Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 2250 - Owner's Thread

Help with tuners from ATI, Hauppauge, AverMedia and more.
2wheels

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#21

Post by 2wheels » Thu Nov 10, 2011 6:05 pm

I am nosing around. In doing so in WMC, the screen came up and stated weak TV signal. It had never said that before.

I then went into this software that came with the TV tuner card called WinTV ver. 7. I noticed a couple of things there. (1) At quick glance the picture on channels is AWESOME! Now I do not know which channel is which in there to compare the same exact channel in WMC. (2) I do not use the WinTV software but when I was selecting icons, I found a Settings, then Channel tab. All channels listed stated beside them "Clear QAM" source.

This makes me think the coax cable and card are fine. Something in WMC???

2wheels

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#22

Post by 2wheels » Thu Nov 10, 2011 6:21 pm

2wheels wrote:I am nosing around. In doing so in WMC, the screen came up and stated weak TV signal. It had never said that before.

I then went into this software that came with the TV tuner card called WinTV ver. 7. I noticed a couple of things there. (1) At quick glance the picture on channels is AWESOME! Now I do not know which channel is which in there to compare the same exact channel in WMC. (2) I do not use the WinTV software but when I was selecting icons, I found a Settings, then Channel tab. All channels listed stated beside them "Clear QAM" source.

This makes me think the coax cable and card are fine. Something in WMC???


With the new information above, I called Hauppauge again. I was told if I was experiencing the above in both WinTV and WMC, then it would be a hardware issue. I was told since the issue was just with WMC, then it was a decoder problem. I was told WMC uses a different decoder, and the person I spoke to did not know how to change the decoder WMC is using.

With that said, I am lost.


UPDATE: I have Shark007 Codecs installed. I do not know how to use them though. I am toying around. No luck yet. I turned WMC codecs off, but then WMC did not work since there were no codecs.

dmagerl

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#23

Post by dmagerl » Fri Nov 11, 2011 12:24 am

makryger wrote:Ok, after reading your message a second time, what you describe could be a result of the video card moreso than the signal... (but just to respond to dmagerl, you can DEFINITELY have blocky pixelation with digital channels. Trust me. I've had to deal with it. it isn't necessarily all-or-nothing.)
I wholeheartedly agree with you. But usually the blockiness is not described as "shimmering" and it is usually very blocky. If it affects the whole picture the picture is usually frozen in places. So I assumed that was not what was being described.

To the OP, how about taking a screen capture and attaching it. It doesnt work if MCE is full screen (all you get is black if it is), so reduce MCE to a window to something less than full screen, hit the pause button on a particularly bad portion of a video, and press alt-Printscreen on your keyboard (copies the window to the clipboard). Then paste that into Paint or any graphics program. Or use the snipping tool on the window.

To check your sources its: Settings/tv/guide/editchannels, pick a channel, edit sources.
Alternately, bring up the guide, mouse over to a station callsign, infobutton or rightclick, edit station/edit sources.
There should be one source per tuner per channel unless HD & SD have been combined.

richard1980

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#24

Post by richard1980 » Fri Nov 11, 2011 1:07 am

Try using the snipping tool and save the snip as a JPEG. That should significantly reduce the size of the file to an acceptable level. Although I think 256 KB is a little low...just my opinion though, and since I don't run the website, I don't know the whole story, so my opinion really isn't worth much.

robthecomputerguy

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#25

Post by robthecomputerguy » Fri Nov 11, 2011 2:40 am

What an ordeal to register and post on this site, what a freakin' ordeal.

SAME exact problem for 2 weeks in NYC now - it's not a weak signal, I have a signal amplifier on the line and all my signal ratings are above 35... WHAT is going on with this crap?

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makryger

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#26

Post by makryger » Fri Nov 11, 2011 2:50 am

If you're getting the weak signal, that makes me think even more its a signal issue. As I mentioned before, Media Center for some reason needs a better signal than some other sources to get clearqam working. Maybe try lugging your computer to another coax outlet in your place and seeing if that makes any difference. What you may end up needing is a signal booster (motorola makes the best one).
My Channel Logos XL: Get your Guide looking good! ~~~~ TunerSalad: Increase the 4-tuner limit in 7MC

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makryger

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#27

Post by makryger » Fri Nov 11, 2011 2:51 am

robthecomputerguy wrote:What an ordeal to register and post on this site, what a freakin' ordeal.

