Sager 4750 and TV TUNER - Page 2

Have started encoding the MPEG's into DVD images so that I can further compress them to fit onto a single DVD-R. Final tests of "image" and sound syncs. Unfortunately, I need to accomplish this on four or five files to get the "general" flavor of the files captures - small amount of motion, medium motions, and high motion (i.e. Football).

BTW - Slipstream only uses 2-3% CPU when recording and having PVR set at the same time. Very little problem with the PVR with this software (first one evaluated that does this good of a job).

Default software on TV2Go also uses less system resources. Only about 3% CPU usage and 10mb of ram versus 30-50% usage and 20mb ram for the Hauppage WINTV2000 software. I was pretty surprised, I figured they'd be equal since they were both live streams and the TV2Go wouldn't have to unload any encoding on the processor and the hauppage should do it internally anyway. Either bad coding or it's the program itself. I'm leaning toward the first since G-Omaha said SNAPstream BeyondTV only uses 2-3% when recording, not even live tv.

Time to fool around more.

I can't get the HTPC TV functionality to work on either unit, so I gave up on that.

SageTV won't work with the TV2Go, but the Snapstream does.

Personally, I like the SageTV user interface while watching TV, but prefer Snapstream when it comes to configuring the software. I'm about to mess around with both using the Hauppage for a fair comparison. I'll report back on stability, quality, and system impact of both and my final verdict

Does your installation of SageTV Always record while you are watching TV? Mine did and that was rather annoying - or maybe, I was just too uneducated to figure out how to disable this.

It does but I think it's so you can have "Tivo" functionality like rewind and replay. I'll hunt around to see how to disable it. The problem with SageTV is that it has a horrible interface for the option menus.

SageTV uses between 50-80mb of memory and 30-70% of CPU on the hauppage. It scales down to 0-15% usage when put in sleep mode, usually hanging at 0. It doesn't reduce memory usage, however.

Snapstream BeyondTV uses 95mb of memory +20 for it's "PVSGuideUpdater." It uses around 30-40% of the CPU while viewing. It uses 70mb total in "idle" mode and 0% cpu util.

Both have identical quality from what I can tell, it just depends on the quality of the recording being done.

I prefer some things on one more than the other. SageTV has a better tv interface, showing the rewind function on the bottom and the info at the top and uses much less screen real estate. BeyondTV (Snapstream) shows info at top and bottom, uses most of the screen, and you can only access the progress bar after using a rewind/pause function.

G-Omaha, both programs record as you watch by default. I don't even think you can change it. Hit the back arrow to test the BeyondTV and you'll see. I like how BeyondTV goes straight to LiveTV instead of taking you to the Guide first, which SageTV does.

I'm using an external sattelite box, so I can't test the channel changing functionality.

G-Omaha, try the most recent SageTV version, I find it quite stable. Keep letting me know what you think.

Finished rendering and compressing the first DVD. It's "MAX" and I am now viewing it. SO far it appears to be pretty good.

Helpful Hint: When using the WinTV unit, establish the brightness, color, contrast in WinTV-2000 and that will establish a new "base" for all of the add on products. You will need to keep track of all the settings and then keep the one that is best. It's an iterative process; however, gets rid of the "muddyness" if you are experiencing any.

I haven't really had any muddyness.

I'm dissapointed that none of this software can set your desktop as TV, that'd be a nice function. Let me know if any of you find out the software can do it and I'm just slow.

Also, G-Omaha, let me know what you think of SageTV if you give it another shot and what your final impression of BeyondTV is. I think the differences are mostly cosmetic, but I could be wrong.

Is Sage TV included with the tuner?

The only software I know of that can do this is WinDVR.
http://www.intervideo.com/jsp/WinDVR_Profile.jsp

I'm using it as I write this with the 8890 ('Avermedia TVCapture 98'/BT878, PAL version, not sure whether it's the same as your tuner). I find it to be of significantly better quality than the TV studio software, works on a secondary monitor, and it can be stretched to any size, but I've never used it for capture or playing games.

As to why you havent been able to get it to work, I can't tell you much; it worked for me straight away, picked avermedia from the sources menu, scanned for channels and started watching. Device manager lists my driver version for the card as 7.0.2.0 (Sager drivers of about 6 months ago), I've tweaked many of the innumerable settings since to get the picture as I like it but there were no initial problems.

When it's working, it's a superb piece of software btw, tiny memory footprint (14mb), neat, quick, extremely powerful, free and open source, it's worth trying to get it functioning if you use the tuner much at all. Dont hesitate to ask if you need any help setting it up.

Only if you buy it that way.

You could game using a tuners, just make sure it doesn't have hardware encoding or the delay would make it impossible.

Also, PCTorque got back to me. It's 30fps on NTSC at 320 x 240. So an external tuner would get better image quality it would seem. Obviously the internal is more convenient, though

G-Omaha and others, I highly recommend you read http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=snapstream1

Not only is there a very thorough review, but settings to improve performance and use as well. And you can turn off the "timeshift" option in Snapstream since you dislike it Omaha.

There's also a review for SageTV as well. http://htpcnews.com/main.php?id=sagetv_1

From what I've read in terms of features and reviews, and after playing around a bit, SageTV takes the cake IMHO. It is more robust and has more features (granted some of which I won't use). One nice bit is you can change the front end

I have changed my opinion regarding SageTV. So far it has worked without any failures or hangups for about three days 24/7. (Thank god I have a 250Gb HDD). Mobile Meter should be disable if you wish to multitask and use Sage TV (Actually any video capture software) if you do not want the system to Hang from time to time.

Is mobile meter any good g-omaha? Is it necessary if my laptop will have PowerNow!?

I've been pretty impressed with sagetv as well. Check out my posts over at:
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...0588#post50588

I've found those guys very helpful. Try using NVDVD and Sonic decoders as well as DScaler. I found ffdshow too cryptic for use.

Also, check out this link for a better SageTV skin:
http://download.sage.tv/~mlbdude/

And this one for a registry hack that cut my CPU usage in half while using Intervideo NonCSS for the hauppage (if you are using that card and decoder):
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...=&threadid=284

I only use mobile meter as a temp monitor. If Powernow (AMD Product?) provides that, I would not bother with the mobile meter except for "apples to apples" comparison of temps with others that may not have an AMD CPU.

Thanks for the additional info regarding SageTV. I am now using it almost exclusively, even though I'd like to switch off the record feature when I just want to watch a program.

I think you can do that by disabling the "always timshift" function.

Tried =false and =space and nogo.

Did you try playing around with the mmc/encoders/...... settings to change the look of the picture? It appears to work. Also I have my Capture setting set at MPEG-2 Best (5.6Gb per hour) and that also enhances the way that the video looks. It really slows down the rendering of the resultant files to be DVD VOBs though.