Improve performance for HDTV

[mrgaric]

Hi,
I've had poor results recording HDTV and I don't blame Beyond TV. I think it's either my reception or my computer's performance.

Is there a way to analyze your reception I should consider, and what are the best computer upgrades to improve performance of Beyond TV?

Thanks

[queonda]

Give us more information of your hardware and computer setup.

[mrgaric]

Computer:

TV Card
ATI TV Wonder 650

Operating System System ModelWindows XP Home Edition Service Dell Dimension 4550
Processor a Main Circuit Board b2.53 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
8 kilobyte primary memory cache
512 kilobyte secondary memory cache Board: Dell Computer Corp. 0J0592
Bus Clock: 533 megahertz
Drives Memory Modules c,d219.93 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
87.81 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
Slot 'DIMM_A' has 256 MB
Slot 'DIMM_B' has 512 MB

32MB ATI Rage 128 Ultra [Display adapter]

ATI Unified AVStream Driver
SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio

Signal:

I am using digital cable for regular reception and a Phillips MANT510 or MNT510F antenna for HDTV reception.
768 Megabytes Installed Memory

[Kilrsat]

The ATI Rage 128 Ultra is the problem.

[obperryo]

Originally Posted by Kilrsat

The ATI Rage 128 Ultra is the problem.

I would agree.. I use an ATI X1300 pro with a dual core 64 3800 and a HDHomerun... some say you need to be at least a x1650, but my 1300pro does great..! Also, dual core significently improves things... but your P4 should be good to get smooth play.

oh, and starting out, make sure you use overlay...

you could also try full screen exclusive.. search for the command to do this.. this will be in 3d mode.

[Joe The Dude]

I agree that your Video Card doesn't have the power to display HDTV.

I took the liberty of downloading a pdf of the Dell Dimension 4550 manual from the dell website.

When you buy a new Video Card, make sure it is AGP.

I say that because your motherboard does not support "PCI Express".

If you'd rather get an nVidia Video Card instead of an ATI, here is a link to one that should work in your Dell:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125039

If you get an nVidia Card, here is a link to the reccomended Driver for it:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_84.21.html

I'm not familiar with ATI Video cards.
If I were, I'd reccomend a driver version (maybe another poster knows of a good one).

Anywho, whatever Video Card you decide to get, make sure you do the following:
[1] Read the manual that came with your Dell. I attached a zipped pdf of it to this post, in case you have lost yours.
[2] Uninstall your current ATI Video Card Driver and ATI Applications before putting in your new Video Card.
Start --> Settings --> Controll Panel --> Add/Remove Programs.

Be sure to let us know how your upgrade turns out!
Good luck!

[obperryo]

Originally Posted by Joe The Dude

I agree that your Video Card doesn't have the power to display HDTV.

I took the liberty of downloading a pdf of the Dell Dimension 4550 manual from the dell website.

When you buy a new Video Card, make sure it is AGP.

I say that because your motherboard does not support "PCI Express".

If you'd rather get an nVidia Video Card instead of an ATI, here is a link to one that should work in your Dell:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125039

If you get an nVidia Card, here is a link to the reccomended Driver for it:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_84.21.html

I'm not familiar with ATI Video cards.
If I were, I'd reccomend a driver version (maybe another poster knows of a good one).

Anywho, whatever Video Card you decide to get, make sure you do the following:
[1] Read the manual that came with your Dell. I attached a zipped pdf of it to this post, in case you have lost yours.
[2] Uninstall your current ATI Video Card Driver and ATI Applications before putting in your new Video Card.
Start --> Settings --> Controll Panel --> Add/Remove Programs.

Be sure to let us know how your upgrade turns out!
Good luck!

I have always use ATI... until I started messing with some linux mythtv, mythdora etc... I got an nvidia 6200... I learned a lot about their cards.. and they are more flexable for Linux...bottom line is the 6200 was not big enough for HDTV... and yes some drivers were better than others.. I did a lot of work tweaking... and still could not get perfect video. What I reasoned is to get the right nvidia card with the right features, I would need a minimum 7600GT, of which only come in PCI-express and I have an AGP. So, I decided to try an ATI.. I started with a ATI x1650pro.. the fan on it was so lound I could hear it all over the house.... that card went back.. next I tried the smaller card because it was on sale for $99.. thus I got the ATI x1300pro. Everything went flawless... no playing with drivers.. the origional CD drives worked great and the updated drives from the web work great. My system runs excellent...

Bottom line in MHO..

Windows.. - ATI all the way.. it should be plug and play.
Linux - Nvidia and take advantage of all the custom drives out there.

[Crooze]

I'm not saying any one card is better than another. For years I was a die hard ATI user. When I bought my HDTV I decided to see if the nVidia hype was true so I picked up an AGP GeForce 6200 256. I must say I am very happy with the card. Once I found the right drivers for it (version 84.21) it's worked flawlessly.

On the other hand your results may differ depending on your system setup. When reading everybody's recommendations on video cards I would look at their system specs and compare them you yours. My 6200 is on a modest machine with 1 gig of ram and an AMD XP 2000+ processor and it only runs BTV link. I don't know how much difference that makes since recording HDTV takes very little resources.

