hvr-1600 problems

[gary201]

I bought an hvr-1600 about a month ago, and I have had nothing but problems with it (not the card, but the WinTV software and the remote). I've submitted numerous questions to the online support website and I've only received one reply (with a keycommands.xml file), but after using that, the remote control is now working worse that before. Does the company actually respond to support issues?

Here is a summary of all the issues I've had. Keep in mind that my expectations were that this device (from a company that seems to specialize in this) should be better than the USB OnAir HDTV-GT device that I've had for years. That said, here are the issues I have run into...

1) Other than the green button to turn off Wintv, and the Go button and TV button, none of the other buttons on the remote work at all. They did (occasionally) before I put the newer keycommands.xml file in place, but then only some of the time. The USB HDTV-GT (always) works (even when the program is not the "top" window on the screen, which seem to be the only way the Hauppauge remote will work at all).

2) There are 4 channels I want to remove from the channel list (1, 14, 15, and 2180). WinTV simply refuses to allow all four of them to be unselected. I can at most get 3 of them unselected, but when I uncheck the 4th one and close/save the settings window, one or two of the others become re-enabled.

3) If I play live tv for long periods of time (and yes, the pause/skip thing is nice and was the primary motivation for buying this device), and I skip over commercials and over-skip and try to skip back, most of the time the app will simply stop responding. it won't restart playing or skip back/forth. The only way I've been able to get the app to start working again is to close/reopen it. But that means I loose the ability to view that period of time that it was paused.

4) The app has no apparent way to view the transmitted programming info over the unencoded hd cable channels. My OnAir USB HDTV-GT does this and I've had that thing for years. Since Hauppauge is such a "name brand" and been around for such a long time, I would have thought it would do a (lot) better than this mostly unknown company's product.

5) The app simply will not work (live tv) if you move the pause buffer folder to a network share (e.g. my QNAP 409P NAS), nor will it record programs if the recording folder is there. Again, my OnAir USB HDTV-GT app doesn't have any problems with this and I've had that device for years. This pretty much limits it's usefulness to the amount of free space you have on local disk. In my setup at home, none of my systems have more than about 40GB local disk --because everything of importance is stored (and backed up) on the NAS.

Overall I guess I'm fairly disappointed with the device because of the above issues I'm running into, which would seem to be pretty obvious things that it should do.

When I first bought the product I installed the drivers/software off the CDs (windows xp/sp3). After having all sorts of crashing problems I updated to the newer versions from online, which just made things worse. I subsequently uninstalled/removed everything and installed using just the newer versions from online and the above are the current issues that are significant to me.

Can Hauppauge provide any information on when some of these problems will be resolved? I turned to this forum because the people monitoring the website support posts just haven't been very responsive.

Thanks...

[nacho32]

what model of the 1600 do you have? I have the 1199 and I'm very happy with it, besides a occasional crash but other then that the card has worked great. I have to ask why try to buffer it to a network ? If you want to share it over a network use VLC. Instead of un checking the box of a channel have you tried to right click delete method? No offence but get a more HD space, you can get a hard drive Off Craigs List for 20 bucks :) With just basic cable Comcast I can pull all the digital QAM channels in with no problem and since they don't encrypt the local HD channels I get them to. My set up triple boot XP-windows7--Ubuntu with 3 hard drives, set buffer and record on the other hard drives for optimal performance. This will kill any chance of a hick-up, and I even bought a cooler for this card and like I said it rocks love it,

[gary201]

I also have the 1199 model. No offense taken, but you missed the point about network storage. I first tried to record to a network share, and that didn't work. So, I tried the pause buffer and that didn't work either. The point of testing both was to determine if it was a systemic problem with the app or just with one particular recording function.

Further, I shouldn't (have) to buy more disk just to use this thing and record (or pause for that matter, although the point of pausing to a network share is largely pointless since I do have sufficient local space for the temporary files). My usb product I've had for years does this, and it's form a no-name company. I would have thought a well known product would too, but unfortunately it does not. Technically this is a bug since the app lets you configure non-local storage. If the app doesn't support it, then it shouldn't let you choose that location.

Again, with deselecting multiple channels, this also is a bug (and one that simply shouldn't have made it past the most basic of QA testing prior to release).

[TheNewGuy]

I also have the 1199 model. No offense taken, but you missed the point about network storage. I first tried to record to a network share, and that didn't work. So, I tried the pause buffer and that didn't work either. The point of testing both was to determine if it was a systemic problem with the app or just with one particular recording function.I just checked this here, and it worked fine for me. I'm guessing you either use mapped drives instead of UNC paths (since recording is done from a different user account and wont see those mapped drives), or the recording user account did not have the permissions that would required to writ to your network volume.


