You're in control. -Well,Just not yet..

[flavius]

I have been using Snapstream for more than six month now, and I love my TiVo (Series 2).

Just Yesterday I installed 2.0. Here are a few observations.

1. Snapstream provided exceptional picture quality with my Hauppauge 250 out of the box (w/ GeForce 5200). From what I have been reading (and seeing) with Sage you might be in for some digging and tweaking and such..

2. For Snapstream I have a plugin that can handle my Motorola DCT2 something cable box flawlessly (serial, of course). Again, under Sage .. I have been doing some reading in this forum - Is there a source that puts it together for 2.0?

3. I have to say I hate how Sage handles the ESC key. Can one change that?

4. Is there some place in the UI to adjust contrast, brightness and such?

Having said all that, I like Sage 2.0. And might buy it, if I can control the cable box.


flavius

[pcuoco]

Originally posted by flavius
1. Snapstream provided exceptional picture quality with my Hauppauge 250 out of the box (w/ GeForce 5200). From what I have been reading (and seeing) with Sage you might be in for some digging and tweaking and such..

2. For Snapstream I have a plugin that can handle my Motorola DCT2 something cable box flawlessly (serial, of course). Again, under Sage .. I have been doing some reading in this forum - Is there a source that puts it together for 2.0?

3. I have to say I hate how Sage handles the ESC key. Can one change that?

4. Is there some place in the UI to adjust contrast, brightness and such?

Flavius,

1. Are you saying you're not getting excellent quality out of the box with Sage? It's always been the general consensus that Sage has a better picture, and allows more adjustability through custom settings than BTV. I know that was the case when I tried each.

2. The plugin for BTV is a modification of a plugin originally created for Sage. See this thread. http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...&threadid=1606

3. I use a remote pretty much exclusively, but I believe you can remap this under detailed setup>commands. I'm sure someone else wil correct me if I'm wrong.

4. Yes you can do this in source setup. There are instructions in the 2.0 configuration guide found here:
http://download.sage.tv/SageTVSetupandConfiguration.pdf

Hope this was helpful, and good luck!

[falchulk]

To get an better picture, change the recording profile. By default its set to "great", increasing it will produce a better picture but larger files. Are you using VMR9, VMR7 or overlay?

BTW,

VMR7 = default , or selecting vmr9 and not enableing 3d acceleration

VMR9 = selecting vmr9 and 3d acceleration

Overlay = just selecting overlay!

[SHS]

Setup > Detailed Setup > Commands then click on "Link Infrared/Keystroke to SageTV Command" change it to what you want.
Yes you should read 2.0 configuration guide there lot little tip in there.

[DFranch]

BTW,

VMR7 = default , or selecting vmr9 and not enableing 3d acceleration

VMR9 = selecting vmr9 and 3d acceleration

Overlay = just selecting overlay!

That's good to know. I was wondering why enabling 3d accel would cause occasional skips and kind of messes the color up (too red at times).

[mlbdude]

Originally posted by falchulk
To get an better picture, change the recording profile. By default its set to "great", increasing it will produce a better picture but larger files. Are you using VMR9, VMR7 or overlay?

BTW,

VMR7 = default , or selecting vmr9 and not enableing 3d acceleration

VMR9 = selecting vmr9 and 3d acceleration

Overlay = just selecting overlay!

FYI at least on Windows XP (though I think Sage is now forcing this) if you have VMR9 selected and disable 3D Acceleration it goes to Overlay.

[falchulk]

mlbdude, I did not know that! Narflex responded in a thread a few weeks ago and said it was just vmr7. Maybe I misunderstood or it changed.

[falchulk]

Here is a quote from Narflex in a thread entitled "3d acceleration" in the beta forum:

"Enabling 3D acceleration makes SageTV use DirectX9 for all of the UI rendering and presentation. Disabling it means its all done using the 2D software rendering engine inside Java. VMR9 also only works if 3D acceleration is enabled, otherwise Sage falls back to using the default renderer.

VMR9 integates directly into the 3D pipeline on your graphics card and can only be done effectively in hardware, which is why 3D must be enabled for VMR9 to work."

In xp the default is vmr7. Was this changed?

[mlbdude]

Must have. Or somehow my default renderer is Overlay. Using the NVDVD control panel applet it tells me if it is going VMR9 or Overlay. I know others have reported this as well though.

[mlbdude]

"SageTV V2.0.16 RC1 4/15/2004
Core Modifications:
1. If 3D is not enabled and VMR is selected, it'll now use the overlay instead."

Here is something from the change-logs.

[falchulk]

You mean we were suppose to read those?? Lol!

[flavius]

Thanks to all who took their time to reply.-

Flavius

[JasonEngel]

I have 3D enabled. If I switch to VMR9 and then watch a TV show a second "ActiveMovie" window opens up and shows the show, while the OSD stuff remains in the original window.

Why? What's going on? Am I missing something?

Creative VideoBlaster DVR.
Geforce4 4600Ti.
XP Pro w/ dx9.

Any tips or hints appreciated. Thanks!

[mdmint]

Originally posted by JasonEngel
I have 3D enabled. If I switch to VMR9 and then watch a TV show a second "ActiveMovie" window opens up and shows the show, while the OSD stuff remains in the original window.

Why? What's going on? Am I missing something?

I don't have a clue what's going on. I installed Client on Debi's PC night before last and it does the same thing! Since it's not a primary TV viewing situation I've haven't tried to figure it out and just left it in overlay mode. Which is ok on a 17" monitor to be usually in a window while she's doing other stuff. Doesn't do it on my main HTPC Client or Server...

[jominor]

Originally posted by flavius
I have been using Snapstream for more than six month now, and I love my TiVo (Series 2).

Just Yesterday I installed 2.0. Here are a few observations.

1. Snapstream provided exceptional picture quality with my Hauppauge 250 out of the box (w/ GeForce 5200). From what I have been reading (and seeing) with Sage you might be in for some digging and tweaking and such..

flavius

Agreed. The first thing I noticed out of the box was that Sage was better. I tweaked Snapstream and Sage just looked better. After changing decoders, it improved, and after changing the sharpness and brightness, it got better than that.

I used Snapstream for almost two months before switching to Sage.

[kny3twalker]

the active window only happens with powerDVD when doing VMR9
every other decoder will do VMR 9 even the ATI version of powerDVD
try another video decoder and it will be fine
I know alot of people here complain about powerDVD
but I still think for overlay it does the best job when watching a recorded show
and I love its audio decoder
it is the only one I can setup for 5.1 or more speakers
every other decoder does spdif or surround 2 speaker
my version of winDVD plat in the decoder setting in media player or radlight
I can only do 2 speaker surround
well there is one other NVDVD
I can get 5.1 but it crashes
sonic only does spdif
elecard does not let me change anything when using radlight

but powerDVD does not do VMR9
anyways when using a computer monitor
I would use overlay
when using a TV I would use VMR9
and either hardware or NVDVD
the color is much better with nvDVD than most others

[Opus4]

Originally posted by JasonEngel
I have 3D enabled. If I switch to VMR9 and then watch a TV show a second "ActiveMovie" window opens up and shows the show, while the OSD stuff remains in the original window.

Why? What's going on?

If I remember the comments correctly from back when we were first playing around with the partial transparent settings, this means that VMR9 is not really available and it was falling back to overlay.

- Andy

[JasonEngel]

Originally posted by kny3twalker
the active window only happens with powerDVD when doing VMR9

Well, since I am using PowerDVD that explains it. Too bad.

Thanks.