A little rough

[gh_speedyg]

I'm having some problems while watching live video (it looks a little like a cheap lcd tv) I'm watching these on my regular tube tv. I think it may actually be a hardware issue.

I'm running an older machine and I was wondering if anyone would recommend upgrading specific parts.

It's a Celeron 351
512meg of DDR 400
running an ATI x1300 pro AGP card
all running on XP

now, I don't think there's anything I need to do about the graphics card (don't want to spend 400 on another AGP card) but I can upgrade the memory to 2gigs of 533 DDR2 and the processor up to a e6700. The ram is pretty cheap, but the processor might cost me a couple hundred dollars, but it will upgrade the system bus from 533 to 1066.

This is my primary pc, but when I'm done with it it will be a standalone HTPC.

Any reccomendations?

(the guy at the computer store told me to get a new MB and upgrade everything because of my ram and processor limitations, but I do not want to format my hard drive and reinstall xp)

[wtg]

Your machine is more than enough for watching standard definition TV. I used a 1.1 GHz Celeron with 512 meg and an ATI 9200 SE for quite some time.

What exactly is the problem? Is it just picture quality, and only on Live TV? If so, and you're using a Hauppauge card look to the direct.ini file in the gbpvr directory.

The file contains quality settings for each of the recording modes (high, medium, low), plus the quality that should be used for Live TV. The Live TV settings are too low in my opinion and since this file gets overwritten each time gbpvr is installed, I make a habit of editing it and replacing the LiveTV settings with the High quality settings. It makes a pretty big difference.

That said you might want to add another 512 meg of ram to your system. I found mine much more responsive after doing so, especially if you run comskip too.

[gh_speedyg]

THANKS!

I'l still probably get 2gigs of ram, my wife's pc has the same ram I have now, so I can add that to her machine (if I buy another matched stick, it's $36), but I can pick up the 2 gigs of ddr2 for about 40 bucks, so It's probably the way to go. I don't know if the 533mhz ddr2 is any faster than the 400mhz ddr, but I may as well go for the faster ram if it's the same price.

[Fatman_do]

You cannot use DDR2 chips in a DDR motherboard. The alignment notch is in a different location.

The links should explain things a bit further. The DDR-400 is the fastest speed rated DDR chips. If, for example, your motherboard's max rating was for DDR-333 (PC-2700), installing DDR-400 chips would still only run at DDR-333 speeds.

If you meant DDR2-400, vs DDR2-533, again, it will only run as fast as the motherboard allows.

[gh_speedyg]

You cannot use DDR2 chips in a DDR motherboard. The alignment notch is in a different location.

My motherboard (here) has 4 ram slots, 2 for DDR (400mhz) and 2 for DDR2 (533mhz). It will use either/or, but not both. I realize most motherboards won't allow it, but this particular one will.

[Fatman_do]

Ahhhh.... that explains it.

I haven't ran across a "combo" board like that one.

Going for whatever price point suits you then wouldn't hurt. DDR2 would seem to be the choice then if cost is the same.

[shrek]

You might as well upgrade if it's cheap, but TBH I've never had an issue with 512MB RAM.

[kayak4ever]

One thing that helped my picture is when I run comskip after the recording. Otherwise, I get the sound out of sync if I watch a recorded show at the same time that the tuners are recording either one or two shows.

[gh_speedyg]

What exactly is the problem? Is it just picture quality, and only on Live TV? If so, and you're using a Hauppauge card look to the direct.ini file in the gbpvr directory.

The file contains quality settings for each of the recording modes (high, medium, low), plus the quality that should be used for Live TV. The Live TV settings are too low in my opinion and since this file gets overwritten each time gbpvr is installed, I make a habit of editing it and replacing the LiveTV settings with the High quality settings. It makes a pretty big difference.

I tried adjusting this as you said. Oddly enough, my picture got rougher. It looked very choppy. And while I was recording, I found that the picture even stuttered. (I am not running comskip during recordings).

I reloaded the old direct.ini file and it seems to have gone back to before, a little choppy, but less than before. I have decided to upgrade my ram and see if this makes a difference.

How do I know which decoder I'm using when watching livetv (is it hardware based?)

[wtg]

The encoding is hardware based, but decoding will only be hardware-based if both your video card and decoder support it.

A couple things to clarify. In your first post it sounded to me like your complaint was about the visual quality of the recording, not so much it's playback, where now it sounds like the playback got worse. Is that right? And if so, did the quality at least look better with the direct.ini changes?

Also, it sounds like it's just live tv that's causing the trouble, right? Your recordings otherwise appear and playback fine? And are you using preview mode of live tv or timeshifted? You should try them both and see if there's a difference.

Finally, have you tried other decoders? Some definitely work better than others, and you should change your settings to something other than "System Default" if you haven't already, if only to be clear about what you're testing.