Could I get away with this?

[Marbles_00]

Current PVR system:
P3 850MHz
Asus P2B-F
224MHz RAM
ATI Radeon 64M AGP video card
Hauppauge PVR-150 capture card

Currently it is using WinXP SP2, and I've been using Got All Media as the PVR software, which for the most part is running okay, but I'm getting increasingly frustrated at the lack of support on the web site...not to mention, skinning is very difficult (or should I say, almost impossible, unless you understand xml files), so I've been thinking of switching to GB-PVR. I know the min requirements indicate a 1G CPU, but has anyone used GB-PVR with similar hardware on a lesser speed CPU? I still have older versions of GB-PVR for when I played with it years ago.

I've loaded the most recent GB-PVR version on a P3 733, and it loads and is pretty responsive, but I haven't dived into video playback or anything.

I'm only picking up SD TV, and outputing to a CRT 4:3 TV using the video cards S-Vid output. I'm not doing any HD on that system (of course not), and no post-processing of the video signal (DVD or TV). I was going to use GB-PVR when I first put the system together, but opted towards GAM because of its min requirements.

Thanks to all for lending a hand.

A direct link to my MediaPVR page is here:
http://sites.google.com/site/maycreates/mediapvr

[zehd]

Current PVR system:
P3 850MHz
Asus P2B-F
224MHz RAM
ATI Radeon 64M AGP video card
Hauppauge PVR-150 capture card

Currently it is using WinXP SP2, and I've been using Got All Media as the PVR software, which for the most part is running okay, but I'm getting increasingly frustrated at the lack of support on the web site...not to mention, skinning is very difficult (or should I say, almost impossible, unless you understand xml files), so I've been thinking of switching to GB-PVR. I know the min requirements indicate a 1G CPU, but has anyone used GB-PVR with similar hardware on a lesser speed CPU? I still have older versions of GB-PVR for when I played with it years ago.

I've loaded the most recent GB-PVR version on a P3 733, and it loads and is pretty responsive, but I haven't dived into video playback or anything.

I'm only picking up SD TV, and outputing to a CRT 4:3 TV using the video cards S-Vid output. I'm not doing any HD on that system (of course not), and no post-processing of the video signal (DVD or TV). I was going to use GB-PVR when I first put the system together, but opted towards GAM because of its min requirements.

Thanks to all for lending a hand.

A direct link to my MediaPVR page is here:
http://sites.google.com/site/maycreates/mediapvr

The short answer is yes, there are those running equal or lesser systems than yours.

However, as nice and friendly as this support forum is, those specs will frustrate the hell out of most people trying to help.

You'll probably need to mod and tweak your xp a whole bunch and that's just gonna be a pain. Your video and system ram is just so antiquated, you will probably have nothing but problems...

If it's your hobby and you have fun tweaking, and do most of your own support and troubleshooting, then go for it. Other guys (and gals) have done things like this on a lark, kinda like a limbo contest: "How Low Can You Go?"

I have tried also, and went pretty far, but in the end it was not worth the headaches...

If you fire it up, and start seeing stuttering video and jerky menus, and the first thing you do is ask questions on the forum, you'll probably be pointed to the the minimum system specs page...

...nicely

[Marbles_00]

However, as nice and friendly as this support forum is, those specs will frustrate the hell out of most people trying to help.

Thanks for the info Zehd. That sentence made me chuckle. I'm usually pretty good when it comes to hardware problems. Most times, my questions are directed towards skinning issues and the sort...or how do I get this to work? I was just wondering if it was worth the hassle to change over, or just keep on trying to change the look of the GAM interface to suit my needs. Its getting very frustrating to make a change in the xml, close and reopen GAM to find that wasn't the right thing to change, then go through that process again and again, and after several hours...to several evenings, not make any headway. I then asked how to move menus over slightly and still haven't had any responses.

After looking over many posts here, I most likely will have video playback issues with the current GB-PVR build. I'm going to try one of my previous versions that still used gbpvr.exe. Does anyone know if the last version that used that exe still exists anywhere? Thought I'd throw that question out there, but I'm going to check the forums as well.

Thanks again Zehd for answering my post.

[imagn]

Does anyone know if the last version that used that exe still exists anywhere? Thought I'd throw that question out there, but I'm going to check the forums as well.

I found this once when doing some looking

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/GB-PVR?ol...1#download

Also the 1.2.9 has gbpvr.exe and is the last version to do so

[sub]

After looking over many posts here, I most likely will have video playback issues with the current GB-PVR build. I'm going to try one of my previous versions that still used gbpvr.exe.

If you go with using the old gbpvr.exe, then you'd unfortunately be back were you started - frustrated by the skinning, and lack of support. You'll also be using a different app to the vast majority of people here, and plugins will increasing not work with it. I pretty sure going down this path will set yourself up for another frustrating experience in the long run...

[Marbles_00]

Thanks for all the info guys. It all is very helpful in making this decision.

[martint123]

I'm not sure if you have installed the current version yet? If not, give it a try, if you just want a quick look then the setup is fairly easy.
If you have already installed it, throw some plain mpeg2 files into a directory and point 'video' in config to that directory and try to play them.
From that point you can see if it is worth continuing and it shouldn't take long to get there.

Have fun!

[Marbles_00]

Just wanted to let you know, last night I gave it a whirl and was surprised at the results. I went with the 1.2.13 version. Setup was done in about a 1/2 hour. Had my Hauppauge remote working. Used VMR9 in full screen exclusive (tried others but they were less successful). I played some DVD rips across the network, and they were fine, no stutter or anything. I then played back some MPEG2 recordings I had done, and most of them played fine. One gave me problems, but that may have been the file itself, as it was one of my first attempts at recording a file straight across the network. I was pretty happy with the results.

Now the downside. I setup the DVD section the same as the Playback section in config. I popped in a DVD, and it stuttered right from the get go. I also tried LiveTV, but I didn't set it up right as I didn't have video (using the S-Vid connection on the PVR-150), and I had audio...though that was sputtering as well.

Oh well. I'm going to drop back in the versions and use 1.2.09, and gbpvr.exe and try that out. I've played around with skinning before when I was testing GB-PVR along with xlobby and wanted to make both look the same, and though it can be tedious, I had pretty good success at moving text to where I wanted it...more than what I can say for GAM.

Thanks for everyones input.