Pinnacle 801e SE USB Stick + MCE does... nothing.

[homerpez]

I hope I make sense in this post, it's been a long night of working on an upgrade install (Vista 32 to Windows 7 Beta)... now I have discovered that the whole point I did it (to get QAM working in MCE) was a waste.

In Vista 32 MCE, the 801e stick is detected (after installing MCE drivers as well as Vista drivers), and the analog portion works in MCE (but no digital, QAM, clearQAM, etc).

After reading up, I found that supposedly, Windows 7 MCE would support QAM straight away, however this is simply not the case.

I performed an upgrade install to Windows 7... got the ATI card to work (finally)...

Then after uninstalling/unplugging the 801e and plugging it back in, Windows 7 did find it again, and did install some sort of driver automatically from Windows Update. However in MCE, it does nothing. Even starting from scratch in MCE Setup, it goes through the motions but finds no tuners...

Ultimately the whole reason I decided to experiment with Windows 7 was to tune in to (and record) QAM and clearQAM HD channels over cable... now I can't even get MCE to do analog. It doesn't detect ANY tuner, even though the driver is installed via Windows Update.

Has anyone else run into this problem, or better yet, solved it?... thanks in advance

 

[Crunchy Doodle]

As I've mentioned in other posts, what worked best for me was to perform a clean fresh install on a bare drive. I used the advanced setting to delete the previous partitions and start from scratch. I did have some trouble with my QAM tuners, but the HDHomeRun beta driver set fixed that. I can now view and record QAM with no trouble. QAM can be tricky. The first trick is to get MC7 to recognize the QAM tuner. That I could do, however, I guess you can't. So, again I suggest starting from scratch - not an upgrade.

Bye.

 

[homerpez]

While I know it's technically accurate... telling me I need to buy more expensive hardware AND I need to wipe out everything I have on there that DOES work... isn't exactly the solution I was hoping for here... but thanks. :shock:

I may definitely be SOL, but I have seen other Pinnacle users telling how they can at least get mixed results with Win 7 MCE, without even installing any drivers themselves. Even with me, on the upgrade, Win 7 DOES install drivers for the 801e SE stick... it's just that they don't seem to function properly.

I even uninstalled it, chose "delete drivers for this device", unplugged it, plugged it back in, and let it install whatever latest drivers it had on the Windows Update server...

I guess also, to be more specific: MCE doesn't exactly say "no tuner found"... it allows me to click "TV Signal", then it says "MCE cannot determine what kind of signal you have"... odd. I am definitely going to send MS a message on the issue.

So, I guess short of waiting for Microsoft and Pinnacle to update either Win 7 Beta or the drivers for it... is there any work-around?

 

[Crunchy Doodle]

From my reading of Win7 quirks and foibles, and in spite of how well it can work, it's still beta. This means it can be quite fragile when it comes to adding any devices and especially third-party drivers. I have read more than once that upgrading Vista Ultimate to Win7 Ultimate is just not the same as a fresh installation, and that's Microsoft saying that.

The warning that you should not put Win7 on a production machine is very real. I have put Win7 on a netbook, a notebook and my wife's HTPC, All three of these are candidates for blowing away at any time, and have been more than once. I had to blow away the HTPC twice to get it stable. I have my 750GB USB portable HD for pulling off what is worth saving, and bye-bye partitions. My HTPC, my desktop, my wife's desktop, the kids notebooks and the server are staying Vista, XP and Server 2003, as they were. There is too much invested in them to blow away.

So I do not make the suggestion lightly, but from a position of experience with this stuff. I suggest you perform a fresh clean installation of Win7 knowing it may not solve the problem, but at least has a chance.

Bye.

 

[homerpez]

Yeah, such is the nature of these things I suppose. It is only on my "play" machine, which I use only to watch movies and (occasionally) play old arcade games on TV... my work machine is still Vista 32.

With some hacking, I was able to bring back the analog tuner in MCE, which was nice... but I'd still like QAM (and especially HD signals on QAM) to work.

