Advice on settings please! :)

[BananaPancakes]

Hiya! I recently purchased a WinTV-PVR150. and I'm trying to get the best possible quality out of TV viewing/console games as I can. I'm using my pc monitor, an LCD 19inch widescreen.

I've been reading around quite often and have done extensive trial and error tests.

Here's my rig:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.01) GHz
1.25GB DDR RAM
Geforce 6800xt 256mb/256bit PCI-E
Cheap SoundsBlaster Live! LS sound card
WinTV-PVR 150
180GB HDD (Have two installed -140GB & 40GB)

GB-PVR Settings:

Hardware decoder device: None - use software decoder
Software MPEG-2 Playback: Video Decoder: Nvidia Video Decoder
Audio: Nvidia Audio Decoder
Audio Renderer: SB Live! Audio [E880]
VMR9

Video Decoder Settings: Dispaly type: Content Default
Hardware acceleration checked
De-interlace Control: Automatic
Decoder Format reads: DirectX VA model A (idct) & Video Mixing
De-interlace Mode: Best available
Enhanced nView support: Prefer VMR9

So basically these are the setting I've come acrossed that seem to give the best quality. I'm a little fuzzy on hardware decoder device though, I've only got two options to choose from (Hauppauge PVR350 and Sigma Designs Xcard). Now for some questions!

Should my 6800xt be showing as a hardware decoder device? (I understand that my card supports hardware decoding, correct?)
Am I able to enable 480p for console games that support it?
Under the "Live preview mode" in the Misc section of the GB-PVR Config, I have my de-interlacing set to Ffdshow Raw Video filter. Does this setting directly affect my LiveTV quality?
Am I just being a perfectionist? (This is so addicting!)

Whew, sorry for the long post. That's basically it, but let me know if I left anything out that would be of use to you! Oh, and please excuse my ignorance towards some of the questions. I'm still learning!

Thanks for sharing some time,
Alex

[csy]

I can help you out on some points that I know about.

Most of your settings are optimal, but I recommend the following:
GBPVR:
Hardware decoder device: None (you do not have a hardware decoder)
Audio renderer: System Default (this is the normally recommended setting)
Live preview Mode - De-interlacing: Encoder pass-through (use video decoder de-interlacing)
Nvida Video Decoder:
De-interlace mode: VMR default (this enables hardware de-interlacing)
If you don't see "VMR default" option then apply the following registry patch
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=18464

Explanations:
- Hardware de-interlacing uses the graphics card de-interlacing capability which is far superior to software de-interlacing.
- Your graphics card has MPEG2 hardware acceleration (assistance) but not full hardware decode, which is why you need the video decoder software (Purevideo), and hence why you must configure GBPVR for hardware decoder = none
- PVR applications (like GBPVR) are generally unsuitable for real-time games because they add video and audio delay
- PVR applications cannot change screen resolutions. Screen resolutions are manually configured in the graphics card driver configuration. The ATI Catalyst Control Panel allows you to create profiles with different resolutions and use hot-keys to swap between the profiles

Hope this helps

Edit:
If you have FFDShow installed, then I recoomend you uninstall it because it is very prone to clashing with other Directshow filters like Purevideo.