PVS3 Lite - scheduled recordings??

[rowdeal]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone can clear these things for me...
I have downloaded PVCS Lite to try it out. Would be nice to replace having to use a VCR and a stack of VHS tapes to record shows.

I finally got PVCS 3.0 Lite installed and working on my still reliable
Dell Dimension 4100 with
PIII 933 MHz,
512MB RAM,
Hauppauge PVR-250,
ATI Radeon 9000.

It seems, "Live TV" works okay. Although the resolution of the imaged displayed on the TV is "FULL" and not spanned, I wished that the quality of the PVS Home Menu image would somewhat be sharper and crisper. Are there any tips I should follow to get a sharper and criper image?

The video displayed on the TV is OK, though it kinda makes me dizzy.. dont know why ( could this be the flicker? ). The PVCS Home Menu does not seem to be as sharp on the TV display as it is on the dell Monitor display.

My next beef is that, I just got it setup last night. got the program guide loaded and flagged a bunch of shows to be recorded overnight. I left it on and hoped that the shows marked to record does get recorded. Much to my disappointment, only one show got recorded and it seemed that the TV display got stuck and I had to reboot the entire machine?

Is there anything else I should do about this? is this limited recording functionality a result of it being "Lite" and "free"? I kinda find it hard to believe that these recording issues I have would go away it I shell out $69.

I just wanted to make sure that I will be able to resolve these issues before I plunge and pay the $$$

Thanks in advance.

[RobertH]

Originally posted by rowdeal
Hi,

I was wondering if someone can clear these things for me...
I have downloaded PVCS Lite to try it out. Would be nice to replace having to use a VCR and a stack of VHS tapes to record shows.

I finally got PVCS 3.0 Lite installed and working on my still reliable
Dell Dimension 4100 with
PIII 933 MHz,
512MB RAM,
Hauppauge PVR-250,
ATI Radeon 9000.

there is a 3.1 version available (trial: upgrades to full with cd key from purchase) on the snapstream main site, please also make sure that you are running the latest version of the pvr250 drivers, the cd version that came with these cards have some issues that are fixed in the latest drivers. for links and installation instructions please see this page:http://snapstream.com/Products/Products_PVS3_SysReq.asp

also please make sure you have the latest drivers for video/sound and all dx9 updates to your system, one main cause for incompatibility or system issues are the use of old or outdated drivers for video/sound/and chipset

It seems, "Live TV" works okay. Although the resolution of the imaged displayed on the TV is "FULL" and not spanned, I wished that the quality of the PVS Home Menu image would somewhat be sharper and crisper. Are there any tips I should follow to get a sharper and criper image?

to get a crisper image, use the true full screen option in pvs's web config: WebAdmin->Config->Advanced->Misc Settings. Set the resolution of true fullscreen to whatever resolution the ati card is driving the tv at and then only use fullscreen mode when using it on the tv. You might also want to check your drivers for an option called flicker filter, this option makes the image blurry (similar to anti aliasing) but can cause the interface of snapstream to be blurry, you may also want to turn up the recording quality to dvd ready highres if you have the disk space, it provides much better image quality (at the limitation of using more disk space) you do this in the recording settings of the web config app

The video displayed on the TV is OK, though it kinda makes me dizzy.. dont know why ( could this be the flicker? ). The PVCS Home Menu does not seem to be as sharp on the TV display as it is on the dell Monitor display.

you might want to make sure that the video card is outputting the tv at 60hz, you may also need to lower the frequency of the monitor to 60 hz as well, because some tv encoders (thing that converts video card to tv signal) dont work well when the video card is set to higher frequencies

My next beef is that, I just got it setup last night. got the program guide loaded and flagged a bunch of shows to be recorded overnight. I left it on and hoped that the shows marked to record does get recorded. Much to my disappointment, only one show got recorded and it seemed that the TV display got stuck and I had to reboot the entire machine?

Im not too sure but when recording in mpeg format, I belive there was a limitation in the trial version of only recording for a small period (30 min or something like that) because of mpeg licensing issues

Is there anything else I should do about this? is this limited recording functionality a result of it being "Lite" and "free"? I kinda find it hard to believe that these recording issues I have would go away it I shell out $69.

Please note that the beta testers are currently working on version 3.2 this version is supposed to fix problems related to high cpu usage during mpeg2 playback and should fix some of your problems. The final version began testing on friday and thus should be out within a week or so (Dates for testing are never set in stone )

I just wanted to make sure that I will be able to resolve these issues before I plunge and pay the $$$

snapstream offers a 30 day return policy, please see the web store for more details.

Thanks in advance.

Good luck,