[mythtv-users] new pcHDTV HD-5500 card

Bearcat M. Sandor HomeTheater at feline-soul.com
Sun Aug 12 20:34:54 UTC 2007


Folks,

My new HD-5500 card works, just not very well.  I am using the V4L drivers as 
i am just doing a capture via s-video from my dishnetwork VIP-211 reciever.  
I understand that the DVB drivers do not work when using the card in this way 
even though there is a setting for analog capture when they are chosen.

I have an AMD 64 3000, 1 gig of ram and a single nvidia 6600 video card.   My 
settings in the recording profiles (Software encoders) are all: 720x640, 
MPEG-4, bitrate == 2200, Maximum Quality == 2, Minimum Quality ==15, Max 
Quality difference between frames == 3, Scale bitrate for frame size == true, 
Enable highquality encoding == true, Enable 4MV encoding == true, Enable 
interlaced DCT encoding == false, Enable interlaced motion estimation == 
false.

I'm seeing a few possible problems.

1) When i start live tv it usually looks good for about 30 seconds. Then it 
starts to go in slow motion. It seems to be at about 1/2 speed. Even 
adjustments to the picture settings take about 20 seconds (or so) to show up.  
When i leave live tv everything is fast again. If i enter live tv it's the 
proper speed for 30 seconds then it slows again.  Mythfrontend is taking up 
about 10% of my cpu and 15% of my memory, mythbackend takes up about 50-70% 
of my cpu and 5% of my memory when live tv is running.


2) Sometimes it looks very pixilated, but increasing my bitrate to 2200 fixed 
that for the most part. The jagged lines are caused by the interlaced nature 
of SDTV, but what i'm seeing is more like low-bitrate youtube video 
sometimes, especially on faces and dark scenes (looking over a crowd in a 
concert video). Then again DIshnetwork signals can be pixelated and i don't 
see that in the live tv all the time. This may not be an issue i can do 
anything about.

3) When i set up a recording, i make sure to choose Scheduling Options -->Use 
any available input-->Prefer input s-video.  However, i always get recordings 
on the antenna which is not hooked up. I looks like a bunch of wavy green 
lines. While i enjoyed the Matrix this is not what i had in mind. :)

I have a little money. I could put a few hundred dollars over the next month 
in to computer upgrades. If i got more memory, a faster video card or a dual 
CPU would that stop the slow motion? Would it help the pixelation? I realize 
that this card does not have it's own decoder and it is relying on my CPU.

Thank you all for such an awesome app that keeps getting better.

Bearcat M. Sandor


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list