Is it just me, or is this a wider problem?

After the Windows Update that was downloaded Tuesday night / Wednesday morning my Terratec card has been very unreliable! "No TV Signal". After a few shut-downs and restarts it finally works. Until today. Now restarting will not do the trick.

So I have uninstalled (and deleted) the drivers, downloaded the latest to no effect. So I am working my way through all the drivers I can find (Vista and XP versions) to see if I can get it to work.

I can scan and find 70 channels, but can not watch (Live TV) or record them  - again "No TV Signal".

I am using the Crystal Palce transmitter.

Any thoughts?

--

David

I'm noticing some strange beavhiour too after months of flawless behaviour. During the last week or two, the BBC1 has been very stuttery at times, as though the signal is too weak, yet I use a high powered amp to make sure my tv signal is top notch and I have line of sight view to the Fenton transmitter.

I posted elsewhere that the new terratec driver doesn't work at all and I had to revert to the earlier one, but no one else responded.

Could be something to do with the nvidia drivers, or as Noah mentioned (from MS) the sound driver plays an instrumental part on ensuring that tv quality is good, something to do with the timing provision (wierd I know). Who knows with this cr*p.

(I'm getting increasingly hacked off with MS and vmc. It's just not quite bad enough to say stuff you.)

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Gordon
VMC1:CM4, i855-GMEm-LFS, PeM 1.6, 2g 333, 200g+400g PATA, Rad9600, NovaT500(+PVR150MCE), s/c TB Riviera, VGA-SCRT+PStrp (3.4)

VMC2:Shuttle SD11G5(915GM), P M 740 1.73, 2g 533, 300+500gPATA, NvidGForceNX7300GT (256 ddr2), Terratec2400iDT (3.6)

Identical issue here guys!  all fine since I installed the machine in Feb, until the critical updates of the 14/15 June 2007.

Pulling my hair out here.  Anyone got any soloutions?

Thanks.

M.

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www.automatedhome.com

I'm hoping that its one of those situations where MS repaired something that was broke (as if?), didn't tell anyone, Terratec are still working around the bug and now their fix doesn't work. I say this because my hauupauge is okay. I know that for instance Terratec couldn't get their Cinergy XS analogue/digital usb  card working because of a known problem (to MS) that they were waiting to be fixed. maybe after six months.. I'm ranting again aren't I? Sorry.

Guess we'll just have to keep an eye on the Terratec site (and all of us send them an email)

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Gordon
VMC1:CM4, i855-GMEm-LFS, PeM 1.6, 2g 333, 200g+400g PATA, Rad9600, NovaT500(+PVR150MCE), s/c TB Riviera, VGA-SCRT+PStrp (3.4)

VMC2:Shuttle SD11G5(915GM), P M 740 1.73, 2g 533, 300+500gPATA, NvidGForceNX7300GT (256 ddr2), Terratec2400iDT (3.6)

I'm glad it is not just me. I have emailed Terratec support - expect a reply within 10 days

I'm getting very tempted to give up with Terratec and buy a different card. It has never worked with S3 sleep and Terratec appear unwilling to fix it.

That's interesting because it's one  thing that does work on my shuttle.

It is all just so wierd isn't it.

ITV 1 which I'm watching live now, seems okay, but BBC1, 2 is very jerky.
When changing back to ITV the picture/sound does take a few seconds to settle down though.

The thing I liked initially about the Terratec was it's good sensitivity to input.

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Gordon
VMC1:CM4, i855-GMEm-LFS, PeM 1.6, 2g 333, 200g+400g PATA, Rad9600, NovaT500(+PVR150MCE), s/c TB Riviera, VGA-SCRT+PStrp (3.4)

VMC2:Shuttle SD11G5(915GM), P M 740 1.73, 2g 533, 300+500gPATA, NvidGForceNX7300GT (256 ddr2), Terratec2400iDT (3.6)

I've just set up the terratec home cinema and BBC1, BBC2 seem fine on that. Multiplex issue, frequencies changed?

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Gordon
VMC1:CM4, i855-GMEm-LFS, PeM 1.6, 2g 333, 200g+400g PATA, Rad9600, NovaT500(+PVR150MCE), s/c TB Riviera, VGA-SCRT+PStrp (3.4)

VMC2:Shuttle SD11G5(915GM), P M 740 1.73, 2g 533, 300+500gPATA, NvidGForceNX7300GT (256 ddr2), Terratec2400iDT (3.6)

Yesterday I downloaded the new nvidia drivers and decided to just get everything uptodate.

