Windows 7 media center freezing

[nowashburn]

i just installed windows 7 rc and everything went as smooth as possible. my computer is a dell inspirion 530 with 4 gigs of ram, 160gb hard drive, Intel Core2 Duo processor E4300, and NVIDIA GeForce 8300GS graphics card.

the main thing i wanted to try was the new improved media center. the whole setup process went fine and i can play web tv, music, and see everything including my local channels in the guide. problem is that when i try to watch live tv it almost immediately crashes. i can hear the sound from the cable feed for about 1 second then the whole thing freezes up. i know the cable line is good because if i hook it up directly to my tv it works just fine. the tuner is a hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 Dual Tuner PCI Express TV tuner and i made sure the drivers were up to date.

anybody have any suggestions out there? thanks!

 

[reghakr]

This happen to be a problem with many tuner cards.

There is no Windows 7 driver, but the Vista driver may work.

If you haven't gone to Hauppauge web site, here's a link for the latest drivers:

WinTV-HVR-2250

 

[nowashburn]

This happen to be a problem with many tuner cards.

There is no Windows 7 driver, but the Vista driver may work.

If you haven't gone to Hauppauge web site, here's a link for the latest drivers:

WinTV-HVR-2250

thanks for your quick reply. i did indeed go to the site to make sure i had the latest drivers. interestingly enough, i tried another tuner and had the same exact problem. this one was the AVerTV Hybrid Volar HX, which is connected by usb.

is it a coincidence that both tuners' drivers don't work in windows 7? or, could it be a different problem?

thanks again!

 

[reghakr]

Did you get the latest drivers for the AVerTV Hybrid Volar HX as well?

 

[nowashburn]

Did you get the latest drivers for the AVerTV Hybrid Volar HX as well?

yes. someone on another forum (before i found this one) suggested to download the following:

http://www.free-codecs.com/K_Lite_Codec_Pack_download.htm
Link Removed due to 404 Error

i took a look at both though im not sure how either would help the problem. this is really strange.

 

[reghakr]

The downloads mention are called Codec Packs and allow you to play many different types of audio and video

the codec packs MPEG-4 decoder

I would suggest FFDshow

you can download it here:
FFDShow MPEG-4 Video Decoder 2009-05-25

Other than that, you may have to wait for the manufacturer to write Windows 7 driver.

 

[nowashburn]

so ive come to the conclusion that this is indeed a problem with windows 7 media center. here is why...

both tuners previously mentioned work flawlessly when using their native software. i can watch tv fine on windows 7 when using the hauppage software or the avermedia software.

both tuners also worked fine with windows vista media center.

since both tuners do work fine with their native software, this is most lilely not a driver problem. i understand that i am only using a release canidate and i hope this feedback helps someone somewhere fix the problem. for now, looks like ill be going back to vista on this pc since media center is one thign i do use a lot. thanks for everyones help.

to restate the issue, when using windows 7 media center in live tv mode, the computer freezes up after at most 1 second after selecting a program to watch. tested on two differnt tuners previously mentioned.

 

[nowashburn]

i guess i forgot to post one of the most important things...

after letting media center sit for about 5 mins into freezing, a blue screen pops up saying something along the lines of (i cannot quote exactly) there has been an error in microsoft windows and must restart. this flashes for about three seconds then of course, the cpu restarts itself.

 

[reghakr]

I would suggest removing the TV tuner connected to the USB hub along with all other USB devices expect your mouse and keyboard.

Or change it the other way around

Are these tuners both dual NTSC and ATSC combos?

 

[nowashburn]

I would suggest removing the TV tuner connected to the USB hub along with all other USB devices expect your mouse and keyboard.

Or change it the other way around

Are these tuners both dual NTSC and ATSC combos?

there has never been anything hooked up to this cpu since the windows 7 was installed except these tuners and a keyboard and mouse. i also never had both tuners installed at the same time. the avermedia tuner is a single usb connected tuner. the happauge is a pci express dual tuner.

 

[nowashburn]

also, when scanning the channels in media center you can see that it actually does recognize that the channels are there, plus 19 "additional" channels. the hauppage tuner also has a signal strength program in which my signal strength comes back and excellent.

 

[nowashburn]

windows 7 seems like its going to be a great release. anyone know how we can report problems such as this?

 

[Randyman]

Old thread bump - Just wanted to clarify that the Happauge 2250 works well with my W7 RC1 32-bit setup using W7's Media Center. I just added a second 2250 into the system (4 tuners total), and so far, so good.

I initially tried an Aver Media PCIe card, but its tuner appeared to be defective (or extremely un-sensitive as it would not find a single channel), and I experienced "Freezing" as nowashburn mentioned. Even when playing content off the local hard drive, the video was jerky and completely unwatchable. I was using on-board video at the time, and I figured it was inadequate for 1080P duties. I swapped to a $50 ATI HD4650 w/Integrated HDMI Audio, and the TV Tuner "freezing" vanished and the local hard drive video playback was perfectly smooth - but the Aver Media card would still not detect any channels, so I swapped to the Happauge 2250's, and I get 100% signal on most channels Go figure

nowashburn - if you are still having this issue - are you using low-end onboard video? I think that is where my initial "freezing" issues stemmed from...

 

[hornstarbu]

Similar Issue

From your posts, I seem to be having the same, or at least a very similar issue.

I have a Gigabyte MA69 S2H motherboard
Hauppauge 2250 tuner
Hauppauge 1600 tuner

My Media Center locks up, with the picture and blue in alternating lines showing up on the screen. I can play videos fine in other programs, but in Media Center, I freeze even if I play a slideshow, view a movie, watch tv, netflix, etc.

edit: The freeze is not instant, it happens after 5-1hr depending on how intense the media is (movies, 5 mins....pics, 1 hr) Could my issue be RAM related or something? Would a graphics card help like it did for you? I would have to revamp my HTPC totally to add a video card.

Does yours only lock up when viewing TV, or can you stream a full movie?