# DirecTV2PC with old computers



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

How old & slow a computer can you run the app on?
I've been able to run it with a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 HT & an AGP Asus/ATI 3650 video card.
My hope is for this thread to be about "tuning" your PC to run the app.
Discussions about bugs or the app have their own threads.


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## houskamp (Sep 14, 2006)

Barely runs (sd ok, hd realy strains) on wifes laptop..
AMD dual core 1.6
onboard video
2gig ram 
I'll get the rest of the specs when I get home..


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

I can get SD playback quite well with my HP Pavilion, circa 2003. The video is provided by hardware on the motherboard and is nothing special. 

HD playback is not possible.


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## Blurayfan (Nov 16, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> How old & slow a computer can you run the app on?
> I've been able to run it with a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 HT & an AGP Asus/ATI 3650 video card.
> My hope is for this thread to be about "tuning" your PC to run the app.
> Discussions about bugs or the app have their own threads.


I'm running DirecTV2PC on a Peintium 4 HT 3.0 Ghz. Video adapter is intel 915 chipset. Both SD and HD video play, HD has minor stuttering (network related).


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## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

SD plays fine on my wife's old 2.8 ghz HT Intel, ATI x800 and 2 gig RAM (XP of course). Won't run HD but SD is fine.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

DVDKingdom said:


> I'm running DirecTV2PC on a Peintium 4 HT 3.0 Ghz. Video adapter is intel 915 chipset. Both SD and HD video play, HD has minor stuttering (network related).


I had a 3 GHz and had problems with 1080i MPEG-4, even with a video card that had on-board h.264 decoding. I'm using a wired network, so that wasn't it.
I overclocked to 3.3 GHz and was [just] able to play National 1080i MPEG-4.


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## Blurayfan (Nov 16, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> I had a 3 GHz and had problems with 1080i MPEG-4, even with a video card that had on-board h.264 decoding. I'm using a wired network, so that wasn't it.
> I overclocked to 3.3 GHz and was [just] able to play National 1080i MPEG-4.


I may install a ATI 2400 PRO video card to see if there is any improvement.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

DVDKingdom said:


> I may install a ATI 2400 PRO video card to see if there is any improvement.


I did that, and yes it did help.


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## Getteau (Dec 20, 2007)

Dell Latitude D630, 4G RAM, Intel Core2 Duo 2Ghz processors, 64b Vista Ultimate, 54G wireless to Linksys WAP

HR 21-700 connected via 100M switch to Linksys 54G wireless music bridge that connects over 54G to Linksys WAP.

A couple of releases ago, I could play HD content fine (Bank Job and The bucket List plus other HD recorded items). Since then, it’s jerky and stutters. SD plays fine. I’ve tried disabling Symantec Anti-Virus and shutting down all other stuff and can never get HD to play correctly. When it did play correctly, I didn’t do any tuning. One of these days, I will connect directly to the 100M switch to see if it’s network related or something else.


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## evan_s (Mar 4, 2008)

My althon 64 at 2.6 ghz with a 6800gs was able to just barely play the national mpeg4 HD and some of my local channels. Was at 90 to 100% cpu utilization the entire time and closed captioning would lag badly behind. I also had to pause it for a couple seconds after trick play to let it catch up.

Some of my local channels won't play back. The audio is out sync and the video stutters.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

evan_s said:


> My althon 64 at 2.6 ghz with a 6800gs was able to just barely play the national mpeg4 HD and some of my local channels. Was at 90 to 100% cpu utilization the entire time and closed captioning would lag badly behind. I also had to pause it for a couple seconds after trick play to let it catch up.
> 
> *Some of my local channels won't play back. The audio is out sync and the video stutters*.


Yes on my 3.4 GHz single core, I too have problems with 1080i MPEG-4 locals.
CBS seems to be the worst/hardest to play.
My 3 GHz PentiumD with Nvidia 6600GT(s) will play NBC, but still struggles with CBS.
My 2.3 GHz Core2 Duo, with Nvidia 8800GT will play CBS. This will swing from 50% [normal] CPU to 100% peaks as it "fights" to keep the sound in sync.
1080p VOD will play even on my single core [though it's pushing it to the max].


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## rahlquist (Jul 24, 2007)

Crikey thats a lot of hardware demand, I dont get it most PC's can play back blue ray why is DTV content so demanding? My video card is a big red dot because its an nvidia 7550. 7600 is supported grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rahlquist said:


> Crikey thats a lot of hardware demand, I dont get it most PC's can play back blue ray why is DTV content so demanding? My video card is a big red dot because its an nvidia 7550. 7600 is supported grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.


The Nvidia "7 series" is to work with a dual core CPU, while the "8 series" is to work with a single core.

HDMI is one thing and then there is the decompression/decoding as another thing.
The bit rate off Blu-ray doesn't seem to have as much compression.

