BGT3650 - No Signal

Help with tuners from ATI, Hauppauge, AverMedia and more.
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_jon_

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BGT3650 - No Signal

#1

Post by _jon_ » Fri Mar 06, 2015 7:14 pm

Hello,

I have recently upgraded my HTPC (completely different hardware apart form the TV tuner card) and since doing so, I've had a problem whereby I'm getting a "No Signal" error message in Windows Media Centre when the PC first turn on or resumes from standby. It works perfectly at all other times.

It does get signal eventually but I have to switch to a different channel first or restart WMC. For example, if I turn the PC on and go to BBC1 then I get "No Signal". If I then switch to BBC2, I get a signal and the TV programme is played. I then switch back to BBC1 and there will be a signal and the programmes play without issue.

The PC specification is as follows-

Windows 7 Home Premium x64
BlackGold BGT3650 quad HD TV Tuner
MSI AM1I AMD Mini ITX Motherboard (LAN, VGA, HDMI, DVI)
Corsair CMX4GX3M2B1600C9 XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600 Mhz CL9 Performance Desktop Memory Kit
AMD APU Athlon 5350 Quad Core Processor (Socket AM1, 2.05GHz, 2MB, 25W, AMD Radeon 3, AD5350JAHMBOX, Advanced Vector Extensions, Virtualization Techno
Be Quiet L8 500W Pure Power Supply Unit

The TV tuner is plugged into the PCI-E x16 slot on the motherboard and background scanning is turned off. I am using the latest BlackGold driver and have tested it with older drivers.

I have set the PostCode in WMC to one close to our nearest transmitter so it is picking up the correct frequencies and is not a signal strength issue.

I have also tested this with another TV viewing application called SichboPVR and it does the same thing apart from I have to close it down and open it again (rather than just changing channel) in order for it to get a signal.

I have been e-mailing BlackGold support but though I'd post here in case anyone had any ideas of what could be causing it. I'd also like to know if there is any TV viewing software that has decent logging/debugging? Ideally I'd like to see exactly what the tuner is doing/failing to do in a log file. At the moment I'm trouble-shooting blind although i suspect it's a driver issue.

Jonathan

_jon_

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Joined: Fri Mar 06, 2015 7:03 pm
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#2

Post by _jon_ » Mon Mar 09, 2015 8:43 pm

After spending most of the weekend trying to figure this out which included several re-formats (with Windows 32 and 64 bit), swapping the TV tuner into a different PC and trying a Hauppauge TV tuner in the media PC, I've finally manage to resolve the issue. Well, put a workaround in place anyway.

I noticed that when I restarted and clicked on a TV channel (e.g. BBC 1), the red light on the TV tuner didn't light up. When I then clicked on a different channel (e.g. BBC 2), it did light up and the program played. So, the problem seems to be with initialising the tuner after boot or standby. The solution was to use DVBGuide (normally used for grabbing EPG data) to initialise the tuner

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/pclare/DVBGuide/

with the following command-

DVBGuide -b8 -u4 -e0 -c650000

This command makes DVB guide access the TV tuner (it seems to only work when set to one of the 4 tuners, it must be this one that's playing up) and this powers on the TV tuner so the red light on the tuner comes on. The -e0 parameter means the EPG isn't downloaded so it only takes seconds to run.

Load up WMC and any channel I click on plays first time!

I know this is a very specific problem (I've been searching for days to try and find a solution) but thought I'd put the solution/workaround here for anyone else who has it to save them days worth of searching.

adrian s

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#3

Post by adrian s » Sat May 23, 2015 2:43 am

I have this problem too. It's not present with 8.1.1.2 drivers but all tuners disappear about once a week with the older drivers.

Do you run the command line automatically when the PC wakes, and if so, how?

Thanks

_jon_

Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Mar 06, 2015 7:03 pm
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#4

Post by _jon_ » Wed Jun 03, 2015 5:53 pm

Yes, I've setup a scheduled task. Windows 7 lets you set the trigger of a scheduled task to be an event so I've set the command to run on Event Id 1 (system - Power-troubleshooter) which is the Windows event that's created when resuming from standby.

I found I had to run that command for each individual tuner e.g.

DVBGuide -b8 -u3 -e0 -c650000
DVBGuide -b8 -u4 -e0 -c650000
DVBGuide -b8 -u7 -e0 -c650000
DVBGuide -b8 -u8 -e0 -c650000

adrian s

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#5

Post by adrian s » Sat Jun 06, 2015 7:14 pm

Thanks, I'll give it a go. Although I now seem to be losing tuners again :(

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