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Hauppauge Colossus Q&A
Update 4/1/2011: Hi Everyone, Michael has some other priorities right now so I am going to take over his efforts with the Colossus. I should be getting the card next week and will try to get a working setup in the next couple weeks to continue on with this thread.
I currently have a prototype Hauppauge Colossus HD PVR in my development HTPC and wanted to start a Q\A thread here at Missing Remote.
Note, I am using a prototype board so my experience may vary slightly from the production boards but not significantly. So far it has been stable. I am using two boards, one with digital audio and the other with stereo audio to compare and track potential stability differences.
To start off below is the system I'm using to test the Colossus:
| Motherboard | Intel DH67BL |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core i5-2500K |
| Graphics Card | Intel HD Graphics |
| Memory | CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 |
| Boot Drive | Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB SATA III |
| Data Drive | WD Green 1 TB |
| Operating System | Window 7 SP1 64-bit |
| Provider | Comcast - Digital - Houston |
| Set-Top Box | Scientific Atlanta Explorer 4250HDC |
Please ask any questions and I will do my best to answer and maintain a Q\A list here.
Pricing and Availability
Q. How much does the Hauppauge Colossus cost?
A. The Hauppauge Colossus retails for $159
Q. When is the Hauppauge Colossus expected to ship?
A. Initial estimates were early February but I think late February or early March is more realistic.
It is available for pre-order now via http://store.hauppauge.com/AddToShoppingCart.asp?ProductID=115
2/18 Update: Some users reported receiving tracking information already.
Features
Q. What audio formats are supported?
A. AC-3 (stereo or 5.1) or stereo AAC audio capture
Q. What audio formats are supported via HDMI-IN?
A. AC-3 (stereo or 5.1) or stereo PCM audio capture. DTS will be supported in the near future.
HD Audio formats are not supported.
Q. What video resolutions and bit rates are supported?
A. Up to 1080i resolution, 720p or VGA/D1 with datarates from 1Mbs to 13.5Mbs, Constant and Variable Bit Rate.
Q. What inputs are on the card?
A. There are four inputs. 1- HDMI; 2- A dongle that provides either component video + analog audio or composite video + analog audio; 3- TOSLINK SPDIF (digital optical) input; 4- IR receiver (shared with the IR blaster).
Q. What outputs are on the card?
A. There are three outputs on the Colossus. 1- SPDIF out; 2- A dongle that provides either component video out + analog out, or composite video + analog out; 3- IR baster (shared with the IR receiver).
Q. My Colossus did not come with the composite cable (with the yellow jack) shown above, what do I do?
A. The blue-colored jack on the component cable can be used for composite video.
Q. Can you output HDMI audio\video input through the component video out?
A. No, pass through video is limited to the component or composite video.
Support and Requirements
Q. What TV providers will the Colossus work with?
A. The Colossus will work with any set-top box that provides component video output or unprotected HDMI output. This includes cable television, satellite and IPTV solutions.
A. Yes but I have not tested it. I am only testing in Windows 7 64-bit for now.
Q. What PVR software will support the Colossus as a HDTV tuner?
A. SageTV 7.x and Windows Media Center.
Q. Can I install more than one Hauppauge Colossus in the same PC?
A. Yes.
2/18 Update: Similarly to the HD-PVR, Windows Media Center is still limited to a single Colossus. SageTV's Colossus support does not have this limitation.
SageTV
Q. Is Colossus support available to public?
A. Yes, I highly recommend V7.1.5 (or higher) Public Beta for Colossus support.
Q. Am I limited to a single Colossus or USB HD-PVR?
A. No. I am using multiple Colossus and USB HD-PVR with SageTV
Windows 7 Media Center
Q. Is Colossus support available to public?
A. WMC is currently supported with 29168 driver.
Q. Am I limited to a single Colossus or USB HD-PVR?
A. For the time being, yes.
Q. Does it work the same as the USB HD PVR?
A. It is a very similar integration with Media Center but there is an important difference. Below are screenshots of the new Hauppauge Media Center Device Central. It isn't all that exciting except that it shows the forthcoming support for multiple devices. More on this and 3rd party channel changing support in the full review.
Physical and Environmental
Q. What interface does the Hauppauge Colossus use?
A. The Hauppauge Colossus is a full height, PCI-e x1 card.
Q. Will there be a low-profile card available?
A. No, at least not that I know of.
- Aaron Ledger's blog
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Comments
I'm assuming GBPVR (or NPVR) will probably support it as well since Sub says he has one and had support for the HDPVR before it was even released.