Reading some more into it, I think I may have jumped the gun (along with hundreds of other people) in the hype that "WINDOWS 7 WILL SUPPORT QAM!" Only to find that it doesn't for a lot of people. There's a 7022 build out that may, and supposedly you can upgrade to it from 7000. Supposedly, digital tuners was one thing fixed vs. 7000. I may play around with that and see what I get, anything short of having to nuke the entire contents of the machine...

Thanks for the help so far

 

[SparkyTheFireDog]

Win 7 and 801E do not play together

Tried a clean install of Win 7 RC1 and the 801E, Can not get it working!

Bout ready to reformat and re-install OpenSuse and XP

 

[weltwon]

Pinnacle PCTV QAM Solution

Like previous posters I tinkered with Win 7 RC1 until it finally loaded some drivers and found my Pinnacle PCTV 800i card. MCR then proceeded to find ONLY the analog channels, again like others.

Then i decided to try installing the current Pinnacle driver package AFTEr i changed the compatability setting so it would run the setup file as Windows Xp SP3. VOILA! It installed the entire package, scanned and found ALL the QAM channels I receive from Cox Cable and the display quality is just as good as I have under Win Xp and i haven't even installed the latest Nvidia drivers for Windows 7. I'm running an E8400 OC'd to 4.05Ghz on Gigabyte EP45-UD3P with 2GB of OCZ 1066 RAM and in general, the RC1 and all my apps seem to be running about 20% faster under Win 7 vs. Xp so I might actually forgive Microsoft for their Vista faux pas.

 

[dazednconfused]

This worked for my PCTV USB 880e

I had a difficult time getting Windows Media Center letting me use the ClearQAM from my PCTV HD Ultimate Stick (880e) under Windows 7.

I manually installed the drivers from PCTV Systems.
PCTV Systems > Support > Downloads > Windows 7 BETA driver

Hope this helps.

 

[dschie]

I had a difficult time getting Windows Media Center letting me use the ClearQAM from my PCTV HD Ultimate Stick (880e) under Windows 7.

I manually installed the drivers from PCTV Systems.
PCTV Systems > Support > Downloads > Windows 7 BETA driver

Hope this helps.

How did you install those drivers, please

thanx

 

[Webadict]

Download the appropriate driver for your Pinnacle Stick / Card here

http://www.pctvsystems.com/Support/...Adriver/tabid/181/language/en-US/Default.aspx

Unzip, note locationftp://ftp.pctvsystems.com/TV/driver/Beta/Emp (5.2009.0416.0) Win7-Beta.zip

Open Device Manager ( Start -> type Device Manager hit enter

Navigate to Sound, Video, and Game Controllers

Right Click on your tuner select Update Driver Software

Select Browse My Computer for Software

Select Browse

Navigate to the folder where you unzipped the driver files and select the .inf file

Follow onscreen prompts

Restart W7

Run tv signal setup in Media Center and you will have your Qam

Hope this helps

Scott

 

[dschie]

Download the appropriate driver for your Pinnacle Stick / Card here

PCTV Systems > Support > Downloads > Windows 7 BETA driver

Unzip, note location

Open Device Manager ( Start -> type Device Manager hit enter

Navigate to Sound, Video, and Game Controllers

Right Click on your tuner select Update Driver Software

Select Browse My Computer for Software

Select Browse

Navigate to the folder where you unzipped the driver files and select the .inf file

Follow onscreen prompts

Restart W7

Run tv signal setup in Media Center and you will have your Qam

Hope this helps

Scott

I had the 880e beta drivers already. Tried what you said here, seems to have worked perfectly.

