Stuttering LiveTV with HVR1600

[baj1]

I'll ask you to please bear with my ignorance on this as my system is all SD and the HD side of GBPVR is new to me.

Over the holiday here I was helping my brother-in-law get his HVR1600 working with GBPVR. We finally got it up and running just before I left, but the Live TV playback was stuttering a lot. I did not gather all the vital specs on his system, but this is what I did see:

Dell P4 2.53GHz (system is 3-4 years old)
1GB or RAM
40GB HDD (he plans to add another HDD)
Video adapter was an Intel something-or-other (didn't know Intel was a player in that market).
Windoze XP SP3

I noticed the CPU utilization sky-rocketed during Live TV mode. My system doesn't do this - is this an HD issue or something with the graphics card? I saw a few posts here recommending graphics card upgrades for HD, I guess it would be difficult to tell if that's the issue until I know what he really has under the hood.

I can certainly get more specs on his system, but for now I do have two questions:

1. Are there recommended minimum system requirements for HD with GBPVR?
2. Is there a way to get SD resolution Live TV playback with his HVR1600 so the system is usable in the short term?

Thanks,
-Brad

[whurlston]

It would all depend on the chipset for his graphics and the decoders he was using. We would need to know the model of the Intel graphics before we could diagnose further.

[baj1]

I tried a couple video decoders, but don't recall which. I know "system default" was one of them.

I'll get the graphics card info from him.

-Brad

[baj1]

Since there doesn't appear to be much info on minimum requirements for HD, how about some suggestions on CPU and video adapters that do work well for HD?

Thanks,
-Brad

[235301]

I have a similar system although I boosted it with a 7600GS video card(this helped a lot). Suggestions:

-Turn off the task manager in Windows. This will help quite a bit.
-Set the display resolution to the native resolution of the HD video you are trying to play. So if it's 720p set it at 1280x720.
-FSE or Overlay.
-Use the right codec. Suggest either Cyberlink SP or nVidia PureVideo.

Try the above and if you still see high CPU utilization then looking at different video card is likely the best bet. But you should be able to do smooth HD playback with this system. I have a lower end CPU than yours and I can do smooth live HD TV.

[baj1]

Thanks for the tips, I'll check into this next time I'm out there.

They don't have a wide screen monitor, so setting the resolution to 1280x720 probably wouldn't be very functional. Another issue they have is that this is a multi-use PC - the whole family uses it for documents, internet, email. This is kind of a "test the waters" setup before they dump a bunch of money into something. I already told him the stability seems to go up significantly if you get a dedicated box that isn't used for other purposes. That's likely what they'll do if this seems like a good fit for them.

[baj1]

Okay, I got the service tag. It's a Dell Dimension 2400. Here's the info Dell has on the service tag

System Type: Dimension 2400
Ship Date: 2/8/2004
Dell IBU: Americas
Quantity Parts # Part Description
0 4X388 Instruction,Preparation- Material,Deviation,Dimension Increase,Number
1 F1534 Processor,80532,2.53,512K,533,Socket N,D1
1 7N242 Keyboard,104 Key,US,Silitek, LC,MG
1 W1668 Kit,Mouse,PS2,2 Button,Wheel, Logitech
1 5W416 Modem,V.92,DFAX,INT,AL,DAO
1 D3431 Kit,Speaker,120V,NMB,A215 Ship In Box
1 P0151 Display,Cathode-Ray Tube,17, D,E773C,Midnight Gray,Dell Americas Organization
1 2K044 Hard Drive,40G,I,F3,1N,5.4K, WD-VL40
1 Y2162 Assembly,Floppy Drive,212,2.0
1 T1614 Kit,Software,OFCSB-2K3 Original Equipment Manufacturer,English
1 N2999 Kit,Software,Money-2K4 Standard,Original Equipment Manufacturer,English
1 R2527 Kit,Software,Overpack,WXPPSP1ACompact Diskette/W Documentation,English
1 M4838 Kit,Software,Original Equipment Mfgr,Turbotax,2K3
1 G2876 Kit,Documentation/Diskette Software,Cyberlink,4.14 Dimension
1 F0598 Dimm, 256, 333M, 32X64, 8K,184
1 R1141 Compact Disk Read Write,48X32 IDE,F5,Samsung,Midnight Gray
1 U0970 DVD,680M,16X,I,F5 Hitachi Large Data Storage Midnight Gray
0 83535 INFO,PART,ATAPI,DEVICE
0 83535 INFO,PART,ATAPI,DEVICE
1 F1362 Placemat,GETS,Dimension 2400 DAO,BCC
1 5064R Techsheet,Legal,Condition
1 N2145 Guide,Owner,Dimension2400 Compact Disk Drive,English Rest Of World
1 R2034 ASSY,CHAS,BF3,200W,NPFC,L6,FX
1 9Y692 Assembly, Heatsink, 2.8GHZ, Grease

Nothing in there jumps out at me as a gpu spec. I looked on Dell's site under "upgrades" and it came up with this:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/produ...sisid=8219

I found this one, looks like a better deal on a better card.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814131169

Any suggestions?

thanks,
-Brad

[baj1]

Actually, it looks like the newegg adapter is PCI Express, and from what I can tell the Dimension 2400 doesn't have any PCI Express slots. Any comments on how much of a difference a new graphics card will even make given that it will only be PCI?

[ShiningDragon]

Really, i wouldn't invest into a PCI Card. The Intel IGP ist at least not to bad... but the drivers are... crap. This is one weakpoint from Intel, since a long time. Good integrated graphicshardware, but crappy driver for this (a long time the shaders of the G965 were "death" because the drivers couldn't use them... -.-).

How about a small System Upgrade? Like an ASUS M3N78-EM AM2+ Mainboard (nForce 730a+IGP 8300), AMD Athlon II X2 240 or 250 and 2 Gigs of DDR2 RAM (PC800 or PC1066)? It weren't too expensive (~ 140 EUR for all within germany).

I don't like to invest money into "death" systems...

[baj1]

Thanks for the input. If they like the way GBPVR works, they'll probably buy a whole new PC for it.

I found a PNY GeForce 5200 PCI 256MB with good reviews for $25 USD and free shipping - worth a gamble? I'm looking for the cheapest way for them to try it, but if it still stutters there's no point.