Xcard Limitations-Audio and Menus

[sshapiro63]

I would like to use SageTV as a replacment for my TiVO. However, using the S-Video out from my ATI 9000 Pro to my 36" TV results in a "soft" picture compared to viewing live TV, TiVO, or Replay.

I do have an Xcard that I would like to use for playback since it looks great on my TV via the component video connection, however I have run into 2 problems using it for playback with SageTV:

1) The audio level out of the digital connection on the Xcard is too high, to the point of distortion.

2) I would like to be able to view SageTV menus/OSD throught the Xcard S-video/Component outputs.

Anybody know of plans to address these issues?

Thanks,

Steve

[SHS]

1) Lower SageTV Vol
2) can be done with the SDK for the Xcard

[Narflex]

Is the SDK out now? Can you point me to it? I'd like to take a look at it. :)

[SHS]

No it not Jeff

[sshapiro63]

JovePlayer is able to display menus and video on the Xcard video output so I assume support for this with SageTV is possible.

[Narflex]

JovePlayer does it by realtime encoding them into an MPEG2 video stream and then sending that to the decoder; extremely hacky. It doesn't use the OSD feature.

[SHS]

hehehe

[shuban0]

You said you used the component output from the Xcard. If you are really concerned about PQ and your tv is HDTV ready you could always get a VGA to YPrPb transcoder for $200 (http://www.keydigital.com/index.asp) or since you have a radeon card you could get the cheaper ATI HDTV adapter for $30 (http://mirror.ati.com/products/pc/hdtvadapter/index.html)

[JJarmoc]

Or, you could get a VGA->Component transcoder for $119. http://www.digitalconnection.com/Products/Video/9a60.asp

I'm using one, works fine.

[sshapiro63]

My TV is not HDTV ready, it requires 480i. I tried using the ATI unit with a Radeon 8500 and it was junk.

I would like to be able to use the Xcard for everything because the video quality for my TV is great and the pc requirements are minimal.

[robertmcox]

I am using an ATI AIW 128 Pro for video out (s-video) to a non-HD set and it looks great! I did adjust the recording quality (up) and configured de-interlacing...

btw, I'm just using the vanilla ATI drivers from m$.

[sshapiro63]

Does mucking with the deinterlacing help for output through to S-Video connector to a TV? I didn't think it would help since the S-Video ouput is interlaced.