[obperryo]

Originally Posted by Crooze

I'm not saying any one card is better than another. For years I was a die hard ATI user. When I bought my HDTV I decided to see if the nVidia hype was true so I picked up an AGP GeForce 6200 256. I must say I am very happy with the card. Once I found the right drivers for it (version 84.21) it's worked flawlessly.

On the other hand your results may differ depending on your system setup. When reading everybody's recommendations on video cards I would look at their system specs and compare them you yours. My 6200 is on a modest machine with 1 gig of ram and an AMD XP 2000+ processor and it only runs BTV link. I don't know how much difference that makes since recording HDTV takes very little resources.

What kind of connection do you have to your HDTV... component, VGA DIM? I am curious.. I think this can make a difference.

I used component..

Also, note from reading many forums and have tested this.. nvidia does not like nonstandard resolutions. I would see frame glitches..

The driver you stated worked the best for me too.

[tscales]

The 4550 is fine. I used one as my HD server (4 tuners) for a long time. It's a great machine -- remarkably reliable.

I've used an ATI 9800Pro in mine for years and it is very solid too. It was the top-of-the-line at the time. I have an nVidia 6600GT in it now, which is a better card and handles HD just fine.

Video is clearly a problem.

What about your hard drive though. I strongly recommend 64K clusters on the drive where you store video.

Tom

[mrgaric]

Would my video card effect performance even if I'm not watching it?

For instance...I have scheduled recordings which I never watch on my PC. I just try to import the files to HDTVtoMPEG2 and I ususaly get errors....sometimes no channel found, sometimes everything looks fine until I go to save the edited version and it says the files are damaged at some point during the save. The same files also frequently appear to be damaged to BeyondTV and I can't watch them in there either.

obperryo...I'm using a regular cable TV type cable. My antenna doesn't support anything else, neither does my TV card. I looked into getting a second HDTV cable box, but it was expensive and I get lousy HD reception from my cable company anyhow. I'm not shooting for perfection anyhow, just a file I can actualy watch when I'm done.

By the way....thanks for all the help everyone. It's great to get so much feedback.

[obperryo]

Originally Posted by mrgaric

Would my video card effect performance even if I'm not watching it?

For instance...I have scheduled recordings which I never watch on my PC. I just try to import the files to HDTVtoMPEG2 and I ususaly get errors....sometimes no channel found, sometimes everything looks fine until I go to save the edited version and it says the files are damaged at some point during the save. The same files also frequently appear to be damaged to BeyondTV and I can't watch them in there either.

obperryo...I'm using a regular cable TV type cable. My antenna doesn't support anything else, neither does my TV card. I looked into getting a second HDTV cable box, but it was expensive and I get lousy HD reception from my cable company anyhow. I'm not shooting for perfection anyhow, just a file I can actualy watch when I'm done.

By the way....thanks for all the help everyone. It's great to get so much feedback.

Recording and playback are two different things. The video card will not effect recording. However, signal strength will directly effect HDTV recordings. From my experience, I reason that analog weak signal.. is just that, but still plays.. HDTV weak signal is broken data and conversion or playback programs will be impact by it. Think if it this way.. when sending a file over the internet, there is error correction checking to make sure that the file arrives just as it was sent. HD data is just sent/streamed.. if the signal is not strong enough you miss recording data.. it shows in the file and if it's too much you have trouble reading the file. It sounds to me like you do not have a good HD signal.. Read this post I did... it was my learning experience on how important the HD signal is... even if you get a good picture most of the time, if your signal is not good enough.. you will have glitches that can sometime be played by software, or can mess up the whole recording. Find the signal meter for your ATI card.. use some of the tips in this post to maybe monitor and improve your signal strength.
http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3526
If you have a strong enough signal.. then you have to make sure something else is not using up the processor. HDTV takes little processor to save a recording as all it is doing is saving data to the hard drive.

HTDV to Mpeg does not create great mpeg video.. I don't know the detals, I have just read about some of the differences. Try VideoRedo (the trial version) sometime it can fix issues and or tell you what the issues are. There is another program I really like that I will suggest to you.. and it's free.. HDTV2DVD, it has the HDTV section SVCD2DVD ($40). HDTV2DVD creates a VIDEO_TS folder for burning to DVD, but it also creates an mpeg file when it makes the folder.

Hope this helps.

[Crooze]

Originally Posted by obperryo

What kind of connection do you have to your HDTV... component, VGA DIM? I am curious.. I think this can make a difference.

I used component..

Also, note from reading many forums and have tested this.. nvidia does not like nonstandard resolutions. I would see frame glitches..

The driver you stated worked the best for me too.

The connection to my TV is DVI to HDMI. What I've noticed with the nvidia resolutions is what looks good for the BTV GUI and video doesn't always look that great when doing things outside of BTV. Using girder I change the resolution when starting the BTV GUI to 1280 x 720 (I think, it's be a while since I set it up) and back to the TV's native "PC Mode" resolution when exiting.