SageTV Questions

[EdwardATeller]

I am a BTV user who is switching to SageTV because of BTV's lack of clear QAM support for the HVR-1600. Things are going well with the SageTV demo, but I have a new CPU on order because the interface is SUPER sluggish when watching 720p or 1080i. Hopefully a P4 3.0E Prescott core chip will do the trick.

I have some questions before I buy the full version.

1) SageTV is stretching all my 480i QAM channels to fill the whole screen. This is something I hate. Spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to display the aspect ratio normally. Maybe someone here can help.

2) The digital channel scan did not find all the clear QAM channels. Is there way to add these channels? I tried the simple Add Channel in the Source Setup, but it just doesn't seem to work. For example, I get channel 103-3 on my DTV, and it is a PBS 1080i signal. I think it is WYESDT. I have tried three times to add this to my lineup with no success.

3) I put my computer into Standby with SageTV up and running. Under the power management options, I had it set to what I thought would wake the computer up from Standby 5 minutes before the next recording. Didn't work. Is this feature truly supported? If so, is there a trick to make it work?

4) Last night I tried to record the earlier showing of Jay Leno. One starts around 11:30 and one starts around 3 am. I used the Advanced Options menu under managing Favorites, and I chose the option to only record shows 11 pm to 11:59 pm. I assume this refers to the start time. Anyway, this didn't work. Any suggestions?

5) On my DTV, some channels display 53-4608, but SageTV shows them as 53-8. I can't even enter 4 digits after the - sign. This is pretty minor, but I'd be interested in learning more about this.

6) If I cancel a recording in progress, the partial recording is deleted. I would prefer to preserve the partial, especially now when I am testing the setup. Any way to do this?

Thanks!

EDIT: After writing the above, I upgraded to the latest software, 6.3.5 from 6.2.10, and this made my PVR-250BTV card not function anymore. Tried to reinstall it with no luck. I've pulled the card and am just using the HVR-1600. Might run to Circuit City and pick up another HVR-1600, which is on sale for $60. It would be nice to record two HD channels at once. I haven't had a chance to review the above questions after the upgrade, but I wasn't able to find the OSD timeout setting after upgrade.

BTW, I finally turned on DVXA, and that made a HUGE difference in my video playback and general performance.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by EdwardATeller

4) Last night I tried to record the earlier showing of Jay Leno. One starts around 11:30 and one starts around 3 am. I used the Advanced Options menu under managing Favorites, and I chose the option to only record shows 11 pm to 11:59 pm. I assume this refers to the start time. Anyway, this didn't work. Any suggestions?

Not sure, but maybe the change was close to the scheduled recording time & it recorded the later one anyway, there is another Favorite that affected the schedule, or there was a conflict at the earlier time. Other reasons not to record a Favorite are in this FAQ.

And: the timeslot refers to any time that the show airs during that time, not just that it starts during that time.

6) If I cancel a recording in progress, the partial recording is deleted. I would prefer to preserve the partial, especially now when I am testing the setup. Any way to do this?

Change the option at Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Customize -> Delete Live TV files when not using Intelligent Recording.

- Andy

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by EdwardATeller

1) SageTV is stretching all my 480i QAM channels to fill the whole screen. This is something I hate. Spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to display the aspect ratio normally. Maybe someone here can help.

Did you configure your Display Aspect Ratio correctly during setup? Do you have the playback Aspect Ratio Mode set to Source?

For more info see this post.

[EdwardATeller]

Thanks for the replies. I've was busy adding a second HVR-1600, the doorbell rang, and the UPS man was there with my new CPU from NewEgg. It had about 7 bent pins, which I gently bent back, and then pushed it into the Socket 478 with a significant click. Reattached the heatsink, crossed my fingers, powered on, and everything booted up great! Performance is fine now, although it probably is hard to have too much processing power. RAM doesn't seem to much of an issue with 1 GB.

Is DVXA is no longer an option on the menu? Spent a fair amount of time looking for it after upgrading the software.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by EdwardATeller

Is DVXA is no longer an option on the menu? Spent a fair amount of time looking for it after upgrading the software.

If you are using the SageTV MPEG Video Decoder, then there is an option to have it use DXVA.

Is that the option you meant?

- Andy

[EdwardATeller]

Thanks. I didn't realize it was dependent on the decoder.