No change.

with the new Terratec 1.0.3.260 drivers and completely reinstalling including media centre there was no picture or sound. It found all the channels fine.

With the Terratec Home Cinema offering the channels were fine, no problem (didn't try full screen though - forgot.

Reloaded the old drivers 1.0.3.255 and reinstalled vmc ect. BBC1, BBC2 are choppy and drop out, everything else seems fine. Home Cinema is fine for all channels.


No word from Terratec at all. :(

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Gordon
VMC1:CM4, i855-GMEm-LFS, PeM 1.6, 2g 333, 200g+400g PATA, Rad9600, NovaT500(+PVR150MCE), s/c TB Riviera, VGA-SCRT+PStrp (3.4)

VMC2:Shuttle SD11G5(915GM), P M 740 1.73, 2g 533, 300+500gPATA, NvidGForceNX7300GT (256 ddr2), Terratec2400iDT (3.6)

Well, I'm afraid I've lost patience with Terratec. So I bought a NOVA-T 500

Plugged it it, turned it on, Vista downloaded drivers from Windows Update, configured new tuner and within 15 minutes all was working fine

If Terratec ever fix their driver (and the issues with resuming from S3 sleep and Vista not finding the tuners) I will have lots of tuners!

I did hear back from Terratec. They suggested I try the old 1.0.3.255 drivers and also try Terratec Home Cinema. Alas I had already tried old drivers and I do not want to pollute my system with extra software I don't really want to use. (Also, their email arrived about an hour before my new tuner card was delivered.)

 

How pathetic and shortsighted of Terratec.

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Gordon
VMC1:CM4, i855-GMEm-LFS, PeM 1.6, 2g 333, 200g+400g PATA, Rad9600, NovaT500(+PVR150MCE), s/c TB Riviera, VGA-SCRT+PStrp (3.4)

VMC2:Shuttle SD11G5(915GM), P M 740 1.73, 2g 533, 300+500gPATA, NvidGForceNX7300GT (256 ddr2), Terratec2400iDT (3.6)

Well Terratec have acknowledged there is a problem, so this is welcome re:

>Dear Mr. Moore,
>
>well, we seem to have a driver problem concerning the Vista media
>center. We are working on this issue. The card should work fine in our
>software Terratec Home Cinema.

Even better for Linux users is this additional statement:

>Find linux drivers attached. They come with no suppport. Please read the
>README before you install.

I spent a few hours yesterday re-organising and checking my aerial leads, following some comments by Ian Dixon on the Jessica Zahn podcast. It has improved the BBC1 and 2 pictures and I'm not getting any jerking now. But why it should have deteriorated from perfect in the last few weeks is unknown.

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Gordon
VMC1:CM4, i855-GMEm-LFS, PeM 1.6, 2g 333, 200g+400g PATA, Rad9600, NovaT500(+PVR150MCE), s/c TB Riviera, VGA-SCRT+PStrp (3.4)

VMC2:Shuttle SD11G5(915GM), P M 740 1.73, 2g 533, 300+500gPATA, NvidGForceNX7300GT (256 ddr2), Terratec2400iDT (3.6)

I have also just received another reply:

> it could be a driver issue, but it could also be a decoder problem.
> Please try the decoder utility from here to check for installed decoders and try other ones

Looks like they have not got a consistent story

My Nova-T 500 is working fine though

 

I also got a similar response!

"we are investigating on the descibed problems, as they occured a bit too often in the last weeks. Please be patient and take a look at our driver section from time to time. I´m sorry but at the moment I cannot do anything more for you."

Just be glad they're admitting a problem - in the past they've always ignored big & obvious driver problems!

 

FWIW, I emailed & got the 'there is a problem, be patient' reply too.

Just tried the new Cinergy 2400i driver 1.0.3.266 and for me there is no change from the 1.0.3.260 driver - its still just a blank screen on every channel of Live TV despite a full Guide update and full rescan of all channels. Rolled back to version 1.0.3.255 and TV immediately re-appears.

Can anyone in the UK get the 260 or 266 drivers to work with the native Vista MC TV software?  If not, I can't understand why Terratec don't simply test their drivers in the UK before release?

Richard