PCIe video card needed for HD?

[wick]

What video card is required for OTA HD?

I am new to all of this so please forgive my ignorance. A lot of this has already been covered in the forums, but I want to make sure I know what I am doing before I go and spend any more money. My setup:

HP dc5100
3.2 Ghz pentium 4
2 GB RAM
Hauppauge HVR-2250
ATI Radeon 9250
80 GB c: - for win and programs
120 GB d: - for recordings
XP Pro SP2
GB PVR 1.3.7

Video is very choppy. I am guessing this is due to the ATI card. Unless I can find a software fix, I will need to purchase a new video card. Here is the issue: my PC only has 1 PCIe slot (the HVR-2250 is sitting in that slot now). Is the Radeon 9250 fast enough for OTA HD broadcasting? Is there a PCI video card that would suit my needs? Would I be wasting money on old technology buying a new PCI card? Or do I need to start looking for a new motherboard with additoinal PCIe slots? If I need to go that route, what should I be looking for?(taking cost into consideration of course)

Anyone out there have any luck with a ATI Radeon 9250 and HD?

Thanks in advance,
Wick

[K.S.]

your system won't be able to play back HD content (GPU/CPU are both a bottleneck), it would be a waste to spend money on an video card.
1. it would have to be some GPU able to do video acceleration like the ATI 3000HD series or equivalent ones from NVIDIA
2. even if that card has video accelleration (like the integrated ATI 3200 GPU from the 780G mobo's), that feature does not have to work under all conditions. i.e.: 1080p / H.264 from standard profiles get accelerated, 1080p / MPEG2 don't get that HW benefit, H.264 with different settings: it depends. so you'll be back to square 1 with no GPU HW assistance. as always: YMMV
3. when back to square 1, it comes in handy to have the necesary beef to do the playback no matter if you have the GPU assistance or not. that means, your CPU should have the horsepower for playback + additional tasks (i.e. recordings or whatever you need in the background)

if you are on a tight budget for a rebuilt: my recommendation would be some 780G mobo (integrated GPU which is HD capable, restrictions regarding VA in regard of video source, search the forum for additional info) & a 4850e AMD CPU. for recommendations about NVIDIA/Intel you'll have to ask others/search the forum, i'm a bit biassed regarding NVIDIA/Intel.

[wick]

Now the question is, should I try to get a motherboard that will match my current CPU, memory, etc, but has additional PCIe slots?
I don't know if this one will work:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813186015
(It is dirt cheap, so I am guessing there is something wrong with it)

Most of my PC experience is upgrading memory, replacing hard drives, so if anyone can help me here, thanks.

Or will my CPU just not cut it even with the right graphics card - in which case I should just start from scratch. Like I said before, I am new to all of this and just want a decent machine without spending a bundle. I do not care to have the best video available - if I need to record/view live TV with a less than ideal picture that is not a big deal to me. I can always go for something better in a few years.

And if I am starting from scratch, should I buy a motherboard with a decent integrated graphics card? Or a more basic one and buy it separately?

Thanks again,
Wick

[zed]

A less expensive option might be to get a Popcorn Hour for playing the HD recordings. Your present machine can probably handle the recording and a PCH is a lot easier to set up than rebuilding a PC. You'll likely get better playback, too.

[martint123]

Your present machine can probably handle the recording and a PCH is a lot easier to set up than rebuilding a PC.

Thats all I have for my server and it copes well recording HD and SD simultaneously. Playback is the big processing gobbler. That's why I went for the PCH for viewing.

[JimF]

I was using a 2.4 GHz P4 (Northwood core with 800 MHz bus and hyperthreading) in an Intel 875 chipset motherboard with a Radeon 9550 AGP card until a couple of weeks ago. It worked fine with HD video (1080i) from my HDHomeRun. I now use it as a second PC, and it works even over a wireless network (802.11a) quite well, though wired is still best. I have no problem with CPU usage.

But I don't use GB-PVR for playback much, though I think it works OK from the brief experience I have had with Live TV. Rather, I use the VLC player from my HDHomeRun tuner. It works fine. You may have some other bottleneck. I also have a Radeon 2400 Pro AGP card, but I didn't see any real difference in CPU usage so I switched back to the 9550, as it is fanless. I was trying to get H.264 acceleration to work without much luck in WinXP. But for normal MPEG2 HD video, you should be able to get it to work without a major upgrade, though I don't know how much CPU power the Hauppauge HVR-2250 takes, so YMMV.

[K.S.]

contrary to JimF i still doubt the P4 can handle it. depends upon source format, on the digital side you don't have any influence what is broadcast (MPEG2/H.264 encoded). take a quick look at the CPU usage, if it's sticking at 100% that's your first bottleneck ;-)
you should consider zed's & martin123's recommendation. to record digital HD your machine is more than enough (as it's basically just write that stream to HDD) & if you don't have experience or dread building up a machine from scratch, the popcorn should be the easy (and also cheapest) way to get the HD playback

[JimF]

Unless I can find a software fix, I will need to purchase a new video card.

When I play a downloaded 1080i MPEG2 file recorded with my HDHomeRun (from PBS, so fairly high quality video) using VLC, it averages around 65% CPU usage, peaking up to not more than 85%. But when I use Windows Media Player, it is only about half that, around 25% peaking up to 35%. That is because WMP uses the CyberLink MPEG decoding software that came with my Radeon 9550 AGP card. I don't know if the Radeon 9250 includes that, but it might, so be sure to install it. Or you can buy PowerDVD and it will install the decoder. And make sure whatever hardware acceleration options are enabled in the setup menu.

I actually had a Radeon 9250 before my 9550, and while the video acceleration may not be quite as good, I don't recall any particular problems playing videos with it. So I would investigate a software solution first. And you won't have to worry about H.264 in the U.S. for quite a while, if ever, unless you are planning to use satellite, or download it from the Internet.