I imagine you are right. I sent Sub an e-mail via the forums to see if there was a build of NextPVR that I could test but did not get a response.
I was very interested in this when I saw the release photos but my HD-PVR's have been running so well (knock on wood) I don't think I want to replace them!!!
Will the IR blaster finally support 2 instalations?
Hmm. I'm dumping my Intensity Pro on Amazon. It was the most frustrating HW experience I've ever had. I was going to buy the 1212 HD-PVR but it sounds like I should wait for this (cheaper than the HD-PVR as well). Can you tell us about the encoding formats and quality settings supported?
Currently the same as the 1212 HD-PVR which is H.264 (.TS, .M2TS and .MP4). The new chip supports MPEG-2 however it is not implemented. 3rd party software may be able to use it for harware encoding though.
Hmm.. shame that now the master key for hdcp is known, that there's no way to make use of that with one of these =)
Ah well, it still handles component/optical..
Questions:
Do the drivers support any sort of brightness/contrast/gamma settings for capture (from component and/or hdmi) ?
Do the drivers support any sort of a/v offset compensation / adjustment ?
Is the component passthru always active, or only active while the card is able to make sense of the input signal ?
How well does it cope during capturing if the source resolution / audio format changes (eg adverts) ?
How does the quality of it's encoding compare to the HDPVR ? Does this unit offer support for any more advanced encoding features?
Whats the funky white connector on the top of the card for ?
How warm does the card get after say 24 hrs of continuous operation ?
As component passthru always active, Your system must be on and drivers loaded just like the HD PVR USB model
As for source resolution changes is not possable you must use a fix resolution just like HD PVR USB Model.
The white A/V header is there standard A/V add-in card the very same found on old PVR 150, 250 and 500 card
I'll reply w/ all the answers tonight, I don't have access to it at the moment so I don't want to provide any false information.
It is an additional optional A\V connector: http://store.hauppauge.com/accessories2.asp?product=av_cable
I havent used Sage yet...so I'm wondering how this will handle metadata for recorded tv shows, etc.?
SageTV stores that info by using the TV guide data it gets from Zap2It.
In V7 metadata gets appended to the end of nativly recorded shows as well.
I don't have an HDPVR. Does the user have any control over the encoding quality or filtering? (denoise, decomb, etc..)
Does the driver/chip include the closed captioning stream in the encoded file? All Hauppauge cards do except for the USB HD-PVR.
No it does not. There is NO closed captioning available in component video for the HD PVR to include.
Edit: Bolded NO since accidently left it out.
This will depend on the STB. I have no special knowledge of consumer STBs that do/don't. Composite video can support Line21 EIA-608 captions. HD component video could contain EIA-708 (which can also include EIA-608) captions which would typically ride in Line9 though it could be in other non-active video lines.
Aaron and I discussed offline. I knew L21 could be include in composite video but I wasn't aware that it therotically could in YPbPr component analog video as well. I checked with my contact at Motorola and eventhough it therotically can, none do. He referred me to this Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_captioning#HDTV_interoperability_issues
Note: Aaron is a genius when it comes to signals so if you want more info there ask away
Actually, my original comment could have been stated better
. While it's theoretically possible for caption data to be present in component, I think we have a situation where SMPTE has specified carriage in digital video only and this is what is done in professional broadcast equipment. At least I am not aware of a spec SMPTE issued regarding the sending of EIA-708 captions in analog.
NTSC Line21 (EIA-608) captions are indeed possible in composite.
So basically, the industry screwed up the transition to digital broadcast
Thanks for the clarification. I always thought it was a matter of driver-design, given the fact that Hauppauge still has this in the USB HD-PVR FAQs page:
I've actually been looking into this issue for the longest time: how to get HD video with captioning data embedded. The only easy way that I found, was to get an external HD MPEG2 encoder/QAM modulator, and inject the VBI into it so that its output transport stream would have the data. Such encoders that can do this are ZvBox 170 and ZvPro 280, with the composite vbi stripper adapter. I'm positive this would work.
There actually are component captioning encoders such as Link Electronics PCE-845 and PTC-892. But these would require an extra device that need would decode the data from the video (s-video/composite) and send it by RS-232 to the encoder.
