[vdouence]

Hi all, long time reader but new member to the forum


For 5 years now, I’ve been using my Toshiba SD-H400 , a great combo tivo/progressive DVD that came with lifetime basic service (no monthly fee).

Now it’s obsolete as I want to do HD (mostly clear QAM and maybe later blue-ray player) and have more multimedia options (watch my pictures and home video, stream radio and tv, etc..).


Soooooo, 18 months ago, I put together a budget HTPC (spent $550 with taxes and shipping, no OS though) to hook up to an 32 LCD Sony Bravia 32 and marantz SR4500 receiver:

· Case: IN WIN IW-BT611T.300SL cheap, compact and not bad looking. Power supply is quite

· Case fan: ARCTIC COOLING ARCTIC FAN 3 80mm, very quite

· Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-MA69GM-S2H : uATX, ATI 690G chipset

· CPU: AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 Brisbane 2.3GHz: 45W processor, stock fan is quite

· Mem: Kingston 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory - Retail

· HD: SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD321KJ 320GB 7200 RPM SATA

· Hybrid tuner: Avermedia M780

· Remote + IR blaster: Dell XP remote ebay

· Wireless keyboard: BTC 9116URF , cheap but very poor range

· Some DVD drive I had left

· Cables: hdmi and toslink cable ebay


I was looking for a free software solution so I didn’t look into sageTV or snapstream, but I downloaded the trial liquidTV: a piece of junk, it looks like TIVO but that’s it, nothing more.

I didn’t try mythtv mostly because of the lack of QAM support

I tried and like GBPVR and mediaportal, got the EPG working nicely with suspend and automatic turn on / off during the night BUT HD QAM channel watching is catastrophic (best with GBPVR and Avermedia software, stuttering like nothing with mediaportal)

I’m actually thinking of buying a vista license (with Win 7 coupon) to give a try at MCE. I’ve been running win XP so far (non MCE).


So that’s my question: what should I do to get HD clear QAM to work properly with my M780 tuner ?

- buy a cheap ASUS EAH4350 graphic board (or else ?) to pair with my 690G mobo ?

- Ditch the mobo and get a new 780G based one, like GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-US2H for example ?


Thanks for your suggestions


Vince

 

[mike_311]

you cant use vista for QAM unless you have tv installed and then its no guarantee it will work, you need to install win7 RC to get qam.

 

[walford]

You need to first use the AverMedia TV application software that came with your tuner(or updated version from AverMedia) if you can't get clear QAM with that then the digital tuner on your model of the 780 only supports OTA digtial and not clear QAM cable digital. If you can get that to work then you can use Win7 Media Center. However note that if you have the older hybrid version of the 780 tuner that you can only confiture MC to use either the cards analog tuner or its digial tuner since with a hybrid tuner both tuners can not be used concurently and MC requires that any configured tuner always be available.

A Graphics card or onboasrd MOBO graphics chip has nothing to do with ability to support clear QAM

 

[jrwalte]

As stated, you're best off going with Win7. It gives native support in Media Center for what you want to accomplish. You can still download the free Release Candidate from Microsoft until the end of August. It'll last until March or May of 2010 before it starts shutting off on you every 2 hours and then it progressively gets worse.


Windows7 will release ~ Oct 20 and if you like the RC, then you can pre order the upgrade now for $50 instead of ~$100 later.

 

[vdouence]

mike, jrwalte, I know vista would need the tv pack, and success is not certain. I've seen report of working M780 clear QAM with vista

But that's also why I agree now is a good time to buy vista with cheaper win7 upgrade


walford, let me restate my question:

I do have clearQAM reception working with all three apps (Avermedia provided with clean install, GBPVR struggling with codec eventually using ATI's and mediaportal) but the quality is horrible (very low frame rate)

I assumed I had some decoding perfomance issue (though CPU load is low at 30%) and that the reason for the hardware upgrade question

I also used a 3 way splitter at some point and the sony TV tuner was fine with it, finding many QAM channels, but the M780 couldn't detect any, no splitter and it's happy


Vince

 

[mike_311]



Quote:
Originally Posted by vdouence /forum/post/16835474


mike, jrwalte, I know vista would need the tv pack, and success is not certain. I've seen report of working M780 clear QAM with vista

But that's also why I agree now is a good time to buy vista with cheaper win7 upgrade



Vince

but the win7 rc is free. and the cheap upgrade has passed.

