Four second delay from STB to GB-PVR

[joshley]

Howdy
I have this problem.... whenever I change channel on my NTL box there is a four second delay to when it happens on GB-PVR, which is a tad annoying! Here is my set up:
Scart Out from NTL to S-Video in on Hauppauge PVR-350
Multi-pin out on PVR-350, using S-Video out on adapter cable to Scart In on the television.
BUT, my 'HTPC' (ahem, don't laugh) has the following ingredients:
AMD Duron 750MHz and 128MB SDRAM
Which are hardly very tasty ones. Could this be the problem? Anyone else get this problem? Obviously there will be some small delay whilst the PVR-350 processes everything.. but surely not four seconds? I thought the PVR-350 was supposed to be pretty much instant because it does all the processing itself, not on your CPU, which is why I thought I'd be alright with my old Duron and crappy RAM.
Thanks!
joshley

[stu8080]

I get the same problem with my pathetic K6-2 450! although i have the PVR-350

I asked Sub before and he confirmed its the OSD and graphic menu that is slow, ive upgraded to a Duron 1800 as they are only about £25 now.
Ill let you know howe much difference it makes

[joshley]

Cheers Stu, I'd be very interested to see what difference the new chip makes. GB-PVR itself isn't actually too slow, and when I do GB-PVR related things there isn't a delay, but when I change channel on my STB it takes four seconds to see the effect on the screen when going through the PC.
Let me know!
joshley

[hvcpvr]

GB-PVR is always buffering so live tv is actually a little behind real time. I believe this is why you are seeing this delay.

[joshley]

Cheers hvcpvr!
Would it be as much as four seconds, though? It seems a little high...
joshley

[sub]

I think the milage varies for a lot people. There is so many different combinations of things happening.

It certainly is slower when using a STB, and changing channels using a IR Blaster. Send these IR characters can take 1.5 - 2 seconds. This isn't a problem for a scheduled recording, but is right painful if you're trying to watch live TV. This is a situation where folks using the PVR250/350 internal tuners have an advantage (no external IR channel change events required).

The PVR350 decoder does start playing the stream quite quickly, but there is nearly a second of buffering taking place inside the PVR350 for the MPEG encoding part of the process.

The MVP will also start playback of a live tv file quite quickly.

If you were doing software decoding, the playback is usually a little slower to start but can be speed up by enabling the 'Use SBE if available' option.

[Rednax]

I get the same problem with my pathetic K6-2 450!

So my K6-2+ 550 has a chance of running GB-PVR (if slowly)?

[daphatty]

Considering all of the enhancements that have come in the last 18 months, I'd say no chance in hell. (Not sure if you noticed that you bumped a thread from August of 2004.)

[sub]

So my K6-2+ 550 has a chance of running GB-PVR (if slowly)?

The recommended minimum spec CPU is a 1Ghz PIII class CPU.

[stu8080]

Mr Duron got binned in favour of an Athlon 2500+ which is perfect now. They are being phased out and most processors of this level should be pretty cheap.
It might frustrate you going for the minimum spec though, whilst GB-PVR will be fine, things like Comskip and .avi playback would struggle on a PIII or Duron