No menu on TV output PVR-350

[sub]

I still get the odd time the 350 tv-out appears to just lock up (3 times in 2 hours) with a solid green or striped red screen. A quick reset of GBPVR and the card seems to resets itself. I guess I just keep plugging away. Thanks

Strange lockups or system freezes/reboots are pretty standard for about 50% of PVR350 tv out users, and was ultimately the reason I dropped support for the TV out aspect of this device. It was just too flakey...

[Novemberpvr]

Hi everyone, I'm a newbie here...

Now that the PVR-350 isn't supported, does gbpvr support any hardware decoders besides the sigma designs xcard, or would I have to buy a new 4x compatible AGP graphics card with some sort of hardware decoding? (4X because I'm trying to put off building a new PC as long as possible.)

Current System: ASUS P4B266; P4 1.60GHz Northwood not overclocked yet; 512MB Corsair XMS CAS 2 RAM; Seagate ST380013A 80GB OS; WD WD2500JB 250GB Data; RME Multiface II; Hauppauge PVR-150 (no FM); Matrox G450 DualHead.

Actually, I was very surprised the old hardware would work so well for TV without upgrading the graphics card. There is some choppiness from time to time, but I was planning on it not even working.

I had always planned on overclocking, but I'm not too sure about the stock Intel heatsink, and figured the $ I'd spend on a new heatsink should be saved toward a new dual-core PC project built from scratch. Of course, I could see this system will eventually becoming the dedicated HTPC, which is why I'm interested in hardware decoders...

I guess I could still get a PVR-350, but not expect the TV out to work, and if it does, it's a bonus.

Thanks,

Rick
http://www.novemberfactory.com

[cverheuv]

Sub, in your expert opinion, is the 350 TV-OUT issue a drive related issue and they will eventually get it figured out. This latest release 98.08 moved me WAY forward in getting to where I want to be. I would hate to give up.

As a side I read a forum report on the card itself and it indicated that P4 HT was a problem, I have not disabled HT yet, but leaning that way as a possible solution. I am also guessing my integrated Intel Graphics card is not helping. The problem is no slots in this Sony computer to add other cards, so the concept of a TV-IN and TV-OUT card made a lot of sense for me.

I've read that the MVP is probable my best option, but that signal quality will be less than the TV-OUT on the card.

[sub]

Sub, in your expert opinion, is the 350 TV-OUT issue a drive related issue and they will eventually get it figured out. This latest release 98.08 moved me WAY forward in getting to where I want to be. I would hate to give up.

To be honest, I dont think this issue will ever be solved. The main reasons being:

- This conexant decoder was only ever used in this one device, and has never been used again. It seems to be a dead end product line.
- The PVR350 is a previous generation of hardware now, and the drivers havnt been updated in a long time
- Hauppauge WinTV app does not have the problem. The problem only occurs when the OSD/graphics capabilities of the tv out are used, so only affects GB-PVR and SageTV.
- The PVR350 and the reference chipset it was based on was released many years ago now, back when PCs were slower and often needed hardware decoders to really be capable of playing MPEG2 content. PCs are faster now, and can do so much more than the PVR350's tv out (DVD, MPEG4 etc).


It was nearly a 18 months ago I stopped supporting the TV out feature of the PVR350 (early 2005), so nothing new

[sub]

Now that the PVR-350 isn't supported, does gbpvr support any hardware decoders besides the sigma designs xcard, or would I have to buy a new 4x compatible AGP graphics card with some sort of hardware decoding? (4X because I'm trying to put off building a new PC as long as possible.)

You say it like it something new. GB-PVR hasnt supported these hardware decoders for a very long time, nearly 18 months.

The industry has moved away from these dedicated decoder devices like PVR350, XCard, Hollywood Plus etc. These days its pretty standard to use regular video cards, and to make use of the hardware accelleration they offer. They offer much better connectivity to modern TVs though DVI/HDMI etc, and are much more flexible allowing pretty much anything to be displayed.

The main problem with these hardware decoders was the lack of any common standards. They were all entirely different from each other, and required a huge amount of effort to develop and maintain. It wasnt just a matter of adding a few lines of code to add support for some new hardware decoder. Everything was different about them - the way you needed to talk to them, their capabilities, how you play files, how your display OSD graphics, how data needs to be formatted to be passed to the device. An obscene amount of code was required to PVR350. Likewise with the XCard.

[cverheuv]

Sub, Thanks - I guess that answers the fundimental question. Back it goes! Too Bad, back to the research boards....