Hauppauge Computer Works: Support

There are two different ways to display a video window on the computer screen: Overlay surface and Primary surface. Both methods work by transferring the image directly from the TV Tuner to the memory of your PC's graphics board via the PCI or AGP bus.

With an overlay surface, the video signal is transferred into an invisible part of the graphics board memory. The graphics board will then take care of the image and make sure that it gets transferred to the right place in the visible part of the memory. Not all graphics boards have this feature and thus may not allow an overlay surface. Occasionally, we have seen cases where the graphics board "tells us" that it can do an overlay surface but then either does not do so or starts to draw incorrect buttons or destroy other desktop elements.

In contrast to the overlay surface, the video signal is transferred directly into a visible part of the graphics board memory - right where you will see it.
The drawback of a primary surface is that your graphics board has to be set to at least 16-bits per pixel color depth. Primary surface also requires more bandwidth on the PCI bus and we have occasionally seen some graphics boards showing distortions of the video display, especially when using 32 bits per pixel color depth. And finally, a menu or other window covering the primary surface video display may get overwritten under certain circumstances.
To help you in troubleshooting and deciding which display mode to use, here are some of the limitations of primary and overlay surface. In general, we recommend to use the overlay surface - if your graphics board supports it.

Primary Surface
Primary surface requires that the graphics board is set to 16, 24 or 32 bits per pixel color depth.
Covering the video display with another window may result in stray pixels and should be avoided.
Primary surface requires a higher bandwidth on the PCI/AGP bus. This may result in flashing lines on the video image, especially at 24 or 32 bits per pixel color depth. Switch back to 16-bits per pixel.
When using primary surface, both fields of the video will get displayed on the PC screen. This may show as "feathering" and is due to the interlaced nature of the signal.

Overlay Surface
Some graphics boards do not support overlay surface at all. The overlay option will then not be available.
Some graphics boards report that they support overlay surface, but then do not. If you select overlay surface, you will not see any video display.
Overlay surface mode uses a keying color to indicate where on the screen video is being displayed. Placing a window with this keying color above the video will result in the video showing through.
With an overlay surface, the graphics board participates in manipulating the video before it gets displayed. This may change the brightness or colors of the image. Some graphics boards have tools ("gamma correction" etc.) that permit you to adjust this.

The difference between Primary Surface and Overlay Surface is that Overlay Surface requires special hardware on the graphics card. You need a graphics card with one of these processors along with drivers that support DirectDraw and DirectX in order to take advantage of the Overlay Surface feature. Cards with Overlay Surface have an additional video buffer called an Overlay buffer in addition to the Primary video buffer.

If you use a graphics card that does not have this support, you can use Primary Surface type of Overlay. Primary Surface still requires Direct Draw and Direct X support, but the overlay will be processed in the primary video buffer since the card does not have an Overlay buffer.

The other issues are related to performance due to the fact that Overlay Surface has it's own Overlay buffer and Primary Surface does not. If you move a window while using Primary Surface the entire computer screen will refresh as the window is moved. This does not cause any functional problems but to some users the refreshing of the screen may be annoying. The other issue is that Primary Overlay may not work at the higher screen resolutions and color depths that your graphics card may allow.

Try running the WinTV in DIB DRAW mode(start/programs/Hauppauge/Primary). If DIB DRAW mode still results in a lockup, then updated drivers will be necessary for the S4 chip on your VGA card.

This is the link www.s3graphics.com to download the new Savage4 Reference drivers

NOTE: it will not fix everyone. So far it has been met with success for some users. Good Luck

Before installing the new driver, make sure you delete all Savage4.inf files. After installing new driver make sure the Win/TV board is in Overlay mode. Open the "Hauppauge WinTV" icon group and open Primary, then check Overlay and close. If your systems still locks up, follow these instructions below.

Add a registry key to:
HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\S3\BusmasterDevices\Timer\ Video Capture Application Name ie, XXXXXX.EXE)" For a Hauppauge WinTV, this would be WINTV32.EXE or WINTV2K.EXE. If you do not see the above Registry key, the new Savage4 drivers were installed incorrectly.