Hauppauge 350 question - output

[TomS]

I'm thinking of buying a 350 for my computer. Since it won't be a dedicated HTPC, sometimes I'll want to watch on my PC monitor and sometimes on my TV via the TV OUT of the 350.

Is this do-able? Do I have to keep flip-flopping some setting in Sage to make this work or does it just work somehow?

Thoughts appreciated.

Tom S.

[carlgar]

I would expect that it is doable but I can't be 100% sure since I still use version 1.4 of SageTV.
I would expect you would always have the 350 TV out enabed, which is what I currently do in 1.4. The problem that you may encounter and may not be acceptable for your use, is the output of the UI to the 350. Once you enable this you will find that the screen (on your monitor) will go to a fixed size and can no longer be changed. Technical support says this cannot be corrected. However, they did indicate to me that sometime in the future you should be able to disable the option and regain the ability to resize. My last test of this (several months ago) showed that I had to restart SageTV after disabling the option in order to resize the screen size on my monitor.

[jptaz]

A way around the problem of resizing is to install SageTVClient and use it to watch stuff with the PVR 350 and then use the main SageTV app to watch on the PC monitor.
If you use SageTV in service mode this fine and would not require a seperate SageTVClient license as long as you only had one GUI running at a time.

[TomS]

Thanks - do you know what that fixed size is? I really don't want my PC monitor at a weird size all the time just because it is outputting the UI.

I guess I could not use the tv-out w/ UI at the same time as using the pc...I can imagine worse scenarios. Of course, that pretty much gets me back to PVR 250, which is $35 cheaper.


Tom

[carlgar]

I do not recall the exact size but I considered it to be unacceptable. It was much larger than the size I normally have Sage at, which is about 25% of my monitor. It was less than full screen.
I had to turn off the always on top in order to do the work I normally do on the system.

[jptaz]

The fixed size is probably 720x480 since they are using it to send to the TV Out. Also I do not think have to have the window visible when it is being displayed on the TV.

I am basing this on my experience with the XCard which has the same size restrictions since it is using the same OSD API.

John

[TomS]

Thanks for the info - I now think I better understand your first answer - it is your Sage screen that is non-changeable, not the pc monitor's resolution itself. I think i can live with that.

Appreciate the info from both you (Carlgar) and jptaz about SageTV Client.

Tom

[Crashless]

That's kinda how I use Sage right now. I have Sage using the 350 output, and running minimized, while Meedio sits full screen on the monitor.

The sage window is stuck at 720x480. I assume this has to do with outputting the GUI through the 350.