SAME exact problem for 2 weeks in NYC now - it's not a weak signal, I have a signal amplifier on the line and all my signal ratings are above 35... WHAT is going on with this crap?
Rob, do you use the same card? Is this new behavior for you?

(Sorry that it was a pain to register... if you PM me, you can tell me what was so annoying about registering... maybe we can try to fix it.)
My Channel Logos XL: Get your Guide looking good! ~~~~ TunerSalad: Increase the 4-tuner limit in 7MC

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#28

Post by robthecomputerguy » Fri Nov 11, 2011 3:01 am

Makryger, are you addressing me? "Another coax outlet" ? LOL. Dude, I live in NYC. A cable comes in from the hallway. Done. And I ran that cable myself and it's been running fine for 4 years. Well, except for about a year ago. And I added a kickass signal booster... and now most of the signals I'm seeing are 40... am I getting the error because my signal is too strong?

I'm using the same card... for almost 3 years now, I have 2 of these cards in a system and I can typically record 4 HD channels at once, and I do... I added 4gb of RAM so now I have 8GB of RAM in the system... it's random but it's on every channel.... SO annoying!
Last edited by robthecomputerguy on Fri Nov 11, 2011 8:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

2wheels

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#29

Post by 2wheels » Fri Nov 11, 2011 12:00 pm

dmagerl wrote:
makryger wrote:Ok, after reading your message a second time, what you describe could be a result of the video card moreso than the signal... (but just to respond to dmagerl, you can DEFINITELY have blocky pixelation with digital channels. Trust me. I've had to deal with it. it isn't necessarily all-or-nothing.)
I wholeheartedly agree with you. But usually the blockiness is not described as "shimmering" and it is usually very blocky. If it affects the whole picture the picture is usually frozen in places. So I assumed that was not what was being described.

To the OP, how about taking a screen capture and attaching it. It doesnt work if MCE is full screen (all you get is black if it is), so reduce MCE to a window to something less than full screen, hit the pause button on a particularly bad portion of a video, and press alt-Printscreen on your keyboard (copies the window to the clipboard). Then paste that into Paint or any graphics program. Or use the snipping tool on the window.

To check your sources its: Settings/tv/guide/editchannels, pick a channel, edit sources.
Alternately, bring up the guide, mouse over to a station callsign, infobutton or rightclick, edit station/edit sources.
There should be one source per tuner per channel unless HD & SD have been combined.



The whole picture is not affected. Sometimes the picture is worse than others (only in WMC) e.g. when viewing people in motion. I have three pictures of the same channel taken close together if I could only post them.

OP??? Is that me? Does it mean original poster by any chance? If so, Shift + PrtScn then pasting into the forum reply does not work for me. I tried attaching a jpg and the file size is too large.

The first source I checked (for 2 WATC) shows 2 analog cable sources (tuner 1 & tuner 2). Both are checked. It states they have been merged. Quality = 100%. The second source I checked (15 WGNAMER) shows the same thing. The third source I checked (3 WSB) shows the same thing too.

Hummmm... I think is should show digital (Comcast states they have converted to all digital here. And Hauppauge stated digital too, but I must admit I do not know how they arrived at that from the questions they asked me.)


UPDATE: I was just nosing around to respond to another person trying to help me within this post. I came across different information for a fourth source (5.1 WAGADT). It shows 2 digital cable (clearQAM) sources. Modulation QAM 256. Quality 100%.
Last edited by 2wheels on Fri Nov 11, 2011 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

2wheels

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#30

Post by 2wheels » Fri Nov 11, 2011 12:01 pm

richard1980 wrote:Try using the snipping tool and save the snip as a JPEG. That should significantly reduce the size of the file to an acceptable level. Although I think 256 KB is a little low...just my opinion though, and since I don't run the website, I don't know the whole story, so my opinion really isn't worth much.

My camera's raw photos are jpg. When I try to upload it, I receive a message stating the file size is too large.

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#31

Post by 2wheels » Fri Nov 11, 2011 12:24 pm

makryger wrote:If you're getting the weak signal, that makes me think even more its a signal issue. As I mentioned before, Media Center for some reason needs a better signal than some other sources to get clearqam working. Maybe try lugging your computer to another coax outlet in your place and seeing if that makes any difference. What you may end up needing is a signal booster (motorola makes the best one).