Thanks Much

 

[Webadict]

Very Welcome

 

[niharG]

I have the Pinnacle HD Pro Stick (801e) -- NOT SE and I can't seem to get this to work on 7100 (RC). With the Windows Update drivers, I get analog cable and digital ATSC.
I downloaded the Windows 7 Beta drivers from the PCTV site above and unzipped the files. However, when I tried to update from the device manager, even after pointing it to the new driver's folder, it told me that the best drivers were already installed. So I clicked update drivers again, but this time told it I will select from a list, and clicked the "Have Disk" button, pointing it to the inf file directly. Now I got a message warning me that the driver was unsigned. I accepted anyway and restarted the machine. At this point, WMC won't even detect a tuner. I can easily revert to the old driver just by telling it to automatically update the driver, but this doesn't solve my QAM problems. This is the absolute last thing I need to get working before I can trash Vista. The worst part is that TVCenterPro (the fabulously buggy and resource-hogging Pinnacle software) that does work with QAM keeps catching unhandled exceptions in 7. Any ideas? By the way, this is 64-bit Windows (yes, I'm using PCTV's 64-bit beta driver).

 

[Astounding]

I have the Pinnacle HD Pro Stick (801e) -- NOT SE and I can't seem to get this to work on 7100 (RC). With the Windows Update drivers, I get analog cable and digital ATSC.
I downloaded the Windows 7 Beta drivers from the PCTV site above and unzipped the files. However, when I tried to update from the device manager, even after pointing it to the new driver's folder, it told me that the best drivers were already installed. So I clicked update drivers again, but this time told it I will select from a list, and clicked the "Have Disk" button, pointing it to the inf file directly. Now I got a message warning me that the driver was unsigned. I accepted anyway and restarted the machine. At this point, WMC won't even detect a tuner. I can easily revert to the old driver just by telling it to automatically update the driver, but this doesn't solve my QAM problems. This is the absolute last thing I need to get working before I can trash Vista. The worst part is that TVCenterPro (the fabulously buggy and resource-hogging Pinnacle software) that does work with QAM keeps catching unhandled exceptions in 7. Any ideas? By the way, this is 64-bit Windows (yes, I'm using PCTV's 64-bit beta driver).

I'm having exactly this same problem, only I have the PCI 800i card.

Any solutions yet?

 

[Webadict]

I'm having exactly this same problem, only I have the PCI 800i card.

Any solutions yet?

Goto Device Manager and Uninstall the driver, making sure to delete any driver files, restart, then follow the instructions I posted earlier in this thread.

I am using the exact same card, no issues.

With this driver, Windows 7 even lets you use the Hybrid card as it was meant to be used. Meanng, you can add both digital and analog to your Media Center.

Hope this helps

Scott

 

[Astounding]

Goto Device Manager and Uninstall the driver, making sure to delete any driver files, restart, then follow the instructions I posted earlier in this thread.

I am using the exact same card, no issues.

With this driver, Windows 7 even lets you use the Hybrid card as it was meant to be used. Meanng, you can add both digital and analog to your Media Center.

Hope this helps

Scott

I had done that, and gotten a warning about the driver being unsigned, but installed anyway. However, there was a yellow flag over the device after installation, details were about it being unsigned. When I tried to use media center though it said no tuner was found.

 

[Webadict]

System Specs

I had done that, and gotten a warning about the driver being unsigned, but installed anyway. However, there was a yellow flag over the device after installation, details were about it being unsigned. When I tried to use media center though it said no tuner was found.

Hmm. If you could, please provide a little more detail about your system. Make / Model, What flavor of 7 are you running (x86 or x64), video card, etc. Please be as detailed as you can.

Scott

 

[Astounding]

Hmm. If you could, please provide a little more detail about your system. Make / Model, What flavor of 7 are you running (x86 or x64), video card, etc. Please be as detailed as you can.

Scott

7100 Ultimate RC x64


Custom built PC

C2D 6600
2 gigs corsair xms2 ram
8800gt

 

[niharG]

Yeah same here. I'm running build 7100 x64 on an AMD ZM-86 Turion X2 Ultra, 3GB of DDR2. Maybe the beta 64-bit drivers are not fully developed yet...

 

[Astounding]

Any new developments?