 

[walford]

I went back through your posts and realized that your tuner has no problem receivingHD clear QAM channels. if the signal strength is sufficient.

What resoluiton are you outputting over what interface to what make/model display/TV

You might try an amplified splitter or a small amp in the line before the splitter.

I beleive the Win7 1/2 price offer deal only lasted till July 10th but I may be wrong.

Bypass your receiver until you have every thing working properly.

You are correct in determining that you 690 chpset graphics are not able to keep up with frame rate of the clear QAM HD broadcats.

A separate graphics card that will support all of your near term needs such as HDMI HD audio and video support and BlueRay decoding support is your best bet since you can also use it the next time upgrade your MOBO and CPU.

Since I do not require these feature on either of my systems I do not feel qualified to make a reccomendation for a card.

 

[jrwalte]

I'd recommend something like this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121306

 

[vdouence]

one more post and I can post links?

 

[vdouence]

good point: windows 7 RC is still available for download
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win.../download.aspx


vista with win7 coupon is also here
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16832116677

but not sure what coupon is. I think you still pay shipping and handling to microsoft when it's available


My lcd is only 720P


I was thinking EAH4350 becasue of passive cooling. And I think I got my answer that my 690 chipset is insufficient
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...10&Tpk=EAH4350

 

[jrwalte]

You should still invest in a GPU that will do 1080p sufficiently to cover future upgrade of your TV. If you need passive, you can get a passive 4550.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102819

 

[bjterry62]



Quote:
Originally Posted by vdouence /forum/post/16833147


Hi all, long time reader but new member to the forum


For 5 years now, I've been using my Toshiba SD-H400, a great combo tivo/progressive DVD that came with lifetime basic service (no monthly fee).

Now it's obsolete as I want to do HD (mostly clear QAM and maybe later blue-ray player) and have more multimedia options (watch my pictures and home video, stream radio and tv, etc..).


Soooooo, 18 months ago, I put together a budget HTPC (spent $550 with taxes and shipping, no OS though) to hook up to an 32 LCD Sony Bravia 32 and marantz SR4500 receiver:

· Case: IN WIN IW-BT611T.300SL cheap, compact and not bad looking. Power supply is quite

· Case fan: ARCTIC COOLING ARCTIC FAN 3 80mm, very quite

· Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-MA69GM-S2H: uATX, ATI 690G chipset

· CPU: AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 Brisbane 2.3GHz: 45W processor, stock fan is quite

· Mem: Kingston 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory - Retail

· HD: SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD321KJ 320GB 7200 RPM SATA

· Hybrid tuner: Avermedia M780

· Remote + IR blaster: Dell XP remote ebay

· Wireless keyboard: BTC 9116URF, cheap but very poor range

· Some DVD drive I had left

· Cables: hdmi and toslink cable ebay


I was looking for a free software solution so I didn't look into sageTV or snapstream, but I downloaded the trial liquidTV: a piece of junk, it looks like TIVO but that's it, nothing more.

I didn't try mythtv mostly because of the lack of QAM support

I tried and like GBPVR and mediaportal, got the EPG working nicely with suspend and automatic turn on / off during the night BUT HD QAM channel watching is catastrophic (best with GBPVR and Avermedia software, stuttering like nothing with mediaportal)

I'm actually thinking of buying a vista license (with Win 7 coupon) to give a try at MCE. I've been running win XP so far (non MCE).


So that's my question: what should I do to get HD clear QAM to work properly with my M780 tuner ?

- buy a cheap ASUS EAH4350 graphic board (or else ?) to pair with my 690G mobo ?

- Ditch the mobo and get a new 780G based one, like GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-US2H for example ?


Thanks for your suggestions


Vince

Just to let you know, I've used SageTV for the last 5 yrs and it was the best $80 I ever spent! Now, for QAM, I use the HDHomerun, but I know many who use the m780 also. I would recommend that you add a graphics card to your current setup. I have tried the 780G and 795GX with QAM and OTA and they still cant hold a candle to the smootheness you get with a dedicated card. And a new graphics card will be a lot easier upgrade than a new MB. I'm still using an old 8500GT in mine and it's great for HD TV.


BT

 

[vdouence]

OK I'm getting the SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4550 and I downloaded win7 RC, I'll give another try at sage,GBPVR, mediaportal with the new hardware before I try win7


I tried the M780 again last night, avermedia software installed on clean win xp install, nothing else. and with no splitter;

The analog is OK, low quality but no stuttering, 10% CPU. with QAM, 480i sd channels have low framerate but 1080i and 720p are horrible, cpu is only 30%.

