2008-01-18, 03:04 PM
Hi all,
I'm totally new to this, and after spending some bones on some RAM and a Tuner card, I have sucessfully got it all to work. I can record shows, I'm using yapi to get the channel listings, etc. So far, so good.
My hardware is as such: 2.3 GHZ P4, 256 mb RAM (i'm still waiting on amazon to deliver an addition 512 megs, so ram upgrade is imminent), NVIDIA Geforce card (I'm not sure which, but I can find out), Audigy 2, and Hauppauge WinTV 150 MCE (kit with remote).
I have the cable (I think it's digital cable, but again, I'm not sure, and I'm not sure if it even matters with respect to my problem) from the wall split once to accomodate a cable modem. The line not going to my cable modem is then split again, one line for the TV itself, and one line for the computer Tuner card.
Even after buying the NVIDIA decoder codec and playing around with all possible settings in the playback config, LiveTV / recordings still look noticably grainy/distorted. I have it to the point in which there is no stuttering or jerkiness, but what I'm going for is to have TV look as good as my DVDs, which I'm playing through the same computer (they look great). I'd settle for at least as good as playback on my actual TV. Is this possible? Did I screw up and buy an outdated card? Is it the encoding on the card itself? Or do I just need a better computer / faster CPU / drivers / a miracle?
My TV is a samsung 32 inch LCD HDTV. I have it on 4:3 non-stretched mode, and yes, I know that analog signals on HDTV are lower-quality. What I am experiencing through the tuner card is lower in quality than normal live TV.
Thanks for you help! Sorry if a million people have asked this already. I did try a forum search, but it only yielded posts about 1,000 other scary problems I hope I never have.
- Brian
[note: edited for clarity / typos. hindsight is 20/20]
I'm totally new to this, and after spending some bones on some RAM and a Tuner card, I have sucessfully got it all to work. I can record shows, I'm using yapi to get the channel listings, etc. So far, so good.
My hardware is as such: 2.3 GHZ P4, 256 mb RAM (i'm still waiting on amazon to deliver an addition 512 megs, so ram upgrade is imminent), NVIDIA Geforce card (I'm not sure which, but I can find out), Audigy 2, and Hauppauge WinTV 150 MCE (kit with remote).
I have the cable (I think it's digital cable, but again, I'm not sure, and I'm not sure if it even matters with respect to my problem) from the wall split once to accomodate a cable modem. The line not going to my cable modem is then split again, one line for the TV itself, and one line for the computer Tuner card.
Even after buying the NVIDIA decoder codec and playing around with all possible settings in the playback config, LiveTV / recordings still look noticably grainy/distorted. I have it to the point in which there is no stuttering or jerkiness, but what I'm going for is to have TV look as good as my DVDs, which I'm playing through the same computer (they look great). I'd settle for at least as good as playback on my actual TV. Is this possible? Did I screw up and buy an outdated card? Is it the encoding on the card itself? Or do I just need a better computer / faster CPU / drivers / a miracle?
My TV is a samsung 32 inch LCD HDTV. I have it on 4:3 non-stretched mode, and yes, I know that analog signals on HDTV are lower-quality. What I am experiencing through the tuner card is lower in quality than normal live TV.
Thanks for you help! Sorry if a million people have asked this already. I did try a forum search, but it only yielded posts about 1,000 other scary problems I hope I never have.
- Brian
[note: edited for clarity / typos. hindsight is 20/20]