Kworld UB435-Q

[moniker]

Hi, I am a nooby here so thanks for the help.

WMC works perfectly for a while with my USB tuner but then seems to randomly loose its connection to the tuner. It tells me there is no signal and will not tune to another station until I reboot the computer and thereby reset WIN7, WMC, the drivers and the tuner. Is there any way to bulletproof the installation so that WMC does not fall down as a TV set several times a night requiring multiple boots?

I am running a Zotac ION miniITX board with the latest bios and drivers on a clean install of WIN7 with Kworld UB435-Q tuner. It is only used as an HTPC. I have both the ver 1 and ver 2 tuners With the latest driver from Kworld and the result is the same for either of them when switching channels in WMC.

I have tried virtually all available PVR software. WMC is the best of the lot for ease of use and it also picks up more stations OTA than any other solution. But it keeps coughing up this hairball that makes it very troublesome to use. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Motz]

Most likely it is just a tuner issue. I have used these in the past and had mixed results. Some were great and some were not. it also depends on your signal as well. You can go into settings->Tv->Signal strength (i think that is what it is called in there) and go channel by channel to see if you have perfect strength.

[moniker]

My signal strength is superior. Maxed out on all channels.

What I find interesting is that WMC shows the signals as being very strong and picks up more channels than other solutions. Other solutions do not pick up the highest freq channels which are very strong in my area (ie ch 66).

Any suggestions on how to harden the WMC installation to minimize the disconnects from the tuners?

Thanks loads

[foxwood]

It doesn't sound like a WMC issue, it sounds like a USB issue - can anything else talk to the Tuner once WMC stops talking to it?

[moniker]

WMC is all I have that will talk to the tuners.

I have done a lot of reading and have now changed the services to local from network and turned off all possibilities of USB being powered down for power savings as well as set WIN7 for max performance.

Don't know what else to do. I am now in testing the above changes.

Seems hard to believe that two different versions of the same USB device have exactly the same symptoms. Seems to be software problems but cud be driver too because the two versions use the same updated driver. When reading reviews of different tuners the problems for all of them seem to be the same. Part is of course due to ignorance but the only common entity is WMC since the boxes are different as are the tuners. Hmmm.

Tks

[foxwood]

WMC is all I have that will talk to the tuners.

You mentioned that you had used other PVR software.

VLC can be used to pick up a signal from many video sources (it may depend on the drivers). Give it a try - it's a useful tool to have anyway, and it won't interfere with any other settings on your machine.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html

Once it's installed, look under the Media/Open Capture Device menu, and see if your TV tuner turns up. You may have to poke around to get a useful signal, but it will help you figure out that it's not a Media Center problem.

[Toolmangler]

I use the same tuner and have had no trouble since I swapped out the USB cable that came with the unit. Better cable = better connection.

[moniker]

neither of mine came with usb cables. I normally just plug them in. but I have also used cables too. Same results no matter what I do. So I have thrown in the towel and bot a homerun. I'll see how that does.