Suggestions for video card with best TV Out

[Karen0302]

Hi,

I am hoping that some people here can offer suggestions for video cards with the best, sharpest and clearest TV Outs for use with SageTV. Suggestions will be much appreciated!

Karen

[Lucas]

Karen,

I have a Radeon 9600XT which with 'Video Mode' enabled in the ATI driver and connected to an SDTV gives a very sharp image. Without Video mode enabled the picture was very fuzzy and dull.

It depends on which display you will be using. If you use a display like DLP, LCD or plasma that have DVI/HDMI or VGA inputs then you are not really talking about TVOUT.

Any decent card(ATI9200/Nvidia 5200 and above) will give a good picture with some (like the latest ATI x800 or Nvidia 6600/6800) giving top notch picture quality for displays with DVI/HDMI connections.

[Karen0302]

Lucas,

Thanks very much for the suggestion. I'll certainly check it out.

Karen

[JUC]

I have a Powercolor 9600XT and love it for SDTV quality using the nvidia decoders.

[lotusvball]

I have a 9600XT and love it with Sonic video decoders.

[Kanati]

Definitely mind those decoders along with the video card... The sage standard decoder isn't remotely close to the quality of the purevideo (nvidia) decoder. And the best video card in the world isn't going to look a lot different if the decoder you use is kack.

Any card in the 100-200 dollar range is going to be "good" for sage, and I would recommend spending that 20 dollars or so on the nvidia decoders to compliment the card purchase.

[Karen0302]

To everyone who replied .... many thanks!

You have given me a lot of good information which will make my decision must easier. But now I have another question. If I use the Radeon 9600XT card, what do I use to control Sage with. The card doesn't seem to come with a remote.

Karen

[Humanzee]

Your signature indicates that you have a pvr-350, it comes with a remote.
Else search for "USB UIRT". About $50 more dollars but very flexible.

[Karen0302]

Humanzee,

Thanks for the reply.

WHat I am building is a playback only system which will run Sage Client. My current Sage system will become a record/Server only system. I've finally reached the breaking point for lock ups associated with the PVR-350 cards. By that I mean of course the infamous End Of File Bug and the random lock ups that occur during playback.

So as you can see, the remote and IR detector that comes with the PVR-350 is almost useless. I have considered the USB-UIRT and it is certainly on the listm but I was hoping to find out how others are controling their systems.

Again, thanks for the reply.

Karen

[Humanzee]

Building a client machine is coming up for me too. I just got a USB UIRT to control my set top cable box. It was fairly easy to set up, however, I am still also using the PVR-350 remote and reciever. When my current system takes on the server roll it will go in a room that also has a TV. So I don't want to completely give up on the 350. At that time I'll probably get another usb-uirt to control the client machine.

For what its worth, I have had much better luck with the latest version 3 beta 3.0.14 with regard to the 350 End of File bug. I havn't dared mention it till now, however, because I'll probably jinx my luck. Since installing it a week ago, I have had only one crash while watching live tv and changing channels and one full computer lockup which I'm not sure was related to the 350. I have sage set to prompt me for end of file handling by default. I might give the beta a try, if you havn't already.

[Karen0302]

Huamnzee,

Thanks for the suggestion.

I have been running the beta since it was released, and while I agree it is better at EOF handling than previous releases, it still has the problem. For me, the worst is that when the problem occurs, the machine is so locked up that it even interferes with recordings in progress. My Client application never has problems which is why I am building a playback only machine.

You say you use a USB-UIRT, do you have to use Girder with that? Right now I am using a modified Hauppauge irremote.ini file which causes SEMDMSGs to be issue for the remote button pushes.

Karen

[heffe2001]

You may also want to look into the MCE2005 remote/beanbag combos. I use the on 2 of my machines, and with girder & one of those you can control Sage quite nicely.

Here's a link to that remote from PC Alchemy: http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_inf...emote-controls

[Humanzee]

Yep, I knew I shouldn't have mentioned my success with the beta and the 350, it crashed tonight at the end of a file, while it was also recording. Maybe these 350's are best used as just an encoder card. Pity though, and kind of a waste, they have such nice picture quality output.

No I don't have girder, I currently only use the usb uirt to control my set top box with the built in support in sage.

You get it, plug it in, and then add a new recorder source in sagetv. In my case I choose to connect the cable box to the composit video input on my pvr-250. In the source setup there is a built in option to use USB UIRT to control a set top box or satellite receiver. If your set top box is not in the list of preprogramed cable boxes, you just point your cable box remote at the USB UIRT and the wizard will prompt you for each button to press as it learns how to control your set top box. Took about 4 minutes.