Is there a way to check signal strength for WMC? I checked it in WinTV, but I hear what you are saying about WMC needing stronger signals. What strength does WMC need? In WinTV, I went through more than 12 channels. All state SNR 40, 0 uncorrectable errors, and QAM 256.

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#32

Post by robthecomputerguy » Fri Nov 11, 2011 3:45 pm

2wheels, WinTV tells me SNR 40 as well - but I did previously address this problem with a signal booster... but now the problem has resurfaced.

If you still can't get this picture loaded, for gosh sakes, either email me the file and I'll resize it for you or use a service like imgur where you can upload a picture and it gives you a quick and easy link to share it. rob-at-robthecomputerguy-dot-com

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#33

Post by robthecomputerguy » Fri Nov 11, 2011 3:54 pm

For what it's worth? This tuner is no great shakes... I stuck with Hauppauge because I had an MCE-1500 that, well, changed my life, and save me more money in cable costs than I can fathom.

I've had the HVR-2250's going on 2 years now and WMC does not deal with it well - I have FOUR tuners in the system and every time WMC goes to record a new channel, it changes the channel to the new channel and but the guide says I never moved. It's really ridiculous, and there has to come a point at which if these companies are not going to fix their software in a timely manner, then we gotta look at tech law lemon legislation that entitles us to a refund if something isn't resolved after a certain period of time, I mean sheesh!

So let's say I'm taping Family Guy but I was watching The Amazing Race.
I'm on CBS.
The channel changes to FOX.
The guide says I'm still watching CBS. It even shows I'm recording - but it's not recording CBS.
I'm definitely on FOX though: channel up or down goes from FOX, not CBS.

And for gosh sakes why in the world is this stupid machine changing the live channel on me when I have FOUR tuners!?

When I'm watching something out of the cache - let's say I wasn't recording The Amazing Race, but I was 15 minutes behind because I paused live TV? Well when the system changes the channel to FOX, I'm screwed and miss the rest of the show.

Let's not forget that every single channel for QAM has to be entered into WMC 7 Manually? WMC finds like 4 channels and ALL of them are incorrect. THIS is the digital age?

Ugh!

2wheels

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#34

Post by 2wheels » Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:07 pm

robthecomputerguy wrote:2wheels, WinTV tells me SNR 40 as well - but I did previously address this problem with a signal booster... but now the problem has resurfaced.

If you still can't get this picture loaded, for gosh sakes, either email me the file and I'll resize it for you or use a service like imgur where you can upload a picture and it gives you a quick and easy link to share it. rob-at-robthecomputerguy-dot-com


I have them uploaded to imgur. How do I get a link to share tho? I do not have facebook, twitter, etc. Email does not give me a link. Embedding when I pulled the url out of it did not work. ???

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#35

Post by 2wheels » Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:25 pm

2wheels wrote:
robthecomputerguy wrote:2wheels, WinTV tells me SNR 40 as well - but I did previously address this problem with a signal booster... but now the problem has resurfaced.

If you still can't get this picture loaded, for gosh sakes, either email me the file and I'll resize it for you or use a service like imgur where you can upload a picture and it gives you a quick and easy link to share it. rob-at-robthecomputerguy-dot-com


I have them uploaded to imgur. How do I get a link to share tho? I do not have facebook, twitter, etc. Email does not give me a link. Embedding when I pulled the url out of it did not work. ???

I cut them out of Imgur. That allowed me to get the file size small enough. Finally!
Attachments
Pic 3.jpg
Pic 2.jpg
Pic 1.jpg
Last edited by 2wheels on Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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#36

Post by 2wheels » Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:25 pm

2wheels wrote:
robthecomputerguy wrote:2wheels, WinTV tells me SNR 40 as well - but I did previously address this problem with a signal booster... but now the problem has resurfaced.

If you still can't get this picture loaded, for gosh sakes, either email me the file and I'll resize it for you or use a service like imgur where you can upload a picture and it gives you a quick and easy link to share it. rob-at-robthecomputerguy-dot-com


I have them uploaded to imgur. How do I get a link to share tho? I do not have facebook, twitter, etc. Email does not give me a link. Embedding when I pulled the url out of it did not work. ???


