Hardware decoder

[united]

I've just installed v.18 and I use Hauppauge PVR USB2. Since Hardware decoder only is availible for PVR350 I get a rather bad and jagged picture when playing LiveTV. When I watch LiveTV in WinTV2000 everything is nice (because then the builtin hardware decoder is used).

Does anyone know if the hardware decoder in PVR USB2 will be availible in GBPVR soon or can I configure anything else to make things better? As it is now I can't watch TV in GBPVR and I want to use it.

/united

[sub]

There is no hardware decoder in the PVR USB2. It does have a hardware encoder, which is what is used by GB-PVR (and WinTV2000) to create the MPEG files.

GB-PVR doesn't do the playback of the video itself. Instead it hands this task off to an MPEG2 decoder installed which is installed on the machine. In your case, it sounds like the MPEG2 decoder which is being used, is not doing a good job.

Try firing up the Config app, and on the playback tab, select a different preferred MPEG2 decoder.

You could also try changing from VMR9 to Overlay, as some machines and graphics cards dont have the grunt required to do VMR.

[united]

Of course you are right about the encoder/decoder sub. My mistake.

Now I have tried different codecs and I got a smooth and nice picture when I watch earlier recorded shows (from WinTV) or mpg-files from the harddrive, BUT it's still very bad quality when I watch live TV. Sometimes just sound and no picture and sometimes the other way around.

I have installed Nimo Codecs pack but I can only choose between the following codecs:
software default
... codec for Hauppauge
Cyberlink mpeg codec

Noone of these work (for liveTV). Which codec should I use and how can I see it from the configuration App?

I have a mini-itx motherboard (MII 10000) with 5:1 sound capability. How does I get the 5:1 sound to work, I cannot find any configuration for the sound.

/united

[sub]

If you have access to a webserver, I would like to download a few seconds worth of video so I can look at the quality.

[sub]

Because you sometimes not getting video, sometimes no audio, I suspect you're having tuning problems. Where abouts in the world are you?

With you EPIA board, your best combination for smooth playback is probably using Overlay with Cyberlink decoder (assuming v5 of codec which supports hardware assisted decoding on EPIA)-M.

[sub]

Its also possible that the default MPEG-2 bitrate for Live TV is set too high by default for you EPIA board, and it isn't keeping up. These boards are not that powerful.

[nkh]

I use these settings with a M10000 and PVR350 for live tv. It looks okay on the tv (using s-video out from a graphics card) and it doesn't use a lot of cpu power.