Little hickups or am I spoiled with PVR350 tv-out?

[HermanJ]

After using my PVR350 tv-out for a couple of years, I am trying to get the video-out of my videocard working smoothly (have to, because of the 1.0 version is not supporting the PVR350 tv-out anymore). Unfortunately, I still see some hickups from time to time.
My first question: is my hardware fast enough for smooth video play?

Pentium4 1,7 Ghz (compaq EVO D300)
512 MB RAM
PVR350 capturecard
Ati Radeon 7200 videocard (AGP)
samsung 250GB 8MB cache harddisk

The hickups I see are barely visible, but they give me a headache; in scenes where the background is moving (a helicopter view of a landscape turning round; the Tour de France) it sometimes drops one or two frames. If I rewind, it still drops the frame(s) at (almost?) the same point. This does not happen when using the tv-out of the PVR350.
The CPU does not reach 100%. It stays around 30% to 90%, depending on the decoder used (Nvidia, dscaler, intervideo, MPV, Nero, elecard, Cyberlink), the video render (overlay, VMR9) and whether the pc is recording another program (with comskip running).
I'm trying to get this working nicely with version GBPVR 0.99.12 (with XP) before upgrading to version 1.0.

Is this normal behavior? Should I just get used to the frame droppings? Or should I get better hardware? (I still noticed the frame droppings using an athlon 2600+ with 1 GB RAM; my desktop PC)

I did use the newest drivers for the videocard, btw.

Any comments are appreciated.

[pastro]

After using my PVR350 tv-out for a couple of years, I am trying to get the video-out of my videocard working smoothly (have to, because of the 1.0 version is not supporting the PVR350 tv-out anymore). Unfortunately, I still see some hickups from time to time.
My first question: is my hardware fast enough for smooth video play?

Pentium4 1,7 Ghz (compaq EVO D300)
512 MB RAM
PVR350 capturecard
Ati Radeon 7200 videocard (AGP)
samsung 250GB 8MB cache harddisk

The hickups I see are barely visible, but they give me a headache; in scenes where the background is moving (a helicopter view of a landscape turning round; the Tour de France) it sometimes drops one or two frames. If I rewind, it still drops the frame(s) at (almost?) the same point. This does not happen when using the tv-out of the PVR350.
The CPU does not reach 100%. It stays around 30% to 90%, depending on the decoder used (Nvidia, dscaler, intervideo, MPV, Nero, elecard, Cyberlink), the video render (overlay, VMR9) and whether the pc is recording another program (with comskip running).
I'm trying to get this working nicely with version GBPVR 0.99.12 (with XP) before upgrading to version 1.0.

Is this normal behavior? Should I just get used to the frame droppings? Or should I get better hardware? (I still noticed the frame droppings using an athlon 2600+ with 1 GB RAM; my desktop PC)

I did use the newest drivers for the videocard, btw.

Any comments are appreciated.

I used to get hiccups all the time when I had a MVP. I don't see any problems now with GBPVR (I'm not running PVRX2 at the moment), and I have about the same CPU. Running overlay I get about 10-15% CPU. Running VMR7 is is around 25-30% CPU. What video card was in your desktop?

[gEd]

I think with the ATI 7200 you will have to stick to overlay and it will probably not be up to the task of running the new direct3d interface pvrx2.

make sure you have the tv set as the primary display (just in case you have another screen connected).

just as a test, you could playback one of your recordings that skips on the other pc and see if it skips at exactly the same place - which would indicate a problem with the recording, not the playback.

[HermanJ]

Thanks for your comments

@pastro: the videocard in my desktop pc was the same Ati Radeon 7200 (just to see if a faster CPU would do the trick). I also have a Nvidia 6200 128MB (not the turbo cache version), which doesn't seem to perform much better (should it perform better?). This Nvidia card is the only card I have with a DMI connector, so I use this one for my (DMI) pc-screen.

@gEd: My pvr has only one display: the TV (using the yellow connectors). The recording that skips a frame, does not skip a frame using the tv-out of the PVR350. The recording should therefore be oke.

I'm wondering if this is a CPU problem or a videocard problem or a XP problem or even a RAM problem? Should a Nvidia 6200 be better? Or are there (cheap) videocards that perform much better? Cause I thought that any card with hardware acceleration is the same (for GBPVR that is).

Any ideas?

[HermanJ]

I see that my last question about videocard is a very dumb one. The hardware forum is flooding with post concerning this issue.
I will take a look at this first.
However, anyone with a good experience using a specific videocard for a normal TV (PAL-SD is the name for it I believe), are welcome to share it...

[gEd]

i use an ATI 9600 pro with purevideo decoder without problem.

btw: perhaps your stuttering is the famous (??) quartz.dll problem.

http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FAQ/Codec#toc6

[pastro]

I see that my last question about videocard is a very dumb one. The hardware forum is flooding with post concerning this issue.
I will take a look at this first.
However, anyone with a good experience using a specific videocard for a normal TV (PAL-SD is the name for it I believe), are welcome to share it...

I'm using the 9550 without any issues.

Try running your system in overlay mode in GBPVR.
Don't use PVRX2 for this test since this will force vmr9.
Not sure how you are running comskip but I get good performance using it with parallelprocessing.bat since it takes less cycles to keep up versus running at the end when it goes all out until it's done.

[stustunz]

i would get some more ram aswell its cheap these days
as to what card just make sure its fanless but depends ati9500 would be the least but i would go a few cards higher
vmr playback seems sharper but more prone to jumpy playback
overlay is smoother more forgiving as far as jumpy playback goes and uses less cpu etc

[HtV]

I thought overlay was no longer available with 1.08 pvrx2.:confused:

[gEd]

you're right, it isn't but HermanJ is still on 99.12.

I'm trying to get this working nicely with version GBPVR 0.99.12 (with XP) before upgrading to version 1.0.

but your point does highlight the fact that getting it running ok on 99.12 does not guarantee that it will work on 1.0.8 (in this case, not without a new graphics card)