Here is the 4th. I could only post three at one time.
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#37

Post by dmagerl » Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:36 pm

Thanks for those. I change my mind. That looks like low signal to me. Unless your video board is horribly messed up, its not the problem. Yet you say MCE reports good signal strength...

I'm stumped, unless as you suggest, its a codec problem. But I've never seen a codec do that.

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#38

Post by 2wheels » Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:48 pm

dmagerl wrote:Thanks for those. I change my mind. That looks like low signal to me. Unless your video board is horribly messed up, its not the problem. Yet you say MCE reports good signal strength...

I'm stumped, unless as you suggest, its a codec problem. But I've never seen a codec do that.


My signal strength info is from WinTV not WMC.

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#39

Post by makryger » Fri Nov 11, 2011 8:54 pm

@2wheels: I agree- that is a signal issue (thanks for sending me the pics btw, I see you got them posted here before I could respond.) I would try a signal booster, or a different tuner to see if the issue can be switched. Or, as I mentioned earlier, if you have any sort of portability, try another cable outlet to see if that helps at all.

robthecomputerguy wrote:Makryger, are you addressing me? "Another coax outlet" ? LOL. Dude, I live in NYC. A cable comes in from the hallway. Done. And I ran that cable myself and it's been running fine for 4 years. Well, except for about a year ago. And I added a kickass signal booster... and now most of the signals I'm seeing are 40... am I getting the error because my signal is too strong?

I'm using the same card... for almost 3 years now, I have 2 of these cards in a system and I can typically record 4 HD channels at once, and I do... I added 4gb of RAM so now I have 8GB of RAM in the system... it's random but it's on every channel.... SO annoying!
@rob- sorry, I was responding to 2wheels... you must have responded before I could click submit.
To answer your question, I find that cable signals can be really particular. It could very well be that a too strong signal is causing your issue. Maybe try removing the signal booster and seeing if that works. Or maybe try keeping the signal booster, and just adding a splitter to reduce the signal. I wish cable was as simple as low signal, low SNR, poor picture. But it unfortunately does not always obey these rules, and when I try to troubleshoot these issues myself, it ends up being a lot of trial and error.

And I can address your issues about the website separately... this isn't really the place. For future reference "PM" is short for "Private message", often used to avoid getting off topic in a thread.
My Channel Logos XL: Get your Guide looking good! ~~~~ TunerSalad: Increase the 4-tuner limit in 7MC

2wheels

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#40

Post by 2wheels » Sun Nov 13, 2011 11:58 pm

makryger wrote:@2wheels: I agree- that is a signal issue (thanks for sending me the pics btw, I see you got them posted here before I could respond.) I would try a signal booster, or a different tuner to see if the issue can be switched. Or, as I mentioned earlier, if you have any sort of portability, try another cable outlet to see if that helps at all.

robthecomputerguy wrote:Makryger, are you addressing me? "Another coax outlet" ? LOL. Dude, I live in NYC. A cable comes in from the hallway. Done. And I ran that cable myself and it's been running fine for 4 years. Well, except for about a year ago. And I added a kickass signal booster... and now most of the signals I'm seeing are 40... am I getting the error because my signal is too strong?

I'm using the same card... for almost 3 years now, I have 2 of these cards in a system and I can typically record 4 HD channels at once, and I do... I added 4gb of RAM so now I have 8GB of RAM in the system... it's random but it's on every channel.... SO annoying!
@rob- sorry, I was responding to 2wheels... you must have responded before I could click submit.
To answer your question, I find that cable signals can be really particular. It could very well be that a too strong signal is causing your issue. Maybe try removing the signal booster and seeing if that works. Or maybe try keeping the signal booster, and just adding a splitter to reduce the signal. I wish cable was as simple as low signal, low SNR, poor picture. But it unfortunately does not always obey these rules, and when I try to troubleshoot these issues myself, it ends up being a lot of trial and error.

And I can address your issues about the website separately... this isn't really the place. For future reference "PM" is short for "Private message", often used to avoid getting off topic in a thread.


Like this booster -- http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Booster- ... =de_a_smtd

or maybe this outdoor version -- http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Signal-B ... B00122FCRG

I have not seen installation instructions, so I am not sure if I am installing it by the cable co's box outside or inside at the wall outlet I'm using???

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