cpu usage spikes

[justinw]

I'm new to sage tv and am having many problems getting everything working properly. After working with the official sage tech support - who recommended getting a replacement pvr-500 card from hauppauge, I'm having the same problem as I had with my original card. The video stutters terribly and is unwatchable. I've tried various video decoders/quality settings/java versions... seems that I can't find the right combination to make sage happy. I have noticed that the stuttering seems to happen when my cpu usage spikes which is about every 10 seconds. So, is this normal? Or should the cpu usage stay somewhat constant while sage is running?

Sage v5.0.4
Java 1.4.2_10 (couldn't find 1.4.2_11)
WinXP Prof
AMD 3000+ 1.8GHz
1GB RAM
XFX 6800 Xtreme
64k clusters