Vista - Hauppauge PVR150 & WinTV-PVR-USB2 Troubles

I have both devices but Home Premium SP1 (64) is killing me. With the 150 I could sometimes get a driver to install but running any TV apps all I got was choppy video/sound. I uninstalled the 150 & now tried the USB2. However now Vista64 cannot "see" any device when installing drivers either via its own auto-look-for-drivers or Hauppauge's CD drivers 3.4D1. Hauppauge says that CD version is supposed to work for the USB2 AND the PVR150 devices in Vista64 but I can't get either to work.

The only thing I found in this forum that came close was something about a misplaced usbscan file but that file does not even exist in Vista64 SP1.

Can anyone PLEASE advise ?

I have the Hauppauge pvr usb2 that I ran on my laptop Vista Home 32 bit and worked fine. Then for more disk space I plugged it into my Vista Ultamate 64 and use Beyond TV and not the bundled Hauppauge software. The drivers loaded fine from the Hauppage cd and it works great!

After plugging it in to the pc and turning on your pc.. look to see that the usb2 unit lights come on. Vista won't recognize, nor the cd, unless the lights are on so check all connections (sometimes it takes a few minutes for the lights to come on the first time you plug it into the pc). I also found that it worked better with most usb connections but not all so try switching usb connections on the pc also.

Hope this helps.

Well unfortunately I could not get it , PVR-USB2 , to work in Vista64. I simply could get Vista64 to find the CD drivers no matter what I did. I was able to at least get the PVR150 pci card's drivers to load/install but it ran horribly with stutters & freezing up.

I went ahead & purchased another hdd & WinXP-Pro & installed both on same p/c. I can run either Hauppauge device now (not at same time of course) without any problems at all.

I can't say I "hate" Vista as it certainly has its good points. But XP is most stable of the two OS's so I now have best of both worlds !

Thankyou for the post & suggestions.

FWIW - I would be highly surprised if a 7 year old OS was *less* stable than a 1.5 year old one....

Seriously, though, have you verified that your products were Vista X64 ready? A big problem with the move to x64 is the lack of drivers - which is compounded by the lack of functional drivers for Vista in the first place...

[quote=johngalt;759078]FWIW - I would be highly surprised if a 7 year old OS was *less* stable than a 1.5 year old one....

Gee ya think ??

And yes...fwiw...Hauppauge says "Vista64".

An obvious assumption. But I guess I should have made the "obvious" obvious. I mean vistax64.com kind'a gives it away.

Hauppauge Computer Works : Support - USB2 - no mention of it working in Vista, let alone x64

Hauppauge Computer Works : Support
According to the FAQ you can run it in Vista x64 but it can only use the drivers from Hauppauge Computer Works : Support and you cannot use the WinTV application at all - which actually suits me just fine because I prefer MCE anyway.

So, I suppose that you downloaded the CD Version 3.4D1, but after all that the resolution and everything was crappy.

Now, I suggest that you install the Vista Codec package. After that you might want to check your system while MCE is running to see if something is spiking in usage, perhaps an AV program or something.

I bought the WinTV-HVR-1800 that came with a remote control and the remote control and receiver worked OOB directly in Vista x64, but my card in the PCIe slot suddenly was not recognized anymore - I had to physically move it to another slot and then it was recognized again by Vista.

My guess is that these drivers are still not the best ones, and the Hauppage cards are finicky also - I have another device in the slot where the HVR was and it works flawlessly, so it was not the slot, and the HVR works flawlessly where it is now, so it was not the card either....

I just got my WINTV-950 working after an exchange of emails with Hauppauge. Vista x64 will not recognize the programs nor run them. So what does that mean? You have to uninstall all traces of the Hauppauge programs first. Second, download the support CD from their website. Unzip but don't install. Third, plug in the device and when it asks for drivers, point it to the unzipped folder. It will find the proper device and install it.

Next, you have to switch over to Media Center and setup a new TV signal. If you get an error where you can't see any signal, you might have to reinstall the MCE program which you can also download from the Hauppauge website.

According to Hauppauge, you can only watch the live tv in Media Center. And generally that is correct. However, I have found that I can minimize Media Center and watch TV while working in Vista x64 with no issues at all.

It took awhile and it was frustrating... but I got it all working just fine. Below is where you will find the files from the Support CD as well as the MCE Soft Encoder if you need them.

Hauppauge Computer Works : Support

That's all interesting. One has to delete & re-install a Vista pgm in the slim hope of getting a Hauppauge pgm to work.

I can't for the life of me understand why Hauppauge will not create drivers that will allow their own products to work in Vista64.

If the average person reads your post & what you had to go through in order to simply watch TV , forget about recording , I doubt very many will do it on the wing & prayer of getting their Hauppauge device to work.

Fwiw...I did the "complete uninstall" (hcwclear.exe) more times than I EVER want to again. I pointed Vista64 to the Hauppauge CD & every driver in it trying to get something installed. I've no doubt a few have got their Hauppauge device to work at least partly.

But it's almost funny that Hauppauge cannot do something to make their product work in Vista64. Oh and their so called "tech support"...that to is a joke. The best they could come up with , after a delay of three days , was "point Vista to the CD driver". I guess if that does not work their "tech support" is out of ideas.

Hauppauge is a joke. But hey...they got my $$. Buyer beware of Hauppauge.

No, you don't delete / uninstall MCE - that is integrated into Vista.

However, Hauppage has their own application, WinTV, that you can use as an alternate to MCE. That is the one that you can download from their pages.

Well after trying & re-trying different scenarios , due to Hauppauge support saying "just point Vista64 to the CD install folder" , I FINALLY found out why my PVR USB2 will not work in Vista64.

Hauppauge support via email:

"some models of the PVR-USB2 do not work under the 64bit platform, if you
could tell me the five digit model number of you unit I could verify for you
if your unit will work in vista 64bit".

Oh ok. Of course I have one of the "some models". Hauppauge support failed to say WHY some models do not work via Vista64 & why others do. And since Hauppauge knows there are problems with some why don't they issue a driver that WILL work in Vista64 ??

Also , as noted , why does my PVR150 have the exact same Vista64 install problems as the PVR USB2 ??

Surely Hauppauge's , arguably , best selling internal/external PVR's can't both have the same flaw...or can they ??

What a bunch of crap.