TV tuner Philips SAA7131

[Guest]

I have TV tuner Philips SAA7131 on my Vista ultimate and I have problems
with driver. The problem is - I can't find driver witch is working in Vista.
On XP this TV tuner was working fine. Maybe somebody knows where to found
driver?

I spend a few ours in google and didn't find any thing.

 

[JW]

The Phillips SAA7131 is a tuner card chip used on many differnet brands of
Tuner cards AFAIK even Phillips does not have an actual tuner card that uses
the chip that has the same name.
You need to determine what make and model of actual tuner card that you have
and then look for Vista drivers for it.

 

[Guest]

When I open device manager it shows unknown device, in
properties of that device I can see - (Location: on SAA7131 TV Card - Video
Capture, Device status: This device is not configured correctly. (Code 1)
There is no driver selected for the device information set or element.) When
I try to reinstall driver online or from disc it don't change situation.
But that missing driver I can found in sound devices and its showing , that
it's working fine, bet my tv tuner is not working.

What can I do to alive my tv tuner? I think if my Vista can recognize it,
than it must work.

 

[JW]

As I implied before is what is being seen by device manager is the graphics
chip on your graphics card it is not the make and model of the actual card
in your system.
I suggest that you open the system and see what make/model the card is and
go to that card manufacturers site to find the drivers.

 

[Ashton Crusher]

I have TV tuner Philips SAA7131 on my Vista ultimate and I have problems
with driver. The problem is - I can't find driver witch is working in Vista.
On XP this TV tuner was working fine. Maybe somebody knows where to found
driver?

I spend a few ours in google and didn't find any thing.

I have the same tuner on my KWORLD Global TV Terminator. I went to
Kworld's website (search google, I don't think it ended in .com) and
found they had two Vista packages for it. One is the WDDM driver and
the other was an update for the PVR Plus program that came with it. I
had to go around in circle a couple times on installing the stuff from
the original disk, then installing the updated drivers, and then the
update to the PVR program before I finally got it to work. In the end
I wasn't sure what the correct order turned out to be but it did wind
up working. When it first started working the picture was all washed
out, looked just gray scale, and I had to open the video settings
window in the PVR program and reset things to get decent color.

 

[cvp]

Ashton, It would be really, really, really good if you could remember the
sequence that worked for you! I am running 64-bit ultimate and I thought I
had tried all combinations, but I can't even apply the PVR-Plus patch
because it "can't find any product". Also each version of the Quick TV
application I have installs but "can't contact the capture device" (big red
splodge) and then quits. Also did you manage to install the remote
controldriver?

 

[Ashton Crusher]

Here's what I think I did.

I uninstalled all the stuff for the TV card, I think there were either
two or three things listed in the add or remove programs list. That
was probably a mistake in retrospect.

Then I downloaded the new drivers. On their web page there are two
different Vista Downloads, one is the "drivers" and the other is an
update for PVR+.

I ran the driver install from the website. It "worked" in the sense
that no error messages appeared but there was no TV. Then I
downloaded and installed the PVR+ update. I got the same error
message you did about not finding any product.

So I decided I had uninstalled too much stuff at the beginning and
should have only uninstalled the drivers, not the PVR+ entry. So I
put the original install disk for the TV card in the CD ROM drive and
just reinstalled it. This is where my memory is a little shaky... I
don't recall now whether I then uninstalled just the drivers and then
ran the new driver download install, or if I just ran the new driver
download install and let it overwrite whatever it found. Then I ran
the PVR+ update and it worked.

I'm sure I rebooted somewhere along the way but don't recall. But
when I pushed the ON button on the remote it worked other then the
grayish picture I had to adjust.

 

[cvp]

Ashton,

Thanks for the info. I suspect you are using 32-bit vista then. I've even
tried duplicating the keys in the registry to something the non-64-bit
variety might expect to find. I seem to be stuck with the PVR-plus patch
saying "can't find any product" - I'm damned if I know what it's looking
for! Maybe the 32-bit drivers (which I can't install).

 

[Ashton Crusher]

Ashton,

Thanks for the info. I suspect you are using 32-bit vista then. I've even
tried duplicating the keys in the registry to something the non-64-bit
variety might expect to find. I seem to be stuck with the PVR-plus patch
saying "can't find any product" - I'm damned if I know what it's looking
for! Maybe the 32-bit drivers (which I can't install).

Yes, I am using the 32 bit Vista. Since the PVR is a Patch I assume
it's patching the original install of the PVR+ program. Did you
install the original PVR+ Program before you ran the patch?

 

[cvp]

Ashton,

Yes - I did (but with the original 32-bit drivers) it won't install properly
on 64-bit. I did replace those with the new drivers to let it complete, but
no joy.
I've emailed KWorld for suggested install sequence or fixes.

To be honest, It was a pretty cheap card in the first place ($30-$40) and I
was pleasantly surprised to see ANY support!
I may move the card over to a 32-bit vista machine to get it working, but
it's probably time to get a new card anyway.
I'll see what response I get from KWorld first.

 

[Ashton Crusher]

Ashton,

Yes - I did (but with the original 32-bit drivers) it won't install properly
on 64-bit. I did replace those with the new drivers to let it complete, but
no joy.
I've emailed KWorld for suggested install sequence or fixes.

To be honest, It was a pretty cheap card in the first place ($30-$40) and I
was pleasantly surprised to see ANY support!
I may move the card over to a 32-bit vista machine to get it working, but
it's probably time to get a new card anyway.
I'll see what response I get from KWorld first.

I only paid $15 for mine so I figured if it crapped out in Vista I
wasn't out much. When it actually worked I was amazed. It does cause
vista to switch to Vista Basic Theme when it's running but that seems
to be take place automatically. I just want to be able to catch the
news occasionally while I'm at the PC and its fine for that.

 

[cvp]

Ashton,

Well well well! I have it working on Vista-64! Thanks to Kworld support's
reply to me.
(And it doesn't make Vista change to Basic theme on my machine.)

It seems that I had Studio TV and not PVR-Plus (which explains why the
PVR-Plus update couldn't find anything). I just figured it was another of
the many names that Kworld applied to the package.

It turns out that they are ending support of both TVStudio and PVR-Plus and
instead promoting Hypermedia as their new Vista compatible equivalent.
Here's the note:

"First of all is to install the driver, and nothing wrong as you mentioned.

2 alternative ways to make it work under Vista X64.

(1) Install PVR PLUS v2.2.0.4 in Vista and use patch v2.2.0.13 to make PVR
PLUS work in Vista.

(2) Install Hypermedia2 in Vista and here is the manual.

We will maintain and upgrade our latest application, Hypermedia2 and
Hypermedia Center.

PVR PLUS and QuickTV are not supported in Vista."

The hot links don't show up in the above but Hypermedia is available at:

ftp://ftp.kworld.com.tw/kworld/update_file/AppUpgrade_V1.34.zip

(actually I was pointed to V1.29, but 1.34 seems to have been released since
the note)

You might also try the vista remote driver:

ftp://ftp.kworld.com.tw/kworld/driver/vista/philips_32_64/remote_v3.1.0.1_070116.zip

I'm having trouble making the remote work, but it may be battery contacts,
and I don't really care about the remote that much.

I may have overestimated the price I paid - Like you , I felt it was cheap
enough that it merited trying - if no good very little lost. The fact that
it works in Vista 64 is a real bonus!!

I've just ordered another one from Newegg. At the momnet it's $7.89 after
rebate. For something that works in Vista-64 it's hard to beat!.

 

[me]

Where did you get the original Hypermedia from? The link suggests
it's an upgrade so will it need an "original"?