Windows 7 Can't get my NanoStick 73e to work with Media Center on Windows 7 64 Bit

[SlyAtBest]

Hi,

I'm at my wits end trying to get my tv tuner(73e) to work with windows media center on windows 7 64 bit. I've tried multiple driver versions and am still unable to progress with setting up the tuner.

The problem occurs everytime I try to set up tv in windows media center, everything works fine until I reach the section "Examining TV Signals" where the bar fails to move at all or fills one dot but that is it. I've tried checking the log file for additional information but it doesn't report anything.

The blue light on the device lights up and remains on, if I try to cancel the scan, media center hangs. If I try to shut down the machine it will also hang until I remove the usb stick.

If anyone can suggest how to get this to work it would be much appreciated, I'll supply any information that is needed, cheers!

 

[Saltgrass]

Well, the following is on the manufacturer's page, so it doesn't look good so far. I suppose the statement could be read to mean only XP requires 32 bit.

Windows® 7 / Vista™ or Windows® XP (32 Bit) with latest Service Pack

If it isn't that, are you setting up the signals manually, if you can even get to that section? Do the drivers for the device load automatically, or are you installing them?

They seem to have some beta drivers if you wanted to try those.

Do the install instructions mention anything about using the USB as an antenna input?

 

[SlyAtBest]

Thanks for your reply,

I'm currently already running the beta drivers, to no avail unfortunately :-( .

I am not setting the signals up manually because I never manage to reach that section unless I do some interesting combos of click back and pulling the sitck out of the port and clicking forward again, which can't be good.

The drivers did install automatically. Within the software supplied by pinnacle there is an option to "install for windows media center" which I did and when this didn't work I then manually installed the beta drivers via the device manager.

The instruction manual is somewhat brief due to all the languages it is written in and is more of a quick setup guide. How would you go about using the usb as an antenna input, is that not what I'm doing?

Cheers!

 

[Saltgrass]

I am at a severe disadvantage here since I do not use the device and could not find an owner's manual to download.

Do you know DVB-T is available in your area?

Have you tried running the device's normal software to see if it can get a signal? Windows Media Center can be problematic.

 

[SlyAtBest]

Ok to try and help out I've uploaded the copy of the "manual" to my site which is available
Link Removed - Invalid URL like I said it's basically just a quick start guide but it is literally all of the documentation that comes with the hardware although they do have seperate manuals for their software.

I have tried running their software and managed to get all of the channels but this wasn't without the occasional hang or error. DVB-T is definitely available in this area as I had an older tuner running (nova-t usb2) and that worked with windows media center.

Please note that I completely removed the old tuner and actually system restored to before it was installed because I believed it might have been causing conflictions.

 

[Saltgrass]

You are certainly correct about the lack of guidance in the manual.

So, our situation now is that the device does work in Win 7 using its own software, so you can get a signal. But from what seems to happen, WMC cannot see a signal or for some reason will not continue past that point.

Are you setting the device up as an antenna (manual signal setup) and not a cable or satellite box? Sorry to ask this again, I just cannot remember if there were any choices you could make to avoid going through the problem area of the install. I do use a custom install which might give you other options.

Have you tried different USB ports?

Do you have an internet connection? Maybe it is trying to download a guide or even install some other software...

Hauppauge has a separate Media Center utility just to help there, you may or may not have one.

The Hauppauge tuner I have also states Win 7 x64 with more than 4 Gs of memory will probably cause problems, and they are correct. But my tuner is older, and cannot deal.

There are some comments on the Hauppauge site about a fix from Microsoft if you are getting a low bitrate message, but you do not seem to be getting that error, or it is not being displayed.

I have noticed WMC will install a utility to keep some sources from being received due to digital rights type situations. I do not know if this would effect the signal recognition phase.

I cannot think of something that would allow the install to proceed beyond the current problem.

If it was me, I would probably go into device manager and right click on the device. I believe you would need to go into properties, driver and click on the roll back driver button. If you are offered the opportunity to remove previous drivers from the system, choose that. It should now be in a clean driver situation so you could start over. Perhaps allow Windows to reinstall its driver, or install yours at this time. This may not actually help, but I can't think of anything else to do in your situation. There may be other forums that are more experienced with video/tv tuner card situations.

 

[SlyAtBest]

Hello again,

I don't get any kind of option to set up the device in any other way so I assume it's being set up as an antenna. I've also already tried multiple usb ports and cable to ensure I've cut down as many of the possibilities that I could.

I do have an internet connection on the machine and before the signal detection stage it does download setup information for my location but I have tried running setup with both the internet enabled an disabled again to cut out the possibility that's it's receiving incorrect information.

The old tuner was hauppage, where as the e73 is a pinnicle device so the hauppage utility would be a dead end unfortunatly :-( .

What I have done is I've managed to contact pinnacle directly and have asked for assistance in this matter. I will continue to update this thread with any news. So far they have only requested a system info file.

Cheers!