Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick - Heavy CPU Usage

[kelsky]

So in reading different responses on OTA HD, I need to understand what is happening to my CPU when I utilize a Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick.

I have a PVR-150 and the Pinnacle PCTV HD stick. A standard TV connected to a GEFORCE4 MX4000 card and a BTV link connected to a Samsung HDTV 23" Wide. The BTV link works with either the PVR-150 or the Pinnacle stick. When I use Pinnacle on my BTV server that is connected to a standard TV my CPU utilization goes to 100% and my screen and audio is jerky. If I connect to the PVR-150 on my BTV Server, the CPU hardly changes. I thought since no hardware compression was going on with OTA HD signals that the CPU shouldn't be hit at all. Any help appreciated.

[tscales]

I'm a little confused by your description. Just to make sure, the Pinnacle is connected to an Antenna and configured to receive over-the-air HD broadcasts from your local TV stations?

[mlomker]

When you are watching HD the decoding is done on the machine that you view it from, so that machine needs to have a decent processor or a video card that does hardware mpg decoding.

What people often do is use a low-end server machine to record HD (which is already digital and doesn't require encoding) and SD with a hardware-encoding card (which converts analog to digital and outputs the file). This machine basically just saves a file to its hard disk so it doesn't need much of anything for a processor or video card...it is just disk performance that matters.

I upgraded my own Link box last week from a CeleronM to a Core2Duo. It played SD content at 20% utilization but couldn't handle HD.

[yle]

I suspect your problem is from playback through your video card. That seems to be essential for HD playback, with the Geforce 6200 being noted as the "bottom end" of the cards that can display HD.

What does the CPU look like when you are just taping HD and not viewing it at the same time? Are you watching it as you tape or are you watching a taped show when the video and audio is jerky?