So , really, this 690G is useless



Thanks

 

[vdouence]

Installed Win 7 MCE and I was pleasantly surprised, it actually works nicely ! (I have never tried xp mce or vista mce, so I don't know if there is any improvement with win7 beside from clear QAM native support)

Disregarding digital tuning for now, it can do everything I get from my SD TIVO with basic service (=no monthly fee)

- ntsc channels play smoothly, timeshift no problem

- epg easy to setup, turn on/off at night to download

- S3 suspend wake up with mce remote no problem

- schedule recording (single, repeat, etc)

- DVD playback out of the box, no need for third party decoder


And more

- CC and zoom options easy to access with mce remote

- slideshow, music and video library (I use my HTPC to back up my main desktop, no problem to fileshare XP and Win7)


A few comments:

- Overall very intuitive and responsive, plus it's free until march 1 2010

- I've used LEDSdriver to turn the hdd LED in recording LED, that was easy !

- Found couple netflix watch now add-on that works in win7 mce waiting for the official release

- To get to stream abc reruns (outside of mce) I had to download the player first

- Just need the 690g built in video to do that (and save the heat dissipation from the 4450)


Now to the initial point of my post, clear QAM support for HTPC ! Still just focusing on win7 mce

- channels broadcasting their ID are found and easily added to the EPG, but unidentified channels must be dealt with manually

- Some of those channels actually played kind of OK, but see next two pbs

- I found out that I have a signal quality issue, too many splitters one not broadband enough. I'll replace and try again

- I have only one memory module = no dual channel, shame on me. I'm getting another one, that should help the 690g chipset. Where I'm getting at is that I hope I don't need to use the 4550 (heat dissipation concern)


If somebody can explain what could be the causes of poor clear QAM viewing for my specific configuration.

- signal quality, got my splitter issue, but the sony tuner is better than the avermedia one

- the clearqam channel are MPEG2 streams I suppose, so what's the max perf for 690G and 4550 when it comes to hardware (assisted) decoding,

- What about the software making use of the hardware decoding. If directX DXVA is used we're in business ?

-


Vince

 

[walford]

What resolution are you outputing over what interface from your ATI card to what/make model of monitor/display?

What release of the drivers from the ATI website are you using for your Win7 system?

 

[mike_311]

My non HD clearQAM channels look bad. they stutter and jerk. HD is as clean a can be...


maybe it has to do with adding all the new pixels during the upscale...


i don't watch too much tv so im not concerned, as long as my HD comes in nice.

 

[vdouence]

integrated graphics radeon x1250 with driver installed by win7 (ATI radeon x1200 series, version 8.56.1.13)

drivers from ATI website won't install (nor XP nor vista)


hdmi out + bravia kdl-32s3000 32', 1366x768 native resolution

display settings set to 1360x768 and without catalyst installed I can't find any advanced control on the video adapter settings

 

[walford]

Since none of your video sources are 1366x768 it appears that quality of the rescaling done by your 1250 graphics chip and its driver is not very good.

 

[Bigbird999]

Have you looked here http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...ight=ga+ma69gm 1400+ posts so there might be some help.


FWIW, My Asus 690 runs perfectly with XP. I don't do QAM but I have run some test files and they play OK. You seem to indicate that your drivers won't install, that sounds like it might be the problem. Lots of guys run BTV or Sage on a rig like this so yours should work. If the x1250 is a little light, a 4xxx series card sfor ~$40 should work fine.


BB

 

[vdouence]

problem solved: turned out I had a faulty coax cable on the digital tuner input side. Switching the splitter probably helped too


bottom line, I got my clear QAM playing smoothly and I know I've got some 1080i in the lineup (from avermedia app that displays the res of the channel, and from hdhomerun listing )


How do I figure out the actual resolution of the channels ? I can record a sample and drop the file in Gspot , any other suggestion ?

Also any idea where I could find sample HD video files in multiple resolution and codecs ?


Now, I still have some issues with win7 mce, but that would be for another post:

- LEDSdriver works when I manually record, not on scheduled recording (i've seen some discusion in LEDSdriver and green button forums)

- DVD playback, the first I used were fine but some other are not decoded correctly

- machine wakes up randomly and stays on (also seen some discussion in grenn button forum)


bigbird, I did look at the mobo post some time ago, but I see it has grown out of proportion ! I should revisit it.... when I have time


Thanks all


Vince