Newbie here: live TV says use TV OUT?

[Flemingdl]

I'm impressed so far with GB-PVR for my just purchased WinTV PVR-350! I've been unable to view Live TV from the Blue GB-PVR main menu. It says use TV Out. I do have an ATI vid card with TV Out but I want to view the PVR-350's tuner TV signal. I can view the PVR-350 TV signal fine without GB-PVR running, so it appears I need to reset a parm in GB-PVR for viewing Live TV, & channel surfing from the TV-Guide listings I see which is a great feature.

Thanks for any help!

Don Fleming
Wa. state

[betlit]

you probably have selected 'hardware decoding' in the gbpvr settings. if this is the case, the tv image is _only_ visible through the tv out of the PVR-350.

choose 'software decoding' and you'll get the picture on your monitor.

[Flemingdl]

Thanks Betlit, will do:

I did notice your post signature says a P3 800 mhz. I have a P3 733mhz / 384 RAM / Win XP and the PVR-350 just brings it to its knee's. Uses 98% CPU. Sure'd like a way to configure it to reduce this. Can TV display on PC monitor be disabled and only have the TV display on our Analog TV, perhaps to reduce CPU usage? Any other tricks for this? (Possibly my ATI Rage 128 Vid card could be effecting the PVR-350?)

Just want to view/surf Live TV, & play recorded mpg files, using the GB-PVR TV menu on the analog TV with the 34 button Remote cntrl. I suspect the PVR-350 34 button remote I have may not provide the enough buttons compared the 43 button remote mentioned for user friendly GB-PVR usage on the analog TV?

Thanks, I see lots of potential with this!
(hopefully without replacing this older living room PC though)

Don F

[betlit]

thats what the hardware decoding feature of the 350 is for.

if this is enabled, all mpeg decoding is done by the card (taking away a lot of work from the cpu). and fed through the tv-out of the 350 (of course you see the menus of gbpvr through tv out _too_)

altough this is a good solution, it has some drawbacks:

- you wont be able to watch files other than mpeg and mpeg2 (since the hardware decoder only knows mpeg). other files (e.g. divx encoded videos) wont play.

- a lot of people had problems with locks and freezes when using the hardware decoder of the 350. most of them had boards with VIA chipsets, but even i (asus board with intel chipset) had lockups.
it improved with new drivers, but never entirely vanished.

- you can't watch dvd through the video out of the 350 (there was/is a plugin for this, but i never tried it and can't tell you if/how good it works)

my machine is at the borderline of 'producing bearable results' (e.g. when calling tv guide while watching live tv leads to a stuttering video sometimes, etc.)
you can also try to overclock your processor to get a bit more power and i would hardly suggest you try to get more ram.

98% is a lot! normaly 40% cpu is used on my machine.. i assume there are some optimisation you can do...

e.g. disable unnecessary services... e.g. messenger service, print spooler, remote administration service...
remove unnecessary windows components.
with nlite you can create a customized windows installation only installing components you _really_ need.

i do have the 45 button remote since i bought an additional 150, but before that i used the 34 button remote. to watch tv/recordings its surely enough. i never missed a button or function!