Again, with deselecting multiple channels, this also is a bug (and one that simply shouldn't have made it past the most basic of QA testing prior to release).I cant follow what you mean. What exactly is the bug?

[nacho32]

Ok But as I said VLC will allow you to stream over a network,and ant no program is perfect:) tried them all and besides a crash here and their wintv7 is pretty sweet would love to see a program guide , like WMC, but that's another story:)

[gary201]

I just checked this here, and it worked fine for me. I'm guessing you either use mapped drives instead of UNC paths (since recording is done from a different user account and wont see those mapped drives), or the recording user account did not have the permissions that would required to writ to your network volume.

I cant follow what you mean. What exactly is the bug?

Well, regarding the location for Recordings and Disk Buffering, the fields are not directly editable, meaning you have to select the directory from a list. There is no ability to enter a unc path. Given that, then yes, it's a mapped drive. And, my logon credentials to the XP workstation is the same as that to the NAS share. Where precisely would this unc and credentials be entered in the WinTV Settings dialog?

Regarding the Bug, on the Channels tab of the WinTV Settings dialog, I cannot clear the checkbox for channels 1, 14, 15, and 2180 and have those 4 channels remain "unchecked". At most I can get either 2 or 3 of them to remain unchecked. Unchecking all four and clicking [OK] always results on 1 or two of them becoming re-checked and subsequently listed in the channel list. That's the bug.

[TheNewGuy]

Well, regarding the location for Recordings and Disk Buffering, the fields are not directly editable, meaning you have to select the directory from a list. There is no ability to enter a unc path. Given that, then yes, it's a mapped drive. And, my logon credentials to the XP workstation is the same as that to the NAS share. Where precisely would this unc and credentials be entered in the WinTV Settings dialog?I just tried here and could browse to a unc path, by going through the 'network' section of the folder browser, and selecting a share on a machine.

Alternatively, if you want to use the mapped drives, then you'd have to go into the Windows 'Services' control panel and set the startup account on the 'Hauppauge TV Server' service.

Really though, I wouldnt record to a network drive. You'll definitely end up having problems. There are too many reasons that can cause a network drive to be initially unavailable, and they'll often struggle to keep up with the demands of simultaneously reading and writing from the network drive at the continous rates needed for video capture and live tv viewing.


Regarding the Bug, on the Channels tab of the WinTV Settings dialog, I cannot clear the checkbox for channels 1, 14, 15, and 2180 and have those 4 channels remain "unchecked". At most I can get either 2 or 3 of them to remain unchecked. Unchecking all four and clicking [OK] always results on 1 or two of them becoming re-checked and subsequently listed in the channel list. That's the bug.We did find the cause of this and have fixed it for 1.3 due in a few days. It wasnt anything to do with the number of channels. You could deselect a dozen or so if you wanted (but you had to do them in one go, and they wouldnt stay deselected). Basically the next time you went to the settings screen your correct selections were still set, then ok out again and go back in and they'd all be selected again.

[gary201]

I just tried here and could browse to a unc path, by going through the 'network' section of the folder browser, and selecting a share on a machine.

Alternatively, if you want to use the mapped drives, then you'd have to go into the Windows 'Services' control panel and set the startup account on the 'Hauppauge TV Server' service.

Really though, I wouldnt record to a network drive. You'll definitely end up having problems. There are too many reasons that can cause a network drive to be initially unavailable, and they'll often struggle to keep up with the demands of simultaneously reading and writing from the network drive at the continous rates needed for video capture and live tv viewing.

Thank you! That did seem to solve the problem of recording to a remote storage location. I've recordrd to my NAS for years w/the old USB OnAir HDTV-GT and never had a problem, although that product records directly to a .mpg file vs to an intermediate .ts file and then doing a post-conversion, so that products bandwidth requirements for recording will most certainly be less.


We did find the cause of this and have fixed it for 1.3 due in a few days. It wasnt anything to do with the number of channels. You could deselect a dozen or so if you wanted (but you had to do them in one go, and they wouldnt stay deselected). Basically the next time you went to the settings screen your correct selections were still set, then ok out again and go back in and they'd all be selected again.

This is the first good news I've received since trying to get help w/the product since buying it about a month ago. If it weren't for the "pausing" capability during live tv play, I probably would have abandoned it by now. I hope the forward progress of squashing the remaining bugs keeps up --especially with the remote control issues. :)