Unfortunately, these solutions range in the thousands of dollars...
I guess it all comes down to how much you want the hidden data in your files, versus, having it visibly burned in. Additionally, with Colossus not embedding any of this data makes it probably not worth it; however, totally worth it for Hauppauge's cards that include captioning in the ATSC transport stream input.
Why not just use a tuner card instead of a capture card?
Then you're guaranteed to have the entire digital stream (inc the caption meta data).
At least that's the case for non-encrypted (free2air) DVB-T in Euro/Australia etc.
For encrypted DVB-C it's a little trickier to use a tuner card...
But there are ways with a smart-card reader and the right software
Hardware encoder cards take away the cpu stress of encoding and ensure that the video is synced with no dropped frames...
For the capture of TV content....
Dedicated hw-based transcoding is a nice supplement to a DVB-x tuner.*
But it's by no means an alternative on it's own...
At least in DVB circles, maybe ATSC users are happy with it as an alternative?
*although becoming less relevant, now that hw transcode/encode is implemented in Intel CPU's (quicksync), & presumably will get better with time.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7...
It is available NOW!!! Here is a link for $30 off the regular $169:
http://store.hauppauge.com/AddToShoppingCart.asp?ProductID=115
Looks like their store is down. Did we kill it?
Thanks for an informative post, Michael! Seems like your blog is a better source of info than Hauppauge themselves -- they don't even have a product page for the Colossus yet, let alone a manual or full specs.
I actually don't need video capture at all, although it might be nice to have. What I'm looking for is a device that will let me get high-def screen captures from an HDMI input.
My choices under ~$200 or so seem to be limited to the Blackmagic Intensity Pro, Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle, or Hauppauge Colossus. (If anybody knows other products I should be considering, please speak up!)
Blackmagic looks interesting, and advertises that they offer a Photoshop plugin, which should make it easy to capture stills as I need to do. However, a colleague owns the Intensity Pro, and has found it only works ~60% of the time, and even then it irretrievably crops the edges off the feed. I've been considering the Intensity Shuttle, in the hopes that this would've resolved those issues, but am concerned about the USB 3.0 issues many have reported. I *should* be OK, as I have a modern (Core i7-950, 12GB RAM, GTX 470) system with NEC USB 3.0 chipset on the motherboard (Asus Sabertooth X58), but I'm hesitant to play guinea pig as I'm not on the extremely abbreviated list of officially supported motherboards.
And then, today, I first heard of the Colossus. Looks like I already missed the $30 discount. Oh well.
I wonder, can you tell me -- does the Colossus provide any direct way to capture frame grabs from the HDMI input, or would it require me to capture video and then manually extract frame grabs afterwards, which would complicate my workflow? And if you've done any frame grabs yourself, how's the quality / reliability, and is there any unavoidable cropping of the image?
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
---
Michael T.
Knoxville, TN
Hi Michael, I apologize. I did not see your questions. I'll test out and let you know over the weekend.
Update: Native Windows Media Center 7 beta drivers for the Colossus will be made available soon.
It is NOT the same drivers available on the web for the HD-PVR. It is still limited to a single Colossus. I will test w/ HD-PVR tonight to see if they co-exist.
Note: SageTV is NOT limited to a single HD-PVR. I have been running multiple w/o issue for a few weeks now.
Thanks, Michael -- that's very much appreciated!
I'll look forward to your findings...
Hi Michael,
I received my Colossus (two of them) last Friday and, as expected, I haven't been able to make them work with either SageTV or Media Center using the current drivers (those in the CD and now also in Hauppauge's FTP site). Can you please confirm that there's nothing we can do about it until new beta drivers for both SageTV and MCE are released? Any estimate on how soon?
Thanks!
You are correct, nothing you can do until an update is available to SageTV and a new beta is released for Media Center support. The webpage is incorrect when they refer to the existing HD-PVR beta drivers working.
I expect both to be available this week.
Update: SageTV beta w/ Colossus support is now available to public.
I'm interested in this mainly for capturing DD/DTS 5.1 from my Xbox/PS3 Games.
So that I can run it through a HRTF filter & change it to stereo simulated surround, and then pass it to my Essence ST.
Would it be possible to bypass the encoding process, and just grab the captured audio?
I'd love to use it's HDMI-in to capture 8-ch LPCM that uses the latest DD/DTS formats, namely; TrueHD, DTS-MA.
