2005-10-22, 04:13 PM
I've just gotten set up with a new Hauppauge pvr350 card in a decent older pc (1GHz PIII, 512ram, DVD drive, WinXP) with wired network access. I already have DVDs ripped to the HD and lots of mpeg files. The whole point of setting up the PVR is to watch them on the big TV instead of the PC. I already have a TiVo (still the best user interface, not much capacity on mine tho and cant play files from the network not recorded by it, plus only a 802.11a net connection via usb1, yuck). So, I set playback to use the 350's tv output. Works fine for live tv and recording and playing back from the tuner. However, when I try to play one of the dvds on the HD (ripped with DVD Decrypter) I just get black. Same with most of the mpeg files. I think I found one mpg that worked. If I turn off the 350's output and just use the pc monitor, I can play back any video file from the gbpvr interface. But after starting a dvd file playing, gbpvr stopped responding. The remote didnt work and the only way to get out of the dvd was to end task. So, I'm wondering what I'm missing. I'm also wondering what makes this pvr350 so great if it can only output what it has recorded? I guess it has to use hardware decoding for everything going out of it, instead of codecs loaded on the pc? I have an ATI all-in-wonder that I could install and use for the output to the tv, but I like having the dedicated tv output on the 350 in addition to the vga out to a monitor. Lets me do maintenance/setup. Plus there's the issue of the audio coming out the 350 vs the sound card for different things. I haven't even attemped anything divx related. Is there a 'best' way to set the stuff up that I'm not seeing or am I missing a critical driver or config option or plugin or something? btw I just upgraded the Hauppauge drivers to 2.2 and same thing.
Thanks
Thanks