I've been able to play 720p MPEG-4 with the advisor showning red for everything but the OS. YMMV


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## bobnielsen (Jun 29, 2006)

I'm using a new computer (HP Pavillion, Athlon64 5000+ dual core, 32 bit Vista Home Premium) but the advisor says my video card (onboard Nvidia 6150SE) is inadequate. I tried both HD and SD from my HR20 and have no issues with either. There is some stuttering with HD from my HR21, but I suspect it is a network issue (SD is fine).


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

bobnielsen said:


> I'm using a new computer (HP Pavillion, Athlon64 5000+) but the advisor says my video card (onboard Nvidia 6150SE) is inadequate. I tried both HD and SD from my HR20 and have no issues with either. There is some stuttering with HD from my HR21, but I suspect it is a network issue (SD is fine).


I think we found in this thread: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=131230
That AMD can kick the **** out of Intel.


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## rahlquist (Jul 24, 2007)

Well my machine is playing it but I will be posting a bug or two. 
In case anyone else has similar hardware. 
HP Pavillion a1677c. 
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4600
3Gig ram
Nvidia 7550

Play, minor hangs and slowdowns. And a weird but with my hpqtra08.exe.

Heading to issues thread.


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## xmguy (Mar 27, 2008)

I have a HP Pavilion ZV5000 Notebook. Specs, 1.28 Ghz (2.0) AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+, 512 MB RAM, 64 MB Go Nvidia Video Ram. I just hope the app will run. I have the R22-200 SD DVR so hopefully SD content will stream ok. I've streamed ok with My ReplayTV to PC.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

xmguy said:


> I have a HP Pavilion ZV5000 Notebook. Specs, 1.28 Ghz (2.0) AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+, 512 MB RAM, 64 MB Go Nvidia Video Ram. I just hope the app will run. I have the R22-200 SD DVR so hopefully SD content will stream ok. I've streamed ok with My ReplayTV to PC.


Do post "how it goes" so others can get an idea of what works & what "needs help".


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## MercurialIN (Jul 17, 2006)

I can attest that the program runs just fine on my "old as dirt" Dell Dimension Desktop PC circa 2001. Don't know all the "specs" on this thing but here's what I pulled from properties on "My Computer"

Pentium 4, CPU 1.60GHz, 1.59GHz, 256 MB RAM, sorry don't know what all that means, except that I don't have nearly enough RAM. 

I'm also running Windows XP Home Edition, Serivce Pack 3, Netgear Wireless Router, but I have it hard wired, it's WGR614v7. AT & T DSL Elite speed. 

I believe the graphics card is listed as NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX/MX 400. 

Hope this info is helpful.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

MercurialIN said:


> I can attest that the program runs just fine on my "old as dirt" Dell Dimension Desktop PC circa 2001. Don't know all the "specs" on this thing but here's what I pulled from properties on "My Computer"
> 
> Pentium 4, CPU 1.60GHz, 1.59GHz, 256 MB RAM, sorry don't know what all that means, except that I don't have nearly enough RAM.
> 
> ...


And you can watch HD?
This sounds like an "SD/MPEG-2 HD only" PC.


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## spidey (Sep 1, 2006)

I have a 2 year old HP pavilion 1408MB Memory however fails on graphics card.
Graphics card is SiS 760, Driver level 6.14.10.3671 and implies no HDCP compliant display.

If I was going to replace the graphics adapter what would people recommend?


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## MercurialIN (Jul 17, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> And you can watch HD?
> This sounds like an "SD/MPG-2 HD only" PC.


I can watch any of my recorded shows, but as far as being in true HD, you are correct the computer I have isn't capable of that.

My post was simply to give hope to those with ancient computer's such as mine that they can playback shows, not in HD but at least the program works, even with ancient set ups.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

spidey said:


> I have a 2 year old HP pavilion 1408MB Memory however fails on graphics card.
> Graphics card is SiS 760, Driver level 6.14.10.3671 and implies no HDCP compliant display.
> 
> If I was going to replace the graphics adapter what would people recommend?


"Cheapest" h.264/HDMI which may be the ATI HD 2000/3000.
If you only have AGP, you're going to be limited to the ATI cards.
ATI HD2400, HD3000, etc.
Nvidia only has PCIe cards.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

MercurialIN said:


> I can watch any of my recorded shows, but as far as being in true HD, you are correct the computer I have isn't capable of that.
> 
> My post was simply to give hope to those with ancient computer's such as mine that they can playback shows, not in HD but at least the program works, even with ancient set ups.


And you make a good point.


