Sage TV Freezing up; newbie

[thegallery]

I just got the WinTV-USB Model 941 Hauppage device. I also picked up a GeForce MX4000 64MB card with TV Out. Using the included Win2000 player it looks pretty good; great on my monitor and 90% good out to the TV.

However, firing up SageTV seems to suck all the CPU usage and the picture is jumpy. Sage uses about 75%+ CPU usage when I have it on my monitor and strangely 97%+ when I move it to the TV. (I'm using the TV as an extended monitor) Consequently it looks bad on the monitor and unbearable on the TV. I love the functions of Sage but if I can't rectify this CPU usage problem I won't be purchasing it.

I figure it has to be a software issue because it basically works pretty good through the Win2000 program.

(I set everything to the MPEG2 recording quality.)

Lastly I say things are fine with the included Win2000 player, but I sure wish the picture sharpness on the TV was 100% rather than 90%. I'm really quite pleased, but I want it to be perfect, and of course, I would like Sage to work too! Any ideas? Tks

Other specs include: Dell 2400, 2.66GHzG, 640 RAM. WinXP SP2

[Opus4]

(Model 941 is the WinTV-PVR-USB2; the WinTV-USB is a software encoder.) What are your settings in Detailed Setup -> Video for Renderer & Decoder? If the renderer is VMR9, try overlay.

- Andy

[laurenglenn]

Originally Posted by Opus4

(Model 941 is the WinTV-PVR-USB2; the WinTV-USB is a software encoder.) What are your settings in Detailed Setup -> Video for Renderer & Decoder? If the renderer is VMR9, try overlay.

- Andy

I have a Nvidia FX 5200 and I know there's a setting in the Display Control Panel (advanced tab) for Full Screen Video. Whenever you use Overlay in any application, your system should use exclusive full-screen mode on the TV while keeping the video window on your monitor.

This would probably make your TV display look better. Plus, if you can drag the window from your desktop to your TV monitor, and you are running in dual-display mode, and you still get video to show, then you're most likely using VMR.

I agree with Opus4 about Overlay. My system is a 2.4GHz P4 and when I use the Full-Screen mode like I said above, it only uses 15%-20% for playback.

What MPEG-2 filters are you using? PowerDVD 5's filters run very well in overlay (not VMR for me), and the same goes for nVidia's filters.

Here's a site for Beta nVidia drivers. I've been running the newest beta drivers and they run very well. It almost sounds like you're running with the default Microsoft's drivers. Try the beta drivers at http://www.3dchipset.com/

Lauren