Windows 2000 or XP for SageTV?

[Blackwell15]

Im currently using Win98 with SageTV and am looking at upgrading to either Win2000 or XP for better compatibility with Sage.

Does anyone have any info on which works better with SageTV? Im experiencing several problems with Sage and the PVR-350 under Win98:

Soft Hangups where the mouse or the remote freeze up for a period of time.

Distorted or Pixellated Video after starting Sage or WinTV. Restarting either program fixes that.

Dropped frames in recordings.

Sage lockup after Sage has been put to sleep for recording. The remote
wakes it up but its hung.

Blackwell

Tried installing the latest version of SageTV. Plays recordings but refuses to show live TV on monitor or TVout.

Thanks in advance.

Sage 2.1
ASUS CUSL2 MB Intel 815 Chipset
384 Meg SDRAM 133 memory
PIII 750 Mghz
Hauppauge PVR 350
ATI RAGE Video
Maxtor 7200 RPM HD running at DMA100
Latest Bios and current drivers for MB and Video

[korben_dallas]

XP Pro SP2 all the way!

[PGPfan]

Windows XP, no question about it!

You are already feeling some of the pain of using an outdated OS. Why consider Win2000 when it'd just be asking for more of the same. Make it easiest on yourself and get XP. It IS current, and way easier to make stable than your other stated options.

-PGPfan

[teedublu]

Windows2000 works just fine too.
But it's being left behind by MS. Latest WM player doesn't work in it, etc...
So for simple dedicated sage server, and already have Windows2000, then I'd use it -- maybe.....

TW

[stanger89]

2000 will work, but if you have to buy, get XP MCE 2005, it's got all* the features of XP Pro, + MCE, for a little less money than pro. And you don't have to run MCE.

*MCE is missing the ability to join a Domain.

[heffe2001]

I'd have to do some searching, but you CAN join a MCE machine to a domain. You need some files from a Pro install, but it can be done.

Ok, so it didn't take me but a minute to find the bookmark, here's the scoop:

http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?i...&category=main

[Blackwell15]

Sage 2.1
ASUS CUSL2 MB Intel 815 Chipset
384 Meg SDRAM 133 memory
PIII 750 Mghz
Hauppauge PVR 350
ATI RAGE Video
WD 7200 RPM HD running at DMA100
Latest Bios and current drivers for MB and Video

Okay .. so I upgraded to XP MCE..
I went through the workaround to get the drivers installed.
XP was able to see the new hardware and installed everything
normally.
WinTV starts but gives the error.. "cant create video window"
Sage does the same.. no encoder found...

Everything shows up in the device list and the encoder/decoders are in the registry.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Im not quite used to XP yet but what should I see in the device list for
video devices?


If anyone has any suggestions I would be very grateful to hear them.
I had this all working in Win98 on this system with only a few problems.
Hangups and lockups.. and bad video the first startup..
Otherwise functionality was good.

Thanks
Blackwell

[korben_dallas]

There may be some MCE services running that are locking your 350.

[Blackwell15]

I took a stab at which services it might be,
Killed ehrcvr.exe and ehsched.exe..
WinTV and Sage work fine...
Incidentally... Until I enabled UI out the mouse response was very choppy..
after I started that ,mouse on menu was normal.

I also did something different on installing the PVR drivers.
I had been following the workaround listed in this forum and then letting
the intsall from the Hauppauge CD run and install everything.
This time I executed the workaround and only let the install disk install
WinTV.. I kept seeing the 150 drivers installed as well as the PVR PCI III
in installed software listing.
Then installed java and Sage.

Anyway thanks for the tip.. looks like I'll be doing some research on customizing XP>

Blackwell