S-vid drop signal - Jerky Live TV - Spots on Live TV

[shfaxx]

I have three open issues I'm working. Hopefully someone out there can assist. 1st my config. I have a PVR-350 card, I'm using an ATI Radeon 7000 card for my s-vid output to my TV with the WMR7 codec. (I wanted to be able to play over video formats (other than MPEG2))

My 1st problem - After about 10-15 minutes of innactivity (sitting at main GBPVR menu) my ATI card drops the video signal to the s-vid connection. I can restore the video by simply hitting my mouse (Which is annoying since this box is in my AV cabinet). I checked and hybernation is not enabled. The video comes right back when you hit the mouse so it's just dropping the signal for some reason. I DO have the GBPVR screen saver set and it does come on after 2 mins. I tested this out today and also found that if I'm watching live TV it DOESN"T drop the signal, so it's only when I'm sitting at one of the menus. Anyone have any ideas?

2nd problem - Some recordings and LiveTV seem to have little spots (kinda like stuck pixels on an LCD screen) all over the screen. I didn't see this when I used the pvr-350 S-Vid output. Is this normal? Can I get rid of them?

3rd problem - Not a big deal... When I watch LiveTV (Never really do this), the playback is a little choppy. Again I don't really use tihs box to watch live TV, so this is'nt critical, but I'm figureing it's all related so....

thanks all.

[sub]

My 1st problem - After about 10-15 minutes of innactivity (sitting at main GBPVR menu) my ATI card drops the video signal to the s-vid connection. I can restore the video by simply hitting my mouse (Which is annoying since this box is in my AV cabinet). I checked and hybernation is not enabled. The video comes right back when you hit the mouse so it's just dropping the signal for some reason. I DO have the GBPVR screen saver set and it does come on after 2 mins. I tested this out today and also found that if I'm watching live TV it DOESN"T drop the signal, so it's only when I'm sitting at one of the menus. Anyone have any ideas?

My ATI card does something similar, but I quite like it, so I've never looked into what can be done to disable this behaviour. As soon as I press a button the remote, the screen comes back. I'm using an MCE remote, so it may be different if you're using the Hauppauge remote. Either way, I'm sure there must be an ATI or Windows setting for this somewhere.

2nd problem - Some recordings and LiveTV seem to have little spots (kinda like stuck pixels on an LCD screen) all over the screen. I didn't see this when I used the pvr-350 S-Vid output. Is this normal? Can I get rid of them?

I've no heard this one before. Can you post a screenshot? What video decoder are you using?

3rd problem - Not a big deal... When I watch LiveTV (Never really do this), the playback is a little choppy. Again I don't really use tihs box to watch live TV, so this is'nt critical, but I'm figureing it's all related so....

This could be a few things...choice of video decoder, CPU, directshow quartz.dll problem.

[nitrogen_widget]

I have a radeon 7000 & I was getting artifact problems on my screen & it turned out the case was just getting too hot.

On a side note i've been having some tearing of the video with side to side & scene changes on my 7000.

The cpu is a little on the low side but deffinetly not topping out.
I've noticed that my MB is forcing the AGP interface to 1x.

Could this really have that big of an effect?
And does anyone know if a PCI card would work better than AGP 1x?

[shfaxx]

1st, WOW you guys are quick! Thanks mucho...

Ok, so I changed my playback codec to "OSD" and the stuck pixel artifacts and jerky Live-TV seem to be gone, I will let you know after I watch a few shows.

Now, to find out how to stop my video card from shutting down the s-video feed. Sub you are correct, I'm using the Hauppauge remote, so when I hit a button, it doesn't do anything. I have to VNC over (thanks all for that suggestion too, MUCH better than RDP) or hit my mouse (That requires me to get off my ass). I'm going to drop a note to ATI and see if they can suggest anyting. Keep ya'll posted.

thanks much!

[shfaxx]

Well, I haven't heard anything back from ATI and I can't find anything on the web about this "feature"...

Sub, do you know if I can get the Hauppague reomte to simulate moving the mouse or pressing a key? If I could, that would get around the problem.

I'm also looking at just dumping the ATI card for an NVIDIA 6200. I read some of the forums and folks seem to like this card.

[sub]

Sub, do you know if I can get the Hauppague reomte to simulate moving the mouse or pressing a key?

No any more than it already is. The hauppauge IR software already sends fake keystrokes to GB-PVR to drive it, but its obviously not "real" enough to convince the PC to wake up the monitor

[HtV]

Do you maybe have set the screens to turn off after 10 or 15 mins. In windows config-energysettings (something like that)?

[ricklous]

i dont know if this will help, but its worth a try.

Nircmd is a little command line app which you can use to do tons of stuff with.

One of them is to change the power status of your monitor, using these parameters (copied from the help page):

monitor
monitor [action]
Changes the state of the display monitor. The [action] parameter may contain the following values:

* off: Turn off the monitor
* on: Turn on the monitor
* low: Set the monitor to low power state.


This command only works in systems that support this feature.
Examples:
monitor off
monitor on

Ive been using it to try and resolve my problem of not being able to bring the TV to life via remote control if the PC has already been resumed by a scheduled recording. Not currently rectified my problem, but it might be worth playing around to see if tagging the above commands to one of your remotes buttons helps yours?:confused:

[shfaxx]

After replacing my card with an NIDIA 6200 I had the SAME problem. So I figured it couldn't be the card or the drivers... I went back to basics and checked the standard configs... I swore I checked this but the XP power option to turn off my monitor was set to 20 minutes! I changed this back to none and all is back to normal in the world. I just figured I'd post this for anyone else who may have this type of problem.

On a side note, the 6200 seems to be working very well. I turned WRM9 back on, no artifacts and I can now play ALL my various video formats with no problems.

Live-TV is still a little sluggish, but I'm using default MPEG2 codecs so I'm looking to upgrade to the NVIDIA codec, I'm sure that will fix that...

thanks all for your help / suggestions, etc..