Getting a lot of flack from my wife...

[Freevian]

After spending about 3 months, I still am not satisfied with my PVR solution, and my wife is definitely far from thrilled. I can't give in, as I have shelled out about a grand to buy good gear, and don't feel right about giving in to TiVo. So, in atypical male behavior I am turning to you, the perusers of the forum for help in rescuing this sinking ship.

The real heart (and heartbreaker) of the system is here:

• ATI AIW 9800
• TV Wonder VE
• Actisys IR Blaster
• Sony 32" WEGA TV

Currently the problems that I cannot get resolved are:

• Cannot get the television to display using the AIW HDTV component output...diagonal scan lines are all I can get
• Would like to utilize both tuners (similar to ATI's MMC multiView feature), but believe this is probably not possible
• Video is completely fuzzy and sometimes choppy
• Channel changing sometimes does not work

Any help/suggestion/consolation is much appreciated. I have since learned that the ATI card was probably not my best investment, but cannot turn back now.

TIA

[Freevian]

so...if i understand you correctly, i am to go out and purchase a different card because the $350 AIW just won't work?

what about the plain jane TV Wonder VE that i also have in that box?

will i just be spinning my wheels if try other interfaces like myHTPC or ShowShifter? will i eventually arrive at the same point (and ultimately in front of the judge)?

any suggestions on getting the HDTV output to work correctly?? ATI support sends me wonderful little emails that are of absolutely no value.

starting to think TiVo is a better option, but want to realize my ultimate home media server dreams!!

thanks for the humor!

[cmasters]

Well, the Tivo uses hardware encoders. You really needed to go that route. No matter how fast a CPU you have software encoders are just not up to that level. No matter what software you go with, I think you will not be happy with the quality of your equipment. Especially if you are outputting to HDTV. If you are a real AV and PQ enthusiast, you should look into SageTV for now (but will require at least one hardware encoder). Otherwise, SnapStream is the best of what you have on your list for now. You could have gotten 2 or 3 hardware encoders for what you spent on that AIW.

BTW, are you usre that TV is HDTV? Just cause it has component input does not mean it is HDTV. Don't know the model you have, just an observation.

[genesis]

excuse the potentially stupid question, but your TV is capable of HDTV resolutions correct? I don't see any 32' HDTVs on sony.com.

As for your other problems, unless you're playing a lot of 3D games on this system, that AIW 9800 isn't really appropriate for a HTPC. It'll blow through any game made, but its software encoding puts it at a massive quality disadvantage to hardware encoding boards such as the PVR 250, especially in PVS, which encodes everything to MPEG2, live TV included.

PVS also doesn't include dual tuner support (yet). Speculation on the beta boards has it coming soon, but there's been no official statement that I know of.

That AIW9800 still carries significant value, so if I were you (and assuming you don't need it for gaming), I'd trade it in for a PVR250, plus a decent video card (Radeon 9600 or so). You can keep the TVWonder VE in hopes that dual tuner support arrives, and doesnt' take issue with mixed manufacturers or encoding types.

[Freevian]

ok...so you learn something new every day!!

thanks cmasters/genesis for pointing out the obvious...my tv is definitely not HDTV-ready. i guess i just assumed that it was because of the component inputs on the back (insert saying about assuming things here).

so, moving on to the other issues...i took a page out of merrypig's book, and added some of the system components to my signature so that we all know what we're dealing with here.

but...without having to go through all of the tweakings just to make this thing work, i think i have my answer...it just will not work well with the 9800.

and, therefore, because i am not a gamer at all, my next step is to throw the 9800 on the auction block and get a PVR250. i assume an nVidia card from another box i have will work just fine as a complement to the tv card? (i just want to save a little face here)

thanks for all of the suggestions and help! hopefully i'll reach nirvana in the next couple of weeks!

[MarkTO]

I feel your pain. I have gone through several tuner cards and other hardware trying to realize my HTPC dreams as well. I agree with most of the other posters that you should get a hardware encoder. Software encoding will work but one little hiccup (like opening a web page/ switching to another program) and there goes your sync. Even the fastest systems act sluggish when recording.

The PVR-250 I bought not only reduced my CPU usage to around 3% but also resulted in much better recording quality. The card seems to be less susceptible to interference from the surrounding electronics. I had this card working great on a Pentium 200 system for a little while (recording only).

The best TV interface card for normal TV (I don’t have an HDTV) that I have tried is a Geforce FX. The drivers are easy to use, have lots TV adjustments so that you can get DVD player quality output and are stable. I have both a TView Gold external scan converter and an ATI 9600 pro but the Geforce was the best of the bunch. Gaming is a different matter all together.

The picture I get with the PVR-250, SnapStream and the NVDVD decoder is very close to what I got off my digital satellite dish even though I am using cable now.

I would sell any redundant hardware that you have left over on Ebay. You may even get more than you paid for it.

