested (in this case the tag is 226.5Mhz as discussed above) it actually stores the tag as the correct frequency! This means that after scanning for services it goes looking for Ch10 GC on 226.5Mhz and tunes nothing. This strange behaviour only occurs for offset tuning, so cards that originally lock Ch10 on 725.5MHz dont exhibit the issue as MCE uses that as the frequency of the service to be stored.

In conclusion the issue arises from the fact that the broadcaster does not re-tag the stream and the issue in MCE not handling mismatched tags and offset tuning. It's very likely this combination occurs in other regional areas so this fix will be needed there also. It does not happen in any metro areas though as the tag always matches the actual transmitted frequency. Our driver/reg mod tricks MCE and gets around the issue.

Regs

Mark Harwood
New Magic Australia
Australian Hauppauge Distributor

[bmn]

This is great news!

Thanks very much for all your help Mark!

It seems TheRob was on the right track in what he thought the problem was.

Strange how cooling the card affected the behaviour... *shrugs*

[taramaya]

I can confirm this fix for SBS in Darwin. Many thanks to Mark and New Magic.

[logifuse]

I don't want to blow smoke up Mark's a***, but this is why it's good idea to buy cards that have strong local support.

I would consider Hauppauge/New Magic & DigitalNow as the leaders in that category (just MHO).

Justin

[NewMagic]

Hi,

The question of why the cooling made a difference is an interesting one. My guess is that by cooling the card it was probably obtaining a lock on 725.5Mhz and so the problem did not occur. This could be the case where the signal was very strong ... Mt Tambourine is line of sight to many antennas on the Gold Coast.

Regs

Mark

[charlesc3]

Originally Posted by NewMagic

It does not happen in any metro areas though as the tag always matches the actual transmitted frequency.

Metro areas do 're-broadcast' the main programs on higher UHF frequencies via their local re-broadcast sites, like Kings Cross and North Head in Sydney.
And the same type of thing happens in some other Metro areas.

Has a check been done of the possible situations in all Metro areas, relating to re-broadcast transmitters and/or offset issues?

EDIT:
Kings Cross and North Head re-broadcast ABC as CH30 on 543.625 MHz. This has the offset.
Knights Hill (Illawarra) re-broadcasts SBS as CH54 on 711.625 MHz. This has the offset.

Quite a few people around Sydney receive the Knights Hill channels.


Some others:
ABS UHF 64 Hor 781.625 MHz 25 Grenfell Street ADELAIDE

[NewMagic]

Hi,

Charlesc3 you are correct - thanks for pointing out those ones. The difference is in some cases though that the re-transmitters take their own feed which has the correct tag in the stream. ITs very hard for us to determine which ones do not, but I can tell you than we are going to push for Microsoft to address the original issue in MCE so that everyone will have a fix.

Just a small correction to my original post - the frequency that actually gets stored when the offset is in use and the tag is different is the nearest centre frequency, not the tag frequency.

Regs

Mark

[markc3012]

I was one of the people involved in sorting out this problem as I am in a unique position.
I am running a Twin Tuner PVR as well as a separate HTPC using a HVR-2200 Tuner.
Both machines feed from the same aerial.
I have a dual aerial on the roof as one is facing Brisbane & the other is facing Tambourine. They feed into a booster which allows me to get Brisbane & GC Channels.
I live in Upper Coomera and get a good signal from both areas.

So, with the same aerial lead going into the HTPC Channel 10s wouldn’t work on the HTPC but would work on the PVR at the same time.

ScanchannelBDA gave me the same results on both units except Channel 10s simply would not work.

So I contacted Mark at Newmagic about the issue and he sent me a T500 card to try.
Bingo, everything worked beautifully. No issues or problems.

Put the HVR-2200 back in and no Channel 10s again.

I ran a few other software tests and sent him the results.

I received the software update and the registry patch the other day and loaded them in the HTPC, after following the instructions and install etc… and YAY!!!!
I am happy to say it is all systems go!!

The HVR-2200 is running great now and I don’t expect any dramas.

Like others I was a little frustrated at first, but I have to say that I was very impressed with the after sales service I received.
Being able to deal with someone local makes a huge difference!!

So that is my story and now I am going to buy a 2nd HVR-2200.
My next project is to get the 4 x tuners going.

Note. I am not a computer tech, I am from a car background and just enjoy tinkering.
I have been into Home Theatre for a few years and been running single components and a 7.1 surround system, but it was time update.
I built my first computer from scratch, being this HTPC with the help of this forum (many thanks) and help from individuals in these forums as well.
Sometimes along the way I wanted to throw it out the window (is that normal) but now it is finished I am very proud and very happy that I have a great piece of equipment I can update anytime I need to.

[hollandr]

I have my card working great now as well.
I did have some problems though. I reinstalled the HVR-2200 card into my media center and installed the new driver and patch. I could get Prime again . Then I discovered that after watching Prime I couldn't get a signal on SC10, this only happened after watching Prime. I could watch Win or any other channel but Prime knocked SC10 out.
I emailed Mark from NewMagic and after some emails and a phone call he suggested to remove the registry patch. I did this, restarted the media center and I couldn't get Win or SC10.
The final ffix was to re-setup and scan for channels, now it seems all is as it should be.
Great stuff Mark and Hauppauge/NewMagic.
Mark

[Mark1]

This is AWSOME! Great work New Magic! You actually worked with Microsoft on this, that makes me an even more proud user of this card.
And it it will have a flow-on effect. You are now more the wiser and I'm sure any future issues (if any) can be resolved more quickly.

I would love to install a second card, but can't due to having no slots left

Hmmm, offsets, heat issues. This sounds alot like the long distant cries of the dreaded Dvico stutter issue.
What makes Hauppauge/New Magic more amazing is that they accepted the problem, and fixed it. As far as I can remember, Dvico never really did this. They ened up reproducing a different version of their PCIe card, but mostly let users of their card find hope in making their own modification. To this day I still find that hard to believe.
Thank god users of the HVR-2200 experiencing this current issue didn't have to try fixing it themselves.

Mark, will users of this card who have never had any issues, find any performance improvements from applying the reg mod and driver upgrade? Or would I be better of just waiting for this beta to be applied in a proper driver release?

Once again, well done!

[NewMagic]

Hi Mark1,

Thanks for the kind comments. Users who have not experienced the issues in regional areas should not apply the registry patch. They can install the Pre-release driver as it has some other minor improvements to do with Vista 64 with more than 4Gb RAM. Bear in mind though it's a BETA driver and they prob should wait for the WHQL-certified version

Regs

Mark

[poobumwee]

Hi,

I cleared the old driver, installed the new driver and added the registry patch as per instructions. All channels then worked fine until I rescanned for services like Mark's instructions said to do. Media Center now picks up no channels. I have gone through the channel setup a few times with and without the registry patch, I have even re-installed the old driver and still no luck.

Can anyone help?? I will e-mail Mark also.

Thanks