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## spidey (Sep 1, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> "Cheapest" h.264/HDMI which may be the ATI HD 2000/3000.
> If you only have AGP, you're going to be limited to the ATI cards.
> ATI HD2400, HD3000, etc.
> Nvidia only has PCIe cards.


right now I am going to stay away since the laptop is the best option for this app for me. It be nice if one could access the DVRs remotely so when traveling could watch recorded programs, yeah I know a slingbox will do that but that means more HW


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## rahlquist (Jul 24, 2007)

spidey said:


> I have a 2 year old HP pavilion 1408MB Memory however fails on graphics card.
> Graphics card is SiS 760, Driver level 6.14.10.3671 and implies no HDCP compliant display.
> 
> If I was going to replace the graphics adapter what would people recommend?


According to the advisor;
What graphics card do I need to play DTCP-IP contents on my computer?

It is recommended that you have one of the graphics cards with the following graphics processor unit (GPU) installed on your computer in order to play DTCP-IP contents.
Intel 965G, G33 graphics

* nVidia
GeForce 7600 GT, GeForce 7800 GTX 512, GeForce 7900 GX2, GeForce 7900
GTX, GeForce 7950 GX2, GeForce 8400 series, GeForce 8500 series, GeForce
8600 series, GeForce 8800 series
* ATI (minumum requirements)
ATI Radeon X1600 series, X1800 series, X1900 series
* ATI (recommended requirements)
ATI Radeon HD 2400, 2600, 2900, 3400, 3600, 3800 series
Video RAM: Graphics card memory requires 256MB or above.

A ATI 2600 shouldnt run too much more than $30-40. Anything above that if you want nice 3d gaming. Check the deal sites like bensbargains.net and or techbargains.com or just hit newegg.


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## rahlquist (Jul 24, 2007)

Oh and BTW since my steup doesnt do HDCP 1080p DOD wont play on it when D* releases that.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rahlquist said:


> Oh and BTW since my steup doesnt do HDCP 1080p DOD wont play on it when D* releases that.


"Oh and BTW": if you have a digital audio output, you may have problems too.
I've had to either find a brand new driver, or disable the digital output to play some programs.


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## rahlquist (Jul 24, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> "Oh and BTW": if you have a digital audio output, you may have problems too.
> I've had to either find a brand new driver, or disable the digital output to play some programs.


Thank you VOS always nice to compile data on whats tested not to work.


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## petergaryr (Nov 22, 2006)

Have done the first look, using a Pentium 4 3 gb dual core with 1 gb ram.

Unfortunately, my motherboard only allows a PCI card, so I am stuck with a Radeon x1300 (though it does run Vista Premium Areo with Glass as long as I only use the WDDM driver supplied by Microsoft). When I try to use anything but the WDDM driver, Aero still works, but there is noticible screen lag.

As for Directv2PC, SD works just fine. HD will play, but the video is jerky. The audio does OK.

I love the concept, but I suspect that this isn't going to be a very popular option given the PC hardware requirements.


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## xmguy (Mar 27, 2008)

So far the app won't play content on my HP zv5000. I'm trying WiFi. using WRT54GL.
My Monitor is not HDCP. I don't have MPEG4 hardware decoder. I'm going to try wired. See it that changes anything.


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## evan_s (Mar 4, 2008)

xmguy said:


> So far the app won't play content on my HP zv5000. I'm trying WiFi. using WRT54GL.
> My Monitor is not HDCP. I don't have MPEG4 hardware decoder. I'm going to try wired. See it that changes anything.


I'd guess that sd will work and mpeg 2 hd might work if you've got a good connection but mpeg4 is not likely. My system with a 2.6ghz athlon 64 barely manages to play the national mpeg 4 and some of the locals but fails on other locals. Making sure the dvr and the laptop are both hooked up with ethernet may help.


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## xmguy (Mar 27, 2008)

evan_s said:


> I'd guess that sd will work and mpeg 2 hd might work if you've got a good connection but mpeg4 is not likely. My system with a 2.6ghz athlon 64 barely manages to play the national mpeg 4 and some of the locals but fails on other locals. Making sure the dvr and the laptop are both hooked up with ethernet may help.


I tried to stream a show on SCIENCE CHANNEL (SD) called Beyond Tomorrow, and got an error stating that my monitior wasn't capable of displaying non secure content. I'm updating my driver see if that helps. If that doesn;t work then using it on my notebook is not an option. Since the LCD is part of the computer so upgrading is out of the question. BTW I'm using an R22-200 SD only DirecTV DVR.


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## rahlquist (Jul 24, 2007)

petergaryr said:


> I love the concept, but I suspect that this isn't going to be a very popular option given the PC hardware requirements.


Hopefully it will get better but so far it seems cool to me. Just keep in mind the huge step that just happened.....

You are now getting content OUT of your HD DVR playing on another device. One step closer to MRV.


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## Ernie (Sep 25, 2007)

Something else that doesn't work. Dual heads. I have a Nvidia 9600GT with dual digital displays configured as dualView. It squawks about that if you have it in either full screen or windowed mode (fully within one monitor). I'm not going to disable a monitor just to watch TV.

