Advice to Make my recordings clear

[hmadyson]

Hi,

I have had SageTV for a few months now, and for the most part it works great, but I am seeing a bit of pixelating. I notice more when 2 shows are being taped. What I would like to know is what do you suggest I replace in order to fix this problem? I would like to add a 3rd tuner, but not until I feel that I can tape 2 shows without problems. My computer almost only does sagetv. The only other thing it does is contain itunes and download podcasts.

Here are my specs:

Motherboard: ASUS A8N5X 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 2.0GHz Socket 939 Single-Core Processor
RAM: 2 GB
Video Card; XFX PVT72GWANG GeForce 7300GS 512MB(256MB on Board) 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card
2 hard drives: 1TB Blue Sapphire
Hauppauge 1229 WinTV-HVR-2250 White Box for System Builders Dual Hybrid PCI-E TV Tuner Board

I have had this computer for a few years, and I would prefer to make the fewest changes as possible, but if there is no way that this configuration can keep up with the system, I would be willing to look into something else with your suggestions. Thanks.

[KeithAbbott]

First thing I would do is upgrade to a dual-core processor, and upgrade to 4GB memory. You should be able to do both without spending a lot of money.

Are you using the 2250 to record analog, digital, or analog & digital? Cable or OTA?

[hmadyson]

Thanks for the quick response. I am recording HD over my cable lines, but just on local channels.

Do you think that an Athlon 64 X2 4200 would be sufficient, or would you suggest something faster?

[hedly]

Have you tried really troubleshooting the issue. Does the pixelation happen at the same place in the show every time...and to the same degree?

What about playing the show in windows media player, does it show up there as well?

although 2GB of ram is kinda low, it shouldn't really matter because that's for Sage. The data stream will pretty much be processed by the tuners then passed to the hard drives. Assuming you let sage manage the storage, it will put the show(s) on the hard drive with the most available space. So if you are recording two shows they will likely go to different HD's assuming they are both new. But, even if they both went to the same drive, there should be plenty of bandwidth.

also, have you checked the signal level (if it is OTA HD)?

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by hmadyson

Do you think that an Athlon 64 X2 4200 would be sufficient, or would you suggest something faster?

I would think that an Athlon 64 X2 4200 would be sufficient. hedly's advice is good, try to isolate if it is a recording or playback problem.

I'm assuming you are recording and viewing all on the same machine. When you are seeing the pixelation, are you watching one of the two shows that you are currently recording, or are you viewing the shows later? Just trying to get a sense of how many things are going on simultaneously on your machine. Are you also using iTunes simultaneously? You might want to watch memory and CPU usage via Windows task manager to help determine where the problem might be.

[stanger89]

Yeah, an X2 is more than enough, I ran with an Athlon XP for a long time with no issues, the tuners we use with Sage don't use hardly any CPU. Assuming the issue is not reception, it sounds like a hard drive/bandwidth issue. I had some pretty old hard drives for my recording drives, and replacing them with Caviar Blacks cleared up some nagging issues I'd been having with recording glitches.