High Definition

[Dano]

I was surprised by how easy it was to get my HDTV Wonder up and running. Beautiful picture and sound without the stuttering/freezing or choppy audio I have seen in ATI MMC. The only thing I miss is the ability to watch a show and record at the same time (or maybe I am just doing something wrong). Congrats and thanks Sub for a job well done!

[betlit]

to watch a show (live-tv) and record another, you need two tuner cards (or a card with two tuners..). for every tuner in your system, a capture source must be defined.

btw: recording a show and watch another previously recorded one is of course possible.

[daphatty]

I may be the first then...I'm still really considering it now that I know it should =\ work with gbpvr.

I've written a walkthough for setting up HDTV capture sources as well as given advice on various settings for tweaking and adjusting. If you do a search for posts by DaPhatty that include HDTV I think you will find what you are looking for.

[betlit]

and daphatty's walkthrough is in the wiki, too:
http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Confi...HDTVSource

[Dave47]

I'm the guy using the PCHDTV 3000. It wasn't too hard to set up. Its only problem is that it is only "supported" under Linux. The driver disk, however, contains BDA drivers and instructions for installation under XP.

The bigger issue, of course, is the amount of computing power needed to watch it. I have an Athlon64 3000+ processor and a 6600GT video card. With the right choice of drivers, I can get VMR9 playback at about 50% CPU processing. Overlay is about 20% CPU, but doesn't look as good. Many nvidia cards like the 6600GT have iDCT and motion compensation acceleration built in which helps with the CPU overhead.

Overall, though, I'm happy and looking to get a second card of some sort. The Fusion 5 cards are reasonably priced at $100, so I might get one of those.

Incidentally, I have an HR10-250 (with 400GB) in my main setup. For those that don't know, it is DirectTV's 2 tuner HD Tivo. It's awesome, and my PC still pales in comparison to it. So far. This GB-PVR software has potential . The reason I'm even messing with this is to possibly get at least one more tuner for those prime time days when the 4 networks put the one show per week I want to watch on in HD at the same time.

David

[dflipb]

thanks guys for that. I was wondering what type of specs do you need. right now I have a 1.8 and about 512Mb ram with a 350-capture card. I want to add the HD ati card, but now I'm wondering if it is going to bog my system down?

[danger_powers33]

I run an Athlon 64 3000+ as well as Dave 47 and have had similar issues with processing HD. watching it is fine but when i go to record (using DVR-MS) processor load maxes out and the video produced is too choppy to watch. but with the Twinhan software that came with my DVB-t card HD recording loaded but produced good quality video. i know GB-PVR is much better software im just missing something in the settings any help would be appreciated

[sub]

Have you tried a Cyberlink mux? I'd recommend one of the newer ones (5.0.0.813 or newer).

[Dave47]

I run an Athlon 64 3000+ as well as Dave 47 and have had similar issues with processing HD. watching it is fine but when i go to record (using DVR-MS) processor load maxes out and the video produced is too choppy to watch. but with the Twinhan software that came with my DVB-t card HD recording loaded but produced good quality video. i know GB-PVR is much better software im just missing something in the settings any help would be appreciated

I actually have no problems recording. Since the ATSC stream is already compressed at the source, the software only has to save it to disk for future decoding. I can do this with under 5% processor load. My processor loading only comes with playback and that is fixed with an accelerated graphics card and the right drivers.

It's so good now that the only choppiness I see comes from momentary signal glitches. Playback on a PC is different than playback on my HR10-250 Tivo. I actually see the pixelated frames on the Tivo, so I know there is a signal glitch. The PC just skips the bad frames and causes a jump in the video. This jump looks the same as a dropped frame from an overloaded processor. I just have to back up and verify that it was a recorded glitch.

David

[dflipb]

well I bought the ati hdtv and I'm still trying to get it workin. it works with the ati software but...I'm still workin through the online tuts to get gbpvr workin..
I really think I need to get more ram. =( 256 just isn't cutting it with 2 cards.
LOL