Desktop support for Xcard

[JJDChE]

One of the major downers people have noted about using the Xcard is that you can't see your desktop when you exit GB PVR. It's my understanding that you can see the desktop in TVedia when using the Xcard. That would be a great feature for Xcard users.

I'm not clear on all the mechanisms at work here, but since the Xcard has a VGA in, I imagine that it would be possible to convert it to the SVideo or component out.

[pandasuit]

I was wondering: what are you XCard users doing about this? Are you using a second card with tv out and doing the switching on the tv side?

The reason I ask is that I was about to buy an xcard for the set top PVR I have been building. Currently I am just using a standard vid card with tv out for everything but would really like to have the xcards hardware decoding.

I do not have a monitor connected to this machine (nor would I want one in my living room) so it is important that I be able to output the desktop to my tv somehow.

Also, I am confused on this point: what is the VGA passthrough on the xcard for?

Thanks in advance.

[sub]

No, you cant show the desktop on the XCard.

I've never tried the VGA pass through, but I think this is how it works: When using the passthrough, the VGA signals generated by your normal video card are sent through the XCard, and on to the connected monitor. When playing video, the XCard disables this pass-through temporarily and instead displays the video fullscreen to the VGA monitor. When the video playback is finished, the pass through is reenabled.

[stefan]

I was wondering: what are you XCard users doing about this? Are you using a second card with tv out and doing the switching on the tv side?

This is what I did when I used the tv-out on the pvr-350. Although I had two inputs on my tv, so I only had to press a button on my remote ;-)

I do not have a monitor connected to this machine (nor would I want one in my living room) so it is important that I be able to output the desktop to my tv somehow.

If you plan to do anything more than really basic stuff, you want some other solution than tv-out on a graphics card (the resolution is usually so bad so you can't see details very good). I'd recommend using some sort of remote desktop software (I use tightVNC, I'm sure others have other suggestions) and connect from another computer, if you have one.

[pandasuit]

No, you cant show the desktop on the XCard.

I've never tried the VGA pass through, but I think this is how it works: When using the passthrough, the VGA signals generated by your normal video card are sent through the XCard, and on to the connected monitor. When playing video, the XCard disables this pass-through temporarily and instead displays the video fullscreen to the VGA monitor. When the video playback is finished, the pass through is reenabled.

If that is how it works that is pretty good but if the XCard can send the pass-through signal out a connection other than its VGA out (such as s-video or component) then that would be awesome.

If I end up getting it I will confirm how this functionality works and post here about it.

[pandasuit]

If you plan to do anything more than really basic stuff, you want some other solution than tv-out on a graphics card (the resolution is usually so bad so you can't see details very good). I'd recommend using some sort of remote desktop software (I use tightVNC, I'm sure others have other suggestions) and connect from another computer, if you have one.

Yeah I am dealing with the resolution issue right now by running at low res with all text sizes increased. Unfortunately some apps have hard coded text sizes that are too small for the low tv res.

I use VNC for doing anything serious on the machine (like installing software and such) but I dont want to use another machine to control it for general use.

Sometimes I want to run software other than GBPVR on the machine (like emulators) so being able to output this to the tv is necessary.

[sub]

No, it cant send the desktop out of another output. Infact, the VGA signal from your video never really even goes through the XCard, so there is no way it could send it out of any of the other outputs.

With this VGA pass through, it's effectively just the XCard taking over your VGA connection from video card to monitor temporarily whilst it plays video. The rest of the time, the VGA signal is going directly from your video card to the monitor.

[pandasuit]

No, it cant send the desktop out of another output. Infact, the VGA signal from your video never really even goes through the XCard, so there is no way it could send it out of any of the other outputs.

With this VGA pass through, it's effectively just the XCard taking over your VGA connection from video card to monitor temporarily whilst it plays video. The rest of the time, the VGA signal is going directly from your video card to the monitor.

Thats too bad. I guess I would need to do switching on the tv side then. Maybe there is a reasonably priced s-video switch that detects which input has a signal and auto switches....

Too bad I cant afford a NetStream 4000.

So is the XCard really worth it? Is the output quality really good?

The reason I was interested in the hardware decoding and acceleration is that my PVR machine is a 600Mhz. Recording with the WinTV-PVR 150 is great but playback sometimes stutters with such a slow proc.

Oddly enough VideoLan Client usually plays back files with no problems and low CPU usage. This leads me to believe that the DirectShow codecs (is that the term I want) being used on my machine are not that great.