ATI TV Wonder 650 CPU usage on playback

[bennbrian]

I've just installed a new ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI card. Recording is fine from a CPU-overhead standpoint (2-5%.) Problem is that the playback of either Live TV or a recording (that GB-PVR made) causes steady CPU usage to 100% until playing is paused or stopped (where GB-PVR is consuming almost all of this.) ATI's supplied Media Catalyst software behaves in the same manner. If I play the recorded file w/Windows Media Player v11.0, however, CPU usage is only 2-5%. Windows Media Player shows the following properties for the file when played:
Video size: 720x480
Aspect ratio: 4:3
Audio codec: InterVideo NonCSS Audio Decoder for Hauppauge
Video codec: CyberLink Video/SP Decoder (PCM45)

I've tried setting GB-PVR config to use the same audio/video coded, but the results are the same. I set logging level to DEBUG and am attaching pvrx2.exe-native.log, pvrx2.exe.log. Any help would be greatly appreciated as GB-PVR is my preferred player/recorder! Love the software. Thanks!

Specs:
Hewlett-Packard HP d530 SFF
2.67 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
1Gb RAM
Windows XP Pro/SP3
Intel® 82865G Graphics Controller (integrated)
GB-PVR v1.3.11

[Graham]

Does the button to the right of the video decoder name in config.exe allow you change settings for the decoder? Is hardware acceleration enabled?

Do you have more than one version of the Cyberlink video decoder installed. This might help ...

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/detai...laylang=en

[bennbrian]

Graham,

Yes, the configure button for the video decoder is available and I do have hardware acceleration enabled.

I then used the Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility and find that it finds 4 Cyberlink video codes installed:
Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (PCM45) – CLVSD.ax 6.0.0.3402
Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (ShEX) – CLImageVSD.ax 6.0.0.1625
Cyberlink MPEG Video Decoder – PCMDV_mmv.ax 4.0.0.3013
Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder – PCMBVSD.ax 6.0.0.1919

Now that I look closer, I have instructed GB-PVR to use a different video codec that Windows Media Player used (I thought I had set GB-PVR to use the same.) However, the available video codecs for playback in the config.exe do not offer the same one that Windows Media Player uses. The only Cyberlink codec offered by GB-PVR is the last of the 4 listed above: Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder.

What does all of this tell me?

[Graham]

Config.xml contains a list of decoders. The dropdown list in config.exe includes decoders from the list in config.xml that are also installed on the 'puter. You can edit the list in config.xml (using notepad) to include the various decoders that you have installed.

There is anecdotal evidence that decoders interfere with each other (the dirty buggers). You might like to get rid of the ones that you don't use.