The playList scrolling needs a little work too.

Ernie


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## corvock (Dec 12, 2007)

Ernie said:


> Something else that doesn't work. Dual heads. I have a Nvidia 9600GT with dual digital displays configured as dualView. It squawks about that if you have it in either full screen or windowed mode (fully within one monitor). I'm not going to disable a monitor just to watch TV.
> 
> The playList scrolling needs a little work too.
> 
> Ernie


I hope this is a simple problem for them to overcome. It was a total buzzkill. I had read the dual monitor warning, but figured they were talking abut stretching across the monitors, but it chokes even windowed on one.

Bummer


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## gio12 (Jul 31, 2006)

I have a Dell 9100 DT, P3.0, XP and 4GB Ram. HD is a bit chopppy, SD fine. What GC should I upgrade too?


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## 19secord (Sep 23, 2006)

I can launch the application, tie into a DVR but when I try to play anything in the playlist it crashes. I ran the utility to check for compatibility, everything is green.

I’m running WIN XP SP3. I have another PC running Vista and no problems. Both machines are Intel dual core 3 GHz with 4 GB RAM.

Any ideas?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gio12 said:


> I have a Dell 9100 DT, P3.0, XP and 4GB Ram. HD is a bit chopppy, SD fine. What GC should I upgrade too?


A quick google seems to show that you have a PentiumD [dual core] and PCIe.
This means you can use either ATI or Nvidia graphic cards.
You should look for HDCP and h.264 compatible cards.
With Nvidia, I think they start with the 8800 [as I don't think the 8600 has HDCP]
With ATI, the HD 2xxx/3xxx/4xxx cards should have both.
I kind of like Nvidia over ATI, but I have an ATI also and they can be cheaper.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

19secord said:


> I can launch the application, tie into a DVR but when I try to play anything in the playlist it crashes. I ran the utility to check for compatibility, everything is green.
> 
> I'm running WIN XP SP3. I have another PC running Vista and no problems. Both machines are Intel dual core 3 GHz with 4 GB RAM.
> 
> Any ideas?


This "usually" comes from some other video/decoder that is installed. I have a early version still on my 3 GHz PentiumD, running XP, and it doesn't crash, so it's not your hardware/OS, but things like PowerDVD, along with things like "free codec packs", have caused crashes on one of my systems.


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## gio12 (Jul 31, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> A quick google seems to show that you have a PentiumD [dual core] and PCIe.
> This means you can use either ATI or Nvidia graphic cards.
> You should look for HDCP and h.264 compatible cards.
> With Nvidia, I think they start with the 8800 [as I don't think the 8600 has HDCP]
> ...


I don't think it's a dual core. It say P4 HT 3.0

It's 3 yrs old.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gio12 said:


> I don't think it's a dual core. It say P4 HT 3.0
> 
> It's 3 yrs old.


Is this your PC: http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-dimension-9100-pentium/4505-3118_7-31403779.html

It also might help if you could post the motherboard chipset [from the manual].

OK after digging through here: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim9100/en/SM/specs.htm#wp1053343
You may or may not have a dual core, but do have the 945P chipset.
If you don't have the dual core CPU, I'd be leaning more to the Nvidia 8800 over ATI.
I haven't run the Nvidia with a single core.
I have a single core with an ATI, but as posted ^ it needed to be a 3.4 GHz.


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## gio12 (Jul 31, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> Is this your PC: http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-dimension-9100-pentium/4505-3118_7-31403779.html
> 
> It also might help if you could post the motherboard chipset [from the manual].


Similar

Intel Pentium 4 630 (3GHZ, 800FSB) w/ HT Tech 2MB cache
256 MB ATI Hyper Memoery PCI-Express x16 Radeon X600 SE

Specifications
Processor
Processor type Intel® Pentium® 4 Socket-T with Hyper-Threading technology
Cache 1 MB or 2 MB
Memory
Type dual-channel 400-, 533-, and 667-MHz DDR2
Memory connectors four
Memory capacities 256 MB, 512 MB, or 1 GB
Minimum memory 512 MB
Maximum memory 4 GB
BIOS address F0000h
Computer Information
Chipset Intel 945P
DMA channels eight
Interrupt levels 24
BIOS chip (NVRAM) 4 Mb
NIC Integrated network interface capable of 10/100 communication


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gio12 said:


> Similar
> 
> Intel Pentium 4 630 (3GHZ, 800FSB) w/ HT Tech 2MB cache
> 256 MB ATI Hyper Memoery *PCI-Express x16* Radeon X600 SE
> ...


See edit above^


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## California King (Nov 24, 2007)

SD runs with no problem. HD is lag-tastic!

2.5 Ghz AMD 3400+
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
1GB Memory

about a 7 year old PC!