But I doubt that there'll be a "HDCP hole" like there is in the Avermedia card...
And even if there is, like the Avermedia it'll prolly be limited to grabbing only 48kHz/2ch PCM/16-bit, right?
Any advice greatly appreciated, thank-you.
P.S. the new site's pretty cool!
although I must admit I find editing to be odd compared to other forums.
I have not been able to test that yet, sorry. I'll see if I can setup my Xbox tonight but honestly might not have the time to.
I have not been able to test that yet, sorry. I'll see if I can setup my Xbox tonight but honestly might not have the time to.
Thanks mate you're a legend!
I'd love to know if the hdmi capture can do better than 2ch PCM!
I believe the analogue capture side (which use s/pdif for audio) can only do DD 5.1 or 2ch PCM.
I'm trying to find a capture device that can grab "HD" (8ch LPCM, DTS-MA True-HD etc) audio.
There's plenty of HDMI capture cards that can do 1080i/60 or less, & even some that do 1080p/24.
But the best I've come accross on the audio side is DD/DTS 5.1, no. of PCM channels not clear yet, prolly only 2.
Cheers,
Jed
So Michael how'd you go...
Are you able to verify what I'm wanting to know?
Thanks!
My first attempt was unsuccessful. I connected a different HTPC to the Colossus and attempted to send HD Audio over HDMI.
I'm going to try w/ the PS3 today.
okay, thanks Michael, I look forward to your findings!
Same thing w/ the PS3. No HD Audio. I've asked for an official word as well.
They'll just say it's complying with HDCP blah, blah, blah, crap.
Even though I have no interest in such functionality for pirating!
I couldn't give a crap about ripping content...
I just want the right to use my HTPC as my DAC/Amp for HD audio in games!
Still I'd be interested in their "official response" if you ever do get one.
Thanks!
Same thing w/ the PS3. No HD Audio. I've asked for an official word as well.
So have you got any word from them on "HD audio" (8ch LPCM encoded in the DD/DTS formats) via HDMI support?
I'd be amazed if they have plans to impliment it... even in the longer-term.
Thanks!
Jed
Here is the official word on audio formats via HDMI:
1- 2 channel PCM
2- AC3
That is it for now. Within a few weeks we are likely to see DTS added to that list.
...
Here is the official word on audio formats via HDMI:
1- 2 channel PCM
2- AC3
That is it for now. Within a few weeks we are likely to see DTS added to that list.
Great, so nothing that can't already be done via S/PDIF...
[sarcasm]What truly amazing innovation on their part[/sarcasm]
Why's it so hard to find a capture device, that captures "HD" audio goddammit!
There's no shortage of capture devices that capture HD video, sheesh!
Thanks for confirming, dunno why i even bothered hoping....
Here is the official word on audio formats via HDMI:
1- 2 channel PCM
2- AC3
That is it for now. Within a few weeks we are likely to see DTS added to that list.
Hang on a sec... Are you saying they're also planning to enable DTS 5.1 capture via HDMI? I thought they were only doing this for the analogue capture side (s/pdif)?
If true I may as well get the colossus instead of a soundcard that can do the same. As it can also capture/transcode analogue, which may be handy if DVB-C tuning's unreliable!
Mike/anyone?
http://www.missingremote.com/blog/hauppauge-colossus-qa#comment-33114
Thanks!
Mike/anyone?
http://www.missingremote.com/blog/hauppauge-colossus-qa#comment-33114
Thanks!
I responded to that one. Did you meant this one: http://www.missingremote.com/blog/hauppauge-colossus-qa#comment-33472?
If so, it's only been 2 days since you posted and our resident Hauppauge "expert" (Mikinho) is away on business at the moment. That said, if he already had an answer, he usually responds no matter how busy he is. Considering he hasn't, either no one knows or he's still working on a definitive answer. Either way... patience, grasshopper.
I responded to that one. Did you meant this one: http://www.missingremote.com/blog/hauppauge-colossus-qa#comment-33472
Woops my bad, yes I meant this one
http://www.missingremote.com/blog/hauppauge-colossus-qa#comment-33472
I never recall you responding to this one
http://www.missingremote.com/blog/hauppauge-colossus-qa#comment-33114
Don't need a response to it but thanks anyway.
The HDMI capture supports 2CH PCM and AC3 today. Support for DTS is currently in the works.