Need a better video card?

[perdurabo]

Hi folks,

I've been running SageTV on my main PC, which is an Athlon XP 2400+ running XP with a Radeon 9200 and a WinTV PVR-350. I ran everything through the PVR-s video out.

Recently, I built another PC with identical specs (even the same motherboard), EXCEPT for the video card. I threw in a crappy little 8mb video card thinking that I wouldn't need anything more since I'm running everything out through the PVR's video out.

However, the video is really jerky and aliased and blocky. I suspect that since the specs on my old machine and new machine (hardware sans video card, os, etc) are identical that SageTV must require a speedy video card regardless.

I don't mind buying a decent video card to shove in here, but I wanted to make sure that my hunch was sound before buying. Is the cause of the blockiness likely the crappy video card?

[mlbdude]

Have you disabled local decoding through the video card? You should not see video playing on the PC monitor.

[korben_dallas]

How come you aren't using the video out on the 350?

[perdurabo]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

Have you disabled local decoding through the video card? You should not see video playing on the PC monitor.

I'm not using the video card at all. I use Remote Desktop to log into the machine if need be. The server is headless, with SageTV configured to use the PVR-350's video out for UI and video/decoding.

[perdurabo]

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

How come you aren't using the video out on the 350?

As I mentioned above, I AM using the video out. However, it is very choppy and aliased. One of my theories is that SageTV still uses the video card for something, perhaps as a buffer or something.