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## gio12 (Jul 31, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> Is this your PC: http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-dimension-9100-pentium/4505-3118_7-31403779.html
> 
> It also might help if you could post the motherboard chipset [from the manual].
> 
> ...


thanks. Its a HT based, so not DC.

Thanks for helping VOS!

The 8800 only seems to be for a Mac and $300!


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gio12 said:


> Thask. Its a HT based, so not DC.
> 
> Thanks for helping VOS!


So you're where I started with single core 3 GHz and a "lacking" video card, BUT you can use a PCIe video card, where I had to use an AGP.
What I don't know is [many things but...] how much more help the Nvidia can be over the ATI.
If I were to have your PC, I'd go for the Video card upgrade first and then if 1080i MPEG-4 programs still gave me problems, I'd be looking to upgrade the CPU. With the board you have, CPUs are cheaper than what I have. I'd be looking for either a 3.4 GHz [as I know it works] or a 2.8-3.0 GHz Dual core [PentiumD] as I also know a 3.0 GHz PentiumD works with a Nvidia 6600GT [which has no h.264 decoding].


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

California King said:


> SD runs with no problem. HD is lag-tastic!
> 
> 2.5 Ghz AMD 3400+
> ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
> ...


AMD seems to work better than the "old" Pentiums, but I know your ATI isn't going to make it. I'm not sure whether it's worth trying to go for the ATI HD2xxx/3xxx upgrade or not, as it may still need a CPU upgrade.
"In the Pentium world", I was able to upgrade both for about $200.


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## gio12 (Jul 31, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> So you're where I started with single core 3 GHz and a "lacking" video card, BUT you can use a PCIe video card, where I had to use an AGP.
> What I don't know is [many things but...] how much more help the Nvidia can be over the ATI.
> If I were to have your PC, I'd go for the Video card upgrade first and then if 1080i MPEG-4 programs still gave me problems, I'd be looking to upgrade the CPU. With the board you have, CPUs are cheaper than what I have. I'd be looking for either a 3.4 GHz [as I know it works] or a 2.8-3.0 GHz Dual core [PentiumD] as I also know a 3.0 GHz PentiumD works with a Nvidia 6600GT [which has no h.264 decoding].


Thanks. So my MB can handle a new processor?

Thanks!


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gio12 said:


> Thanks. So my MB can handle a new processor?
> 
> Thanks!


Yes: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim9100/en/SM/specs.htm#wp1053343

You may need to update the BIOS and would need to dig through Dell docs to find what your board supports [highest speed], but from ^ it supports dual core and had both 800 MHz & 1066 MHz FSB.


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## gio12 (Jul 31, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> also know a 3.0 GHz PentiumD works with a Nvidia 6600GT [which has no h.264 decoding].


Like this?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat....asp?EdpNo=3980696&sku=D15-9114&srkey=6600 GT

Also:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3738460&CatId=2306


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## Papa J (Nov 26, 2007)

What is the serial number it asks for during the install. I put in the serial number of my HR20 and then it tells me the product key is on the install CD


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gio12 said:


> Like this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I would look more for one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048 106791921

Now what I don't know is whether it's better to go for the higher priced 8800 that has on board MPEG-4 decoding [h.264] or go for the cheaper ones that don't list it and then use the savings for a PentiumD from one of these: http://www.google.com/products/cata..._catalog_result&resnum=5&ct=result#ps-sellers


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Papa J said:


> What is the serial number it asks for during the install. I put in the serial number of my HR20 and then it tells me the product key is on the install CD


You should have received [by email] a serial number after your download. This [like with other software] is the serial number you need to use.


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## Papa J (Nov 26, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> You should have received [by email] a serial number after your download. This [like with other software] is the serial number you need to use.


Thanks for the fast reply. I just saw it and the install is running!


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## gio12 (Jul 31, 2006)

> veryoldschool said:
> 
> 
> > I would look more for one of these:
> ...


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## wingrider01 (Sep 9, 2005)

gio12 said:


> thanks. Its a HT based, so not DC.
> 
> Thanks for helping VOS!
> 
> The 8800 only seems to be for a Mac and $300!


EVGA

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=50001402&Description=8800&name=EVGA


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gio12 said:


> Same 8800 here for $159?
> Wow, these are cheaper than I though. I might do tyhe card now and the chip later this year!


Of course you could always "do it backwards". :lol: 
Go for the CPU first [I've got a 3.0 PentiumD running with 6600GT] and then do the video card later.
"a $100 CPU" may be cheaper than the $160 video card.
"The deal is": either the CPU is doing the work or you need to off load some of it to the video card. If you don't have enough CPU, then you have to find a video [GPU] to help.


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## wingrider01 (Sep 9, 2005)

California King said:


> SD runs with no problem. HD is lag-tastic!
> 
> 2.5 Ghz AMD 3400+
> ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
> ...


