hardware decoding with "normal" video-adapter

[georges]

I am setting up a sagetv system for the first time. I would very much like to keep cpu usage low. I read in this forum that the specialised cards like pvr350, xcard and the hollywood+ couses troubles displaying UI. Those treads where a bit old. So I have two questions:

1-Is this problems solved?

2-Does this problem alse happen with normal VGA adapters, like the Gforce 4 when hardware mpeg decoding is used?

[jptaz]

1. I am fairly certain that people have still seen problems with the PVR 350 in some the more recent betas, but can not confirm. Also a XCard owner and former user I can say that the UI performance is lacking and the absense of DVD playback is a real show stopper.

2. UI problems are very rare with Regular display adapters and just to clarify no Display adapter has Hardware mpeg decoding, but rather hardware assist. For example my XCard on Pentium III 733Mhz uses barely used 5% CPU, while with my NVidia FX5200 used around 30% to 50% CPU using overlay. Unless you have a really slow PC it will not be a problem using a regular video card.

John

[Opus4]

I don't know much about the 350, but the cpu usage on the xcard comes from the plugin that draws the UI via the xcard's output. The mpeg2 only video decoding doesn't take cpu time because that is all done on the card.

"Normal" video cards don't do full hardware video decoding, but someone else will have to explain that in more detail. You might want to mention what type of TV you are outputting to and/or what media formats you will be playing.

Using a video card is much more versatile in terms of what types of video formats can be played.

Edit: I merged the 2 identical threads here.

- Andy

[georges]

Sorry about the double post. I must have pushed the reply button in stat of save while editing my first post, and could not remove the second post.

The plugin that draws the UI; Does that do a good job? I am realy interested in using a holywood+card because I read this is the only PC solution to get picture-quality equal to good dvd-players. And of course because of of the low cpu-usage.
I can't believe hardwaredecoding has a priciple advantage above software-decoding, since hardwaredecoders also depend on build-in software. Is this software just better??
However, I want to use network-pvr, without giving in on picturequality. I also refuse to buy a super high-speed, noisy gaming-adaptor just to get a good picture-qulity for movie-playback.

Any sugestions?

P.S. I use a normal TV with composite video input.

[Opus4]

I use the Xcard plugin, but I believe it is only for Xcards. You could search the forum for comments on the hollywood+. I like the results on my Xcard, but I _only_ use that system for playing mpeg2 recordings. The few times I play a DVD, I have to drop out of SageTV & use the Xcard's player. I connect via svideo & the output at ~ 3GB/hour is hard to distinguish from 'normal' TV.

I originally bought the Xcard because I had a very slow PC. (At that time, there was no plugin, so there was no UI on the TV.) Would I buy it now? Probably not, since it is so limiting in terms of what media you can play with it.

- Andy