Albatron GeForce FX 5900 XTV

[jaredn79]

Hello,

I am very interested in trying out your software. I trialed a couple of competitors and a freeware solution. None of these were compatible with the video input of my video card.

Has anyone had success using this card and your software?

//Jared

[kny3twalker]

that Video card is not compatible with sageTV other than outputting to a TV or viewing on your monitor
the input sounds to be similiar to an All in Wonder type of card
I would suggest BeyondTV
cause SageTV only works with hardware encoder cards like the hauppage PVR 250 and its clones

[jaredn79]

Hello fellow Texan!

What low-end/el-cheapo card could I use?

I dont really need anything fancy since Im not hooked up to my big screen. I have a Dish Net satellite PVR in my living room along with a modded xbox that can play movies (potentially recorded with SageTV) across my network.

I have my PC in my bedroom (it's only got a 17" screen) along with a regular satellite tuner. I just want the added functionality of PVR, but I mostly play games on it.

Oh yeah, speaking of... will SageTV record in background? If so how much memory/CPU usage does it eat on average, even average settings?

[stanger89]

The PVR 250 (including 250 MCE) is probably the best card right now, the Roslyn available from Frey is also good and lightly less expensive. The cheapest compatible card I'm aware of is the ATI E-Home Wonder:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...116-309&depa=0

I'd tripple check the forum here, some users reported problems with the cheaper (non-FM tuner) E-Home, but I think that's been resolved.

Yes Sage will record in the background and uses ~0% CPU while doing it, that's at any setting. The reason is that the HW encoder card does all the encoding/compressing work, so all Sage has to do is write the file to disk.

[kny3twalker]

SageTV uses about 140 MB of Ram
the task manager may say less
but I know how much my comouter uses without SageTV loaded
and CPU usage is 0%
also do not get a roslyn or e home wonder especially
the ehome wonder may never get a driver update and I hear too many complaints about quality

the roslyn has new drivers and are more of pain to setup

you can get a pvr 250 MCE for the same as a roslyn and the drivers are very developed because the pvr 250 cards have been around for over 2 years

look at www.pcalchemy.com for a bundle with SageTV and the pvr 250 MCE

or get pvr 250 and SageTV if you want a remote with the bundle

the radio is not currently supported and you cannot use the radio and TV at the same time anyways