Box 1

AMD 3800+
2 GB memory
Nvidia 7900GT
Windows Vista Ultimate 32

runs fine

Box 2

Intel Quad Core Q9650 x2
4 GB Memory
Nvidia 7950GX2 x 2
Windows Vista Ultimate

Scream....


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## gio12 (Jul 31, 2006)

wingrider01 said:


> EVGA
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks!!

I am going to try this one:

*Recertified: EVGA 320-P2-N811-RX GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card*


*Chipset Manufacturer:* NVIDIA
*Core clock:* 500MHz
*Stream Processors:* 96
*Memory Clock:* 1600 MHz (effective)
*DirectX:* DirectX 10
*OpenGL:* OpenGL 2.0
*DVI:* 2
*TV-Out:* HDTV / S-Video Out
*Model #: *320-P2-N811-RX
*Item #: *N82E16814130410
*Return Policy: *Limited 30-Day Return Policy
 
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Your Price:$89.99


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

wingrider01 said:


> Box 1
> 
> AMD 3800+
> 2 GB memory
> ...


I don't think "Box 2" would fall under the topic: "old computer".


----------



## gio12 (Jul 31, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> Of course you could always "do it backwards". :lol:
> Go for the CPU first [I've got a 3.0 PentiumD running with 6600GT] and then do the video card later.
> "a $100 CPU" may be cheaper than the $160 video card.
> "The deal is": either the CPU is doing the work or you need to off load some of it to the video card. If you don't have enough CPU, then you have to find a video [GPU] to help.


Ok. So I *assume* the current video card will be fine for now.

Is it hard to replace the proccessor? Just pop in and out? I have doen a ton of upgrades on computers, but not a CPUs.

Where would I get a new Bios? dell?


----------



## wingrider01 (Sep 9, 2005)

gio12 said:


> Thanks!!
> 
> I am going to try this one:
> 
> ...


If you are going to go recertified, look at the one right below it, 640 Meg for a few dollars more. make sure your PSU is large enough to handle it and you have PCI Express in the box


----------



## wingrider01 (Sep 9, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> I don't think "Box 2" would fall under the topic: "old computer".


/grin depends, it is 6 months old, within 3 months of a forklift upgrade and pass this one down to my wife Shopping parts right now for the next build


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gio12 said:


> Ok. So I *assume* the current video card will be fine for now.
> 
> Is it hard to replace the proccessor? Just pop in and out? I have doen a ton of upgrades on computers, but not a CPUs.
> 
> Where would I get a new Bios? dell?


Dell is where you'd find the BIOS and CPUs aren't much harder than a video card. Pull the power cord first :lol: 
Then remove the fan and there is a lever to release the CPU. Dell "service manual" should show you how to do it.
Also look to see what the fastest CPU Dell offered for your model. It may have one been the 3.2, but it could be the 3.4 too.
PM me your tag # off your Dell and I'll see what I can find.


----------



## msmith (Apr 23, 2002)

I have a 2.0GHz Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop, 1GB RAM with an ATI Radeon Mobility X300 video card. I tested with the laptop wired to the router and the DVR connected to a Linksys WGA54G Gaming Adapter. The network router is the Verizon FIOS Actiontec MR424WR.

SD worked fine. HD sound was fine, but the picture updated irregularly. Looks like I need to consider moving to wired connections to the DVRs or an N wireless network.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

msmith said:


> I have a 2.0GHz Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop, 1GB RAM with an ATI Radeon Mobility X300 video card. I tested with the laptop wired to the router and the DVR connected to a Linksys WGA54G Gaming Adapter. The network router is the Verizon FIOS Actiontec MR424WR.
> 
> SD worked fine. HD sound was fine, but the picture updated irregularly. Looks like I need to consider moving to wired connections to the DVRs or an N wireless network.


I'd start with the wired connection [from both the DVR & latop] just to eliminate that from the loop. Then you'll know about how well your laptop can handle it.


----------



## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

wingrider01 said:


> Box 1
> 
> AMD 3800+
> 2 GB memory
> ...


Interesting, I wonder why my box doesn't work fine.

AMD 3800+
3 GB memory
Nvidia 8600GT
Win XP SP3


----------



## Athlon646464 (Feb 23, 2007)

Working for me from both DVR's without issues with SD content.

HD is a problem. 1 to 2 second lip sync problems for any HD I've tried.

See my D* setup in my sig.

My PC:

Athlon 3500+
2 gig memory
Geforce 7600GT 512MB AGP8X GPU
Raptor 10k 75 gig HD

Do you think it's the PLC's, or my computer........


----------



## evan_s (Mar 4, 2008)

gio12 said:


> Thanks!!
> 
> I am going to try this one:
> 
> ...


