newbie tv out question

[aoehlke]

hi all... my pvr150 is on its way... i hope to get it mid next week up here in canada.
i have already configured sage to get canadian listings and have played with the UI some... i got the setup via the frey bundle.

i am using bell express vu, and ordered an actisys before i realized the 150 comes with an ir blaster... oh well.

my question is:
I have a ati radeon 9600 with tv output. I assume this is what I need to actually drive the television while sage is running.(i dont think the 150 has tv output on it).

so my question is, say i want to surf the net or email while the wife is watching the tv through sage... i understand that the PC wil still be "usable" due to the hauppauge offloading encoding from the CPU... but wont my wife then end up having to watch me type in email and surf on the television... if memory serves me, the tv out on the radeon is just an echo of whats on display 1.

i was hoping that by people saying the pc is still usable would mean that the tv can be driven via the video card, but i can still use the vga output on the video card to use the pc on a monitor.

is this just wishfiul thikning?

[kny3twalker]

you should be able to run dual displays
but playback may mess up if you are doing something on the other monitor
but for recording that will work fine

[aoehlke]

how will it work though?

i thought the svideo tv out on the radeon 9600 would simply echo what is seen on the monitor.

in which case, my wife will be watching tv, and when i get up to surf the net... she will have to watch me surf as opposed to watch tv through the sage interface.

how can i set up dual displays so that the sage is running off svideo tv output on one display and my regular desktop is on another?
the radeon 9600 has 2 vga outs and an svideo out.

it seems i need to have a second monitor connected to even active the second display.

anyone?

[kny3twalker]

the TV will be your second display
and it is just how you configure it
svideo can clone/mirror the desktop but i can also be its own display

you will need to make the TV the primary monitor and the PC monitor the secondary
for quality playback though

[aoehlke]

i think i get ya...
why does the primary have to be the svideo?
and should i run it at 640x480 or something?

will i still have a start menu and the likes on the secondary(monitor)?
and wont the mouse get terribly confused?

[kny3twalker]

if you want smooth video playback
you make the TV primary

right click the taskbar and choose unlock
than drag it to the PC monitor

and no the mouse and just span both monitors

720x480 would be the best option

[aoehlke]

is 720x480 native ntsc tv res?

i thought it was 640x480

[aoehlke]

how do you like the lola remote?

i have one kickin around that i won from x10 along with the 2.4 ghz senders/receivers a while back.(they were givnign like 30 away a day)
played with lola software for 10 minutes and hated it.

[kny3twalker]

the lola remote is fine for my usage
I do not use the software that comes with it
I simply install the software since it includes the driver
then disable the sofware for auto loading with pc
then I installed the last free version of girder
and had not had too many problems so with stanger's gml
I just setup the buttons to which to what I want and done

real easy

and as of right now
SageTV is the only HTPC software, I use

I have TheaterTek 2.0
but it pisses me off by always changing the aspect ratio when restarted so
I simply use the decoders in SageTV
also theatertek is kind of a dissappointment

and back to lola

I like the fact it uses RF and yeah X10 is always trying to give me something for free
I purchased my HD antenna from them and they are trying to give me some home automation stuff now for free

[aoehlke]

where do i get straner's gml?
i got free girder.

and that res you posted is DNTSC... not NTSC... isnt expressvu NTSC?