Help the new guy!

[Sethbo]

I have just gotten my system up and running, and I'm having a number of problems. SageTV looks like it has great potential, but if I can't get some of these things worked out, it will be useless to me.

The problems I'm listing pertain to when I watch signal on my TV - not when I'm watching at the monitor. My main problems are:

1) Audio and video get out of sync (audio lags). This problem is much worse with SageTV than when I test with Wintv2000.
2) Poor picture quality. This pertains to watching live TV, not even recorded shows
3) Signal drops when changing channels. The time between channels is long enough (1 sec+) that I get the color pattern every time I change channels. I have this problem when using Sage, but not wintv2000.
4) OSD trails off the screen. When using sage, the on screen display is too large to fit on my TV

Here are the details of my setup:
Hardware:
CPU = AMD64 3200
MOBO = Gigabyte K8NS-Pro
HD = WD 74 GB 10,000 RPM SATA
VPU = ATI Radeon 9800, 128 MB RAM
RAM = 512 MB PC 3700
OS = Windows XP
Tuner = Hauppage PVR-350

The Setup:
Audio from SPDIF out to my stereo (then to TV)
Video from PVR350 out to my stereo, via s-video cable (then to TV)
Cable in to PVR350, amplified twice (once by professional cable amp for the whole house, again with a Radio Shack amp for the PVR cable line
Basic cable service, including cable modem (a seperate run altogether)

I have done no overclocking, and I haven't done any in depth configuration of the SW or the card (just the basic menu driven items).

Like I said, wintv2000 seems to work a bit better than Sage, but even then it's not great. If anybody can help, I would greatly appreciate it, even if it's only for certain parts. Thanks.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Sethbo

I have just gotten my system up and running, and I'm having a number of problems. SageTV looks like it has great potential, but if I can't get some of these things worked out, it will be useless to me.

The problems I'm listing pertain to when I watch signal on my TV - not when I'm watching at the monitor. My main problems are:

1) Audio and video get out of sync (audio lags). This problem is much worse with SageTV than when I test with Wintv2000.

Not being an expert on the 350, my first recommendation would be to use teh audio out on the 350, A/V should be guaranteed to be in sync that way. Perhaps you could loop the audio out of the 350 into your soundcard and out the S/PDIF.

2) Poor picture quality. This pertains to watching live TV, not even recorded shows

There is no "Live" TV with the 350, everything is recorded. 1) Try increasing the default recording quality. 2) Are you sure you actually need the RS amp. How many splits do you have? You only list about two, and you shouldn't need a second amp.

4) OSD trails off the screen. When using sage, the on screen display is too large to fit on my TV

Detailed Setup -> Multimedia -> Overscan Settings

[pcuoco]

What version of the 350 drivers are you using? The latest drivers resolved the color bars popping up issue.

You need to use the audio out of the 350 to keep audio in sync. Otherwise you need to put in some sort of delay, or looping as previously suggested.

As for picture quality, what settings are you using in Sage? I get better picture with Sage than with WinTV. Did you partition you video drive with 64K clusters?