I think I saw elsewhere in setup the option to use the usb uirt with the hauppauge remote controls but I have not tried this. Sage has the capability of learning any ir command that the USB UIRT can receive and mapping it to a sage command. I think this is how many folks make it work. I don't know if using the usb uirt in this way replaces the need for sendmessage.exe or not.

From my perspective the hauppauge receiver is a little flakey from time to time. At least it is for me, this may be due to sendmessage.exe. I have noticed that when sage is hanging up, there may be several instances of sendmessage running in the task manager. They clear up when sage snaps out of it and you get all of your button clicks back to back. I don't know if this sort of latency would be improved using the USB UIRT. I havn't tried it because my modified irremote.ini file works the way I want it to for now, and I don't really want to mess with it.

From my understanding, Girder lets you map ir commands to other windows functions or programs. I.e. if you had extra buttons on your remote you could set one to open your email program or something. I also take it that you can use Girder to control other electronic equipment using the USB UIRT as a ir blaster. I.e. you could map the volume up button command on your remote to be converted to the appropriate code and retransmitted to control your home theater amplifier. Or maybe build a macro that could turn on all of your equipment and select the appropriate sources, etc.

But I don't know about girder for sure, I havn't needed anything like that yet. My "theater" equipment didn't survive bachelorhood. I'll figure it out when I get a chance to build a client machine, buy a real tv, and home theater sound system.

As far as choosing a good video card, my understanding is that the nVidia pure video technology is among the best at deinterlacing. At least for the money. The problem I see around these forums are with the drivers and codecs. It seems like you trade one set of frustrations with hardware for another choosing drivers and codecs that work with some file types and programs but not with others. Much of that discusson revolves around particualr HD cards with particular driver version. I don't have HD and I use the PVR-350 output for now, so I am still sitting on the fence.

There are some new mini atx mother boards coming out with nVidia 6150 GPU chipsets built in. I'm waiting for the reviews. I think the small form factor will be good for the WAF.

[Karen0302]

To all those who offered their suggestions ... my thanks!!

I now have my playback only Sage Client up and running and everything is working fine. I decided to go with a GeForce 6200 video card and the Nvidia decoder once I learned that the decoder would use the MPEG2 features of the card to reduce the load on the processor. The system with my PVR-350s in it is now a record only system and since I don't use it for playback I don't have anymore freezes or lockups especially when a program ran to end of file.

The output picture quality of the GeForce 6200/Nvidia decoder is easily the match of using the TV Out on the PVR-350.

Thanks again for your help!!

Karen

[steingra]

Originally Posted by Karen0302

To all those who offered their suggestions ... my thanks!!

I now have my playback only Sage Client up and running and everything is working fine. I decided to go with a GeForce 6200 video card and the Nvidia decoder once I learned that the decoder would use the MPEG2 features of the card to reduce the load on the processor. The system with my PVR-350s in it is now a record only system and since I don't use it for playback I don't have anymore freezes or lockups especially when a program ran to end of file.

The output picture quality of the GeForce 6200/Nvidia decoder is easily the match of using the TV Out on the PVR-350.

Thanks again for your help!!

Karen

Did you happen to notice if the CPU usage went down, noticably, after using PureVideo drivers? jsut curious. I am thinking about purchasing them for one of my lower powered client pc's. And if its true that its does offload some processing, that would be perfect for me. Thanks

[Karen0302]

Yes, I did notice that. On my test system which uses a GeForce FX 5700 card the Pure Video decoder cut the CPU usage by a bit more than half. I was impressed!

Karen

[steingra]

Originally Posted by Karen0302

Yes, I did notice that. On my test system which uses a GeForce FX 5700 card the Pure Video decoder cut the CPU usage by a bit more than half. I was impressed!
Karen

Wow thats a lot. Did you have to tweak anything to achieve that?

Were you using SageTV client or some other playback software ?

[steingra]

Originally Posted by Lucas

Karen,

I have a Radeon 9600XT which with 'Video Mode' enabled in the ATI driver and connected to an SDTV gives a very sharp image. Without Video mode enabled the picture was very fuzzy and dull.

So what does this Video Mode do exactly. Im curious?

[Karen0302]

Originally Posted by steingra

Wow thats a lot. Did you have to tweak anything to achieve that?

Were you using SageTV client or some other playback software ?

steingra,

I did have to select the Nividia decoder in the Sage Detail setup but that was all. My test was run using Sage Client. No other tweaking was needed.

Karen