If you are hoping to improve your playback performance this IS NOT the card to get. The original 8800s did not have support for offloading the decoding of HD video codecs. Any card with 320/640mbs of memory from the 8000 series will fall into this category. Even the 9600gto with 320mbs of ram fits. A 8800GT 512 or 256 is a newer version of the chip and does have support for offloading the decoding.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

evan_s said:


> If you are hoping to improve your playback performance this IS NOT the card to get. The original 8800s did not have support for offloading the decoding of HD video codecs. Any card with 320/640mbs of memory from the 8000 series will fall into this category. Even the 9600gto with 320mbs of ram fits. A 8800GT 512 or 256 is a newer version of the chip and *does have support for offloading the decoding*.


For those looking at this: look to see that it has* h.264* support.


----------



## rahchgo (Feb 2, 2007)

My 4 year old IBM ThinkPad doesn't work  with DirecTV2PC.

I'm attached it directly to my router (Linksys WRT160N). My HR20 is attached wireless with a Linksys WGA600N game adapter.

It seems to get as far as the showing the playbar and then just hangs. A couple of times I got this response:









OS Name	Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version	5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
System Manufacturer	IBM
System Model	2378DHU
System Type	X86-based PC
Processor	x86 Family 6 Model 9 Stepping 5 GenuineIntel ~599 Mhz (supposed to be 1400 Mhz)
Total Physical Memory	768.00 MB
Name	ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7500
Adapter Type	ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7500 AGP (0x4C57), ATI Technologies Inc. compatible
Adapter Description	ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7500
Adapter RAM	32.00 MB (33,554,432 bytes)
Installed Drivers	ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version	6.14.10.6547


----------



## murdoc158 (Aug 5, 2007)

Hoping my 24" iMac can run it using my Boot Camp partition. Looks like everything passed:


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

This all really comes down to CPU & GPU power.
With Vista experience index:
CPU with a 4.4 rating has worked for me with a video card that has h.264.
CPU with a 4.8 rating has worked for me without a video card that supports h.264
These are the minimum ratings needed.


----------



## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> For those looking at this: look to see that it has* h.264* support.


Any recommendations?


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Any recommendations?


For Tivo? :lol:

What is your video "slot"?
With AGP you're liminted to ATI [the HD2xxx/3xxx], but with PCIe, you can go with either ATI or the Nvidia 8800GT


----------



## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> For Tivo? :lol:
> 
> What is your video "slot"?
> With AGP you're liminted to ATI [the HD2xxx/3xxx], but with PCIe, you can go with either ATI or the Nvidia 8800GT


It's PCIe, I'm just wondering if it would be better just to rebuild with a dual or quad core instead of spending money on a vidcard that may or may not work well.

This was something I've been planning to do but putting off as it wasn't really a necessity. I suppose a card swap would be cheaper short term.


----------



## evan_s (Mar 4, 2008)

keenan said:


> Any recommendations?


An 8600gt already has h264 decoding in it. Nothing to gain in that area. Do you have a socket 939 or am2 system? If it's an am2 system you can probably drop in a dual core athlon for pretty cheap and be gtg. Socket 939 processors are a lot harder to find unfortunately.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> It's PCIe, I'm just wondering if it would be better just to rebuild with a dual or quad core instead of spending money on a vidcard that may or may not work well.
> 
> This was something I've been planning to do but putting off as it wasn't really a necessity. I suppose a card swap would be cheaper short term.


A few posts ^, is a member with the same "issue". ATI cards are about $60, but what is your CPU speed? I'm finding that 3.4 GHz is what works with the ATI 3650.
If you can upgrade to a dual core, that might be a better way to go as 3.2/3.4 are only about $100 and will work for more than this app and will work without the h.264 video cards.

EDIT: I missed your first post about your AMD CPU. They seem to have worked better than the Intel I'm using, so I'd go with "some" dual core option first.


----------



## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

evan_s said:


> An 8600gt already has h264 decoding in it. Nothing to gain in that area. Do you have a socket 939 or am2 system? If it's an am2 system you can probably drop in a dual core athlon for pretty cheap and be gtg. Socket 939 processors are a lot harder to find unfortunately.


Yeah, it's 939, I'd need to get a new mobo as well. If the 8600GT is good, then it seems I need more CPU power as it swamps the CPU. If the 8600GT does h264, then why does it seem so much of it is being off-loaded to the CPU? Are you sure it does h264/MPEG4?


----------



## topgun80 (Oct 6, 2008)

Evertime I click on something, Explorer pops up the "send error report" box.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Yeah, it's 939, I'd need to get a new mobo as well. If the 8600GT is good, then it seems I need more CPU power as it swamps the CPU. If the 8600GT does h264, then why does it seem so much of it is being off-loaded to the CPU? Are you sure it does h264/MPEG4?


From here: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/486/2/

The GeForce 8600 GT and 8600 GTS both feature NVIDIA's second generation Pure Video HD engine, making it the world's first and only GPU to provide 100% offload for H.264 decoding.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

topgun80 said:


> Evertime I click on something, Explorer pops up the "send error report" box.


