3.5 Slower All Around

[dtaylor]

My experience with 3.5 is that there are two main problems (HUD preferences aside) :

1. That it is just slower in every capacity. I wouldn't expect the hardware requirements for a piece of software to go up that dramatically in just a "dot release". My 1.33 P4 with 386 RAM used to perform flawlessly with 3.4. Now it struggles just to keep up. I use the same InterVideo NonCSS playback decoder as before (all the others that are there just studder terribly). So why is my CPU pegged at like 80% whereas before it hovered around 20% max. And to think I wanted to put BeyondMedia on this PC also when it comes out?? It can't even handle ONE product from SS, let alone two!


2. Video quality is worse. I watched a LOT of tv with 3.4, and I the difference in picture quality after the switch to 3.5 was immediately apparent to both my wife and myself. I know it's anicdotal, but the difference is there, trust us. I verified that I am still using the same "custom" playback/recording level as before the upgrade (nice VBR level that gives good quality and still allows for about 1.2g per hour recording). So unless SS has changed the actual way those playback setup numbers are USED (like min/max bitrate, audio sampling rate, etc), I don't see the why the quality should degrade.

Those are the two critical issues for me. Also the viewscape is just so slow to navigate through. The EPG takes much longer to render. The HUD looks less "slick". But those are minor compared to the two above.

Can SS tell us if there will be a maintanance release upcoming to address these issues (3.5.1?)

[richt]

I would suggest filing a support request with Snapstream. While others have reported high CPU usage, it is not the case for many users. There may be issues that they can address. If there is a product flaw, the more formal reports and open cases they have, the more likely they are to address it quickly.
While they do browse through the forums, there is no guarantee that Snapstream will address comments in the user forums.