Do you use an Xcard with Sage? Would you?

[stanger89]

There's been a lot of talk in the beta forum (and others from time to time). There's been talk about a poll to gauge interest in an Xcard OSD but no one has stepped up to the plate. So here we go.

[stanger89]

For my part I'll say that if Sage provided and UI/OSD on the Xcard I might get an Xcard. The Xcard PDI (either Dscaler or Holo3D) is a very interesting combo.

[Opus4]

Hi. My name is Andy and I have an Xcard. I started using it just to watch my shows in the evening, but before I knew it, I was letting my kids watch shows through it. We rented a DVD just so we could watch it using the Xcard and now we can't stop. (Oops... wrong forum...)

So... what's a PDI? I've seen the term before, but I don't think I know exactly what it refers to.

I think the Xcard is great. It makes using an older, slower, quieter system perfectly usable for SageTV with its hardware decoding, and allows DVD playback, though at the moment you can't use SageTV to play the DVDs. Or, on a newer/faster system, it can free the CPU to do other things while someone watches TV.

For now, I simply look at the SageTV UI on a monitor sitting next to the TV. The monitor would probably stay there if the UI were on the TV, but since my TV is larger than the monitor, it would be easier to read the info while sitting across the room. Plus, I could turn off the monitor when not actually using the computer for something other than TV viewing. In short, I could really use the UI on the Xcard... its lack obviously isn't something preventing me from using SageTV, but having it sure would be an improvement.

- Andy

[Crowdx42]

I too have an X-Card, is absolutely a great card, gives excellent hardware decoding at a great price. If only the OSD was displayed on it, at present I have to use seperate amp inputs to use Sage with it. Having the OSD would be totally awesome, considering what I have read about problems with OSD on the 350, maybe some of these problems would not arise on the X-Card?
Patrick

[stanger89]

FWIW - PDI is Parallel Digital Interface, it's basically involved connecting the Xcard to a capture card via a ribbon cable so you can let the Xcard do the decoding and then process the video with either Dscaler or DCDi ala Holo3D.

http://www.pmsvideo.com/index_topic....18&didpath=/18

[Crowdx42]

Does PDI work natively within Sage? Might be worth considering BUT needing to use another PCI slot is a pain.
Patrick

[stanger89]

To Sage, it should appear like you're just using the Xcard alone.

[Crowdx42]

But would output the OSD ?

[stanger89]

It would have essentially the same limitations as there are now, you'd have to switch between Sage and Dscaler (or the Holo3D app) in order to see the UI and video respectively.

[Crowdx42]

Not clear on the benefit of the PDI? How exactly does it all work?

[mlbdude]

One big limitation of the XCard is that its OSD would only support 256 colors? Is that true? Seems like a shame considering we just got a nice looking UI .

[stanger89]

Originally posted by Crowdx42
Not clear on the benefit of the PDI? How exactly does it all work?

The benefit is that you can use the hardware decoding that so many are fond of, and apply the best deinterlacing available (Dscaler or DCDi). Deinterlacing is something very few things do well. When you look at the Secrets DVD Benchmark, the only DVD players that perform well are those based on Faroudja or Silicon Image deinterlacing chips.

Try here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=267735

[buck1952]

Here's another topic to add to the poll-
Yes I use an Xcard, I would love to use it with Sage if Sage had an Xcard OSD.

I use the Xcard and Xmedia for viewing different media formats.
It's got as good or better output as the 350.
I've used it with Sage as the output device on occasion and it works fine.

If Sage would output OSD thru the Xcard I would use it instead of the 350 as my Sage output device.

Mike

[stanger89]

I think that would fall under #1. Sorry, I can't add topics one the poll is posted.

[pbennington]

Hi as a newbie I was wondering how people use the xcard with sage in it's current state, even though the ui isn't currently suppported on xcard can you still use the tv out of your motherboard but use xcard to decode, obviously not as good as the xcards tv out but surely better than software decoders, is this possible? or do you need to use a different app to play back using the xcard? also I was thinking of using a twin pci riser card in order to fit an xcard and pvr250 in my epia m10000 has anyone ever used these, or can they cause problems, conflicts etc?

cheers

[Crowdx42]

What happens is, you select the X-Card (once it's installed in the system) and use it to decode, the kicker is that you have to change then to the X-Card output and so must have this also connected on Tv?HT Amp.
The way I have it setup is, home theater amp, video card runs to input 1 on amp and X-card to input 2, then when I read the tv guide I have to select input 1 on the amp and when I select something to watch I then have to switch to input 2, works fine but is a lot of extra work to use because of no OSD support in Sage. The X-Card also will hardware decode MPEG4 and DVDs, that is the bonus. It also means you are using the X-Card's audio out which is better also (AC3 with the proper hookup)
What others have done is have a computer monitor in the same room and use this for the OSD.
Patrick

[pbennington]

so if you only have your motherboard connected but you have chosen the xcard to decode what does the sage media player show? is it just a black screen?

[Opus4]

If you are using an Xcard to output the SageTV video, the video will go out the Xcard, while the UI will go out the video card. You will see no video on the video card's output, so when playing a show, all you will see from the video card is a dark background with the playback OSD when you ff/rew/change volume/etc. There will be no UI displayed on the xcard... which was the whole point of this thread.

- Andy

[Crowdx42]

What happens on my setup when Sage starts to play a show using the XCard, a display box pops up with a dark greenish hue displayed, the Sage screen remains in the background just as it normally would but with no picture displayed. If you install the full XCard software it also enters registry entries for MS Media player which then also uses the XCard. I personally only install the driver cause I don't want media player using the XCard.
Patrick

[Maladin]

I voted (1) but I don't use my XCard for Sage, I use it with JovePlayer and would use it for Sage if it supported OSD. Without OSD its useless for Sage.

mlbdude - how many colors do you think the OSD really needs? I'll bet its not even using 256 unique colors now. Seriously.