Been tinkering a few days, some questions

[Astrophysics]

Hi all, I'm on what I'd call my first "serious" HTPC project (I've dabbled a bit previously but never dug too deep). I downloaded and tried a few media center packages before deciding on GB-PVR for its depth of configurable options, functionality, and (something I haven't often paid much attention to) the strength of the available support, both in documentation and a good user community right here on the forum.

I've been playing around with the various settings for a few days and am getting comfortable with how some of it is working (TV guide, for instance) but I would appreciate the guidance of some more experienced users for fine-tuning the performance. Many of the concepts involved are ones that I understand in theory to some extent, but in practice am not sure what to attribute various issues to.

I'll list the hardware I'm using and then the few questions I have at this point.

(This computer is a work in progress, as an HTPC emerges from what was once a Celeron HP desktop, so there is a mixture of old and new hardware.)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2H with the AMD 740G chipset (Radeon HD 2100 onboard graphics with HDMI output, using 128MB of memory)
CPU: Athlon 64 LE-1600 (socket AM2)
RAM: 2GB DDR2-800
TV tuner: Hauppauge HVR-1800 (PCIe-x1, ATSC/NTSC/FM hybrid)
HDD: 40GB IDE (not a typo; this is the next thing to be replaced)
Audigy 2 sound card is doing 5.1-channel output to my receiver, and I'm using the HDMI connection to my Sony 34" CRT, typically running in 720p mode
Operating system is Windows XP Pro (SP2), and I'm using GB-PVR 1.2.9.

Now, my questions. I've had several that I already found answers to here by searching, and I'm certain that I've missed the answers to some of the questions that follow (there are over 200 posts in the "disappointing MPEG-2 decoding" thread; I'd rather not read them all looking for anyone mentioning my specific issues). That said, I'd like to thank you for your patience if I seem to cover all-too-common ground at times, and if you know of another thread that has addressed one of my inquiries but maybe eluded my search keywords, kindly point me in the right direction.

Again, thank you for any help on any of my four questions below.

[Remote (RESOLVED)]
One question seems to be a common one but I haven't really found a solution I was able to use successfully: I'd like to use the "green button" to launch PVRX2. My Hauppauge card came with an MCE remote+receiver, and I got XP Pro to recognize it using Microsoft KB912024. I installed HIP per suggestions elsewhere on this site and while it would recognize the remote, I then had no idea how to make pushing this button launch the program (what's worse, both HIP and PVRX2 recognized other buttons, turning each into a double-press). Is there a good walkthrough for configuring this functionality?

[Playback #1]
Playback of analog content, whether previously recorded or TV in timeshift mode, is sometimes quite stuttery and sometimes not, and it seems to be related to jumping around in the file. I can be watching a program smoothly, and then choose to skip forward a minute or two, and the playback will be choppy. But then I can jump back ten seconds, and that may remove the problem. Or simply hitting pause and then resume may accomplish the same thing: at any rate, I haven't found a consistent pattern yet to reproduce the effect in a predictable way. I've been using FFDshow for playback; might this be a matter of deinterlacing? Or am I thinking entirely along the wrong lines?

[Playback #2]
Big surprise, but my TV's own tuner versus video viewed through GB-PVR are not identical. The particular issue I'd like to address is that when something small is moving on the screen, its edges will be blurred; the scrolling text of a ticker is easy to read on the TV but not on the PC. A vertical white line that moves horizontally will appear to flash as it moves on the PC. What type of issue might this be? Is it more to do with my playback codec, or is it a function of the hardware MPEG2 encoding on my capture card?

[HD playback]
This PC hasn't been intended for HDTV quite yet, since I don't even have an antenna, but I found that the FM dipole antenna included with the capture card does pick up several digital stations in my area, and what I found was that the HD stations do not display smoothly. Digital SD stations seem to work fine, but it would appear that some sort of upgrade may be necessary before the computer performs well in HD. It does appear to max out my CPU (Athlon 64 LE-1600), but before assuming that it's what I should replace, I was wondering how much suspicion I should have of the integrated graphics I am using: would a separate higher-end graphics card offer something that the Radeon HD 2100 does not?

[stustunz]

if using the standard windows driver for your remote (ehome will show under usb connections in device manager)
the double presses could be one of 2 things
1.try the remote without hip loaded if you get double hits then go here and load the patch
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...double+hit

2.this means that both hip and windows may trying to send remote presses to gbpvr
if this is the case then you need to remove any buttons you have added in the first screen of hip for program 1 or where ever you have pvrx2.exe
you dont need them as gbpvr already knows what buttons do what once gbpvr has opened

then goto preferences/ alternate input (alternate input is used so the buttons work no matter if the program is opened or not ,system wide keys)
add key /press start on remote it will give you options


i also have these settings under alternate input if you find the keys are not always working then try changing these
also tick use with keyboard
select exucute only when in focus (some say this should be unique but i found it didnt always start)

[Astrophysics]

Hey, thanks -- that worked for the remote. It did re-introduce the double-pressing issue, but I solved it, not by applying a patch, but by deleting all the other keys in the "alternate input" section. Maybe a clunky workaround, but I think it still will offer some flexibility.