A few BTV questions/problems

[emp626]

hello all!
first off, thanks in advance for any and all help
system specs:
asus m2n-e
7600 gt
x-fi
amd 3800x2
huppage pvr 500
firefly remote
magnavox 37'' HDTV
XP pro w/ SP2
BTV 4.6

ok so here are my issues:
first, when i record a show BTV will generate the smartskip perfectly. maybe this isn't possible, but i thought that with the firefly remote you could skip over the commercials with a single button being pressed. what button, if any, does this?

second, i would like to take advantage of my 5.1 surround speakers when playing my xbox 360. can i play my xbox through my HTPC? i'm not sure how to switch the inputs from the coaxil cable to the RCA or S-video. how do you do this?

this question really has nothing to do with BTV, but maybe someone can help. when i first tried to play a dvd on my HTPC using windows media player, the dvd wouldn't play, so i had to get a dvd decoder to play it. cost me $20, but whatever. so now that i have 5.1 surround speakers, i'm not getting true 5.1 sound. when i play a dvd on WMP10 and try to switch the sound to dolby digital 5.1 it wont let me. the speakers i'm using are for digital use, but i'm at a loss. how do i get WMP to play 5.1 surround?

last question: i origionally had an evga 7600gt for the vid card but then realized that if i wanted to play HD content on my HTPC i would need an HDCP compliant vid card. so i bought an evga 8600gts that was HDCP. problem is, the vid quality really sucks. when watching any sort of video, the dark areas are all square and it just looks like crap. so i plugged the 7600 back in and its the same thing. i don't recall if the vid quality was that bad before i installed the 8600, but i think i would have noticed if the video was that bad to begin with. i have tried all sorts of drivers from the evga site, but no luck. any ideas???

again, any help would be greatly appreciated. i love my HTPC but i would like it to be better and i would also like to know how to use it to its full capabilities. if anyone has any questions about this post feel free to ask and i will respond asap.

THANKS!!!

[tscales]

OK, here goes.

1) Smartskip -- up arrow on the remote.
2) No. The delay introduced by an HTPC makes it impossible to play it on the PC. However, you can run the sound out of your Xbox through your PC (into the sound card) and then out the speakers. Just not the video
3) Which decoder? Some don't support 5.1
4) What HD content? If you're talking BTV, you did NOT need an HDCP compliant card. The 7600GT is more than adequate. Can't imagine why the 8600 wasn't though.

Hope that helps.

[emp626]

thanks for the replay!
so i guess i need to buy a new decoder that has 5.1, that sux but oh well.

if i wanted to play HD-DVD or Blue ray i would need an HDCP compliant vid card and TV. my problem is, just watching regular TV and or movies the video quality sucks and i don't know why. maybe some settings with the video card or maybe some settings with BTV, idk.

ok so i have a couple more questions and maybe someone can help me out. when i have BTV set on 3D accelerated and transparant menus, the picture is just terrible. but when i switch the 3D acceleration off, the picture looks a lot better. whats the point of this feature if it makes the video worse? maybe i have a setting wrong or something?

i used to use show squeze on all my recorded content, but when i use that feature, the picture quality of the recoarded show gets 10x worse than it was origionally. any ideas on that?

last, i'd like to burn some recoarded shows to a dvd but i'm not sure what format the disc needs to be burned in so it will play on standard DVD players?

again thanks for all your help and thank you tscales for the reply!