Good luck with your HTPC project.

[codeit999]

same here. really getting frustrated getting any good output to my tv. experimenting with powerstrip but I still could not get the right size that everything fits on the screen in my toshiba.
my only solution is I got mediamvp for the other tv downstairs and the resolution is ok and just burn dvds of rw disks for my toshiba and watch in the dvd.
the mediamvp or prismiq route of displaying the recorded shows has a lot of potential.

[jeffnoone]

I have a ATI AIW 8500Dv outputting thru the component adapter to a Sony XBR200 36'
AFAIK the TV is not HDTV compatible, but it has component in, and will work with the componetn adapter set to 480i (but wont work at 480p - as you might expect)

FOr this I dont use have to use Powerstrip, all resolutions are supported.
I have used Powerstrip or the Rage3D utility to create 720x480 resolutioon which looks particularly good (vs svideo in)

I suspect you can achieve the same
Jeff

[charred_water]

I am using a Hauppauge WinTV USB tuner with PVS but am not happy with the quality.

I am want to switch to a hardware encoding solution.

Everyone seems to love the PVR 250 PCI card so I was planning to get that until I saw PVS supports the VideOh.

How does the Adaptec VideOh Media Center compare to the PVR 250? I'm interested in the VideOh because it's an external USB 2.0 tuner.

Both have hardware mpeg encoding.

I would prefer to stick to an external USB solution if I can avoid having to add a PCI card. But I'm willing to get the PVR 250 if the video quality is better.

Thanks!

[Freevian]

i am submitting this little nugget of knowledge in the hopes that Snapstream will pick up on it...

...i have decided to go with ShowShifter for now. although when pausing live tv, i don't get the best resolution, the more important thing is that it is not always encoding the input stream, which gives me excellent resolution while watching live tv.

the video guide is not as refined as SnapStreams, but at this point, i am willing to forego that for resolution.

i welcome any and all comments!

thanks for all of the previous suggestions!

[cmasters]

Not that SnapStream is the best option overall, but ShowShifter is probably one of the worst. Given your choice, you would be better off with a Tivo. However, if you have never had a Tivo your wife may not know what she is missing so $$$ wise I understand. Good luck!

[genesis]

Originally posted by Freevian
i am submitting this little nugget of knowledge in the hopes that Snapstream will pick up on it...

...i have decided to go with ShowShifter for now. although when pausing live tv, i don't get the best resolution, the more important thing is that it is not always encoding the input stream, which gives me excellent resolution while watching live tv.

the video guide is not as refined as SnapStreams, but at this point, i am willing to forego that for resolution.

i welcome any and all comments!

thanks for all of the previous suggestions!

Well.. interesting choice. I'd point out that PVS with a PVR-250 will give you a picture just as good as Showshifter, plus all the refinements PVS offers. You did try raising the recording quality in PVS right? And turned deinterlacing on? With all that horsepower (XP 2500 for encoding, and R9800 for hardware deinterlacing) I'd expect you to be able to get a good quality picture in PVS.

I'm still voting for trading in the AIW9800 for a PVR-250.

[Freevian]

Originally posted by genesis


Well.. interesting choice. I'd point out that PVS with a PVR-250 will give you a picture just as good as Showshifter, plus all the refinements PVS offers. You did try raising the recording quality in PVS right? And turned deinterlacing on? With all that horsepower (XP 2500 for encoding, and R9800 for hardware deinterlacing) I'd expect you to be able to get a good quality picture in PVS.

I'm still voting for trading in the AIW9800 for a PVR-250.

i'll give it one more shot as i am having a terrible time getting the Actisys to work at all anymore with HE Remote or IRTuner...not sure what refinements PVS offers over ShowShifter...seem pretty comparable to me (ShowShifter even has more features, like photo and music libraries and quite a few plugins)

Originally posted by cmasters
Not that SnapStream is the best option overall, but ShowShifter is probably one of the worst. Given your choice, you would be better off with a Tivo. However, if you have never had a Tivo your wife may not know what she is missing so $$$ wise I understand. Good luck!

any reason why ShowShifter is the worst? i have not had any bad luck with it, other than the interface is a little rudimentary compared to SnapStream. unfortunately TiVo is not going to be able to handle my music, digital photos and videos, and web browsing on my tv. that's why i started building this thing in the first place!

anyone had any luck/experience with myHTPC?

[sigh] still searching for nirvana!

[PeteS]

You may want to consider setting your defaults to record as WMV instead of MPEG. If you do so you will not be able to timeshift, but your live tv viewing should look as good as ShowShifter.

[cmasters]

Anything that makes you jump out of the application for the EPG (let alone an EPG that is mouse driven) is not acceptable for a HTPC. For a PC it is OK, but HTPC software needs to be completely remote driven. I don't see how your wife would like using a mouse and keyboard to watch TV.