My experiences with new graphics card and second tuner

[wilsonj]

I just want to share my latest experiences with BTV, in the hope that someone finds the info usful!

I have been using BTV and BM for a while now, with one tuner card (PVR250) and decided it was time to try a second tuner.

I was using the Svideo input of the PVR250 for a satalite box and the tuner for FTA, but wanted more flexibility in recording. So I chose to buy a relatively cheap Avermedia M150. Installation was much easier than with the PVr250. I found installing drivers for that card a real pain! I first setup the M150 as a second TV tuner, leaving the PVR250 to capture the TV and Svideo inputs still. This just didn't work. I had lipsync problems and BTV couldn't tell what card to start recording live TV with. Decided to use one for Svideo and the other for TV. That sorted out all the problems, and everything ran smoothly.

A couple setup gripes though. Now I'm not sure if these points are addressed somewhere in a TIPS section, but I found adjusting each cards video controls awkward to say the least!! As if the webadmin isn't hard enough to find, the controls are only found when you ask for more options in the settings tab. I really would have thought this would be very important to people running multiple inputs/tuners, as their outputs usually differ in brightness, contrast etc.

OK, second part. I had been using an ATI 9200se video card for quite a while, set in overlay mode. This has been giving good results, but no matter what codec I used I could never get rid of motion blur. The picture in general was quite fuzzy, particularly on Svideo input. BTW I watch BTV on a normal TV, but also have it setup on a projector.
I just upgraded my other PCs video card so put the TI 9700pro from that in the HTPC. WOW, what a difference!! Overlya is fantastic looking, no blurring and ultra smooth scrolling. I really have trouble telling normal tv from the HTPC. Even 3D mode is greatly improved, although I still need to run in exclusivefs mode to stop tearing. But until Snapstream fix BM BTV switching problems I will stick with the overlay setting.

Anyway the video card change was a real suprise. I didn't think a faster card would be any different in overlay mode, but it is. I'm using the latest ATI drivers too 5.6 and use the latest NV codec.

Thanks for reading, I hope this is of help.

Regards
Jamie Wilson