Both your CPU & video card are going to have real problems trying to do anything but SD playback.


----------



## topgun80 (Oct 6, 2008)

veryoldschool said:


> Both your CPU & video card are going to have real problems trying to do anything but SD playback.


I'd be happy with SD but it won't even do that.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

topgun80 said:


> I'd be happy with SD but it won't even do that.


Not that I'm any type of expert, but what is causing the crash [should be in the error report].
Do you have PowerDVD installed?


----------



## gio12 (Jul 31, 2006)

evan_s said:


> If you are hoping to improve your playback performance this IS NOT the card to get. The original 8800s did not have support for offloading the decoding of HD video codecs. Any card with 320/640mbs of memory from the 8000 series will fall into this category. Even the 9600gto with 320mbs of ram fits. A 8800GT 512 or 256 is a newer version of the chip and does have support for offloading the decoding.


So which do I get?


----------



## topgun80 (Oct 6, 2008)

veryoldschool said:


> Not that I'm any type of expert, but what is causing the crash [should be in the error report].
> Do you have PowerDVD installed?


just a minute and I'll crash it again and read the report.


----------



## topgun80 (Oct 6, 2008)

guess it just won't work for me.


----------



## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> From here: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/486/2/
> 
> The GeForce 8600 GT and 8600 GTS both feature NVIDIA's second generation Pure Video HD engine, making it the world's first and only GPU to provide 100% offload for H.264 decoding.


Okay, but that's the part I don't get. If the GPU is doing the decoding, then what the heck is the CPU getting so hot and bothered about? Does MPEG4 processing require over 4 times the amount of CPU power than MPEG2, even with a capable vidcard? When running MPEG-HD content my machine cruises along using about 20% of the CPU, with this DirecTV app it swamps it. It makes me think the app doesn't know the card is capable and is directing everything to the CPU. I've seen something like this before in SageTV, where sometimes you have to "force" the application to use a specific device/software to do the decode by setting it's priority. This app has no configuration capability at all that I can tell.

Using the Playback Advisor it shows a grey circle(unknown) for CPU(Hardware acceleration) with the vidcard in red. The Graphics Card entry show the vidcard in red and a green circle(yes).

This makes me wonder if the app is not recognizing the capability of the available hardware and is using the default(all processing done on CPU).

It also shows grey for the proc, so maybe it's just the CPU, I just didn't think it would require almost 4 times the amount of juice to handle MPEG4 content.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Okay, but that's the part I don't get. If the GPU is doing the decoding, then what the heck is the CPU getting so hot and bothered about? Does MPEG4 processing require over 4 times the amount of CPU power than MPEG2, even with a capable vidcard? When running MPEG-HD content my machine cruises along using about 20% of the CPU, with this DirecTV app it swamps it. It makes me think the app doesn't know the card is capable and is directing everything to the CPU. I've seen something like this before in SageTV, where sometimes you have to "force" the application to use a specific device/software to do the decode by setting it's priority. This app has no configuration capability at all that I can tell.
> 
> Using the Playback Advisor it shows a grey circle(unknown) for CPU(Hardware acceleration) with the vidcard in red. The Graphics Card entry show the vidcard in red and a green circle(yes).
> 
> ...



Go to Nvidia and get the lastest driver.
MPEG-4 NBC & CBS [locals] are REALLY HARD on the CPU/GPU loading.
Your CPU is "unknown" [grey]
MPEG-4 takes a lot more "horsepower" than MPEG-2. I was using a 2.8 GHz CPU & an ATI 9600 for HD MPEG-2 [OTA] and it worked fine. With MPEG-4: a 3 GHz CPU and Nvida 6600GT, would only play 720p. Upgraded to a Nvidia 7600GS, but it was no help, yet a ATI 2600Pro worked fine.
"I think" your GPU is "good enough", but you do need more CPU.
AMD is working on the "crossfire" which seems to be their GPU-CPU integration "plan" [since they bought ATI].


----------



## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> Go to Nvidia and get the lastest driver.
> MPEG-4 NBC & CBS [locals] are REALLY HARD on the CPU/GPU loading.
> Your CPU is "unknown" [grey]
> MPEG-4 takes a lot more "horsepower" than MPEG-2. I was using a 2.8 GHz CPU & an ATI 9600 for HD MPEG-2 [OTA] and it worked fine. With MPEG-4: a 3 GHz CPU and Nvida 6600GT, would only play 720p. Upgraded to a Nvidia 7600GS, but it was no help, yet a ATI 2600Pro worked fine.
> ...


Upgrading Nvidia drivers is like driving over an IED, you never know what's going to happen. 

The 1080i channels do seem to be the problem, of course this was a problem with SageTV/cable MPEG2 until the correct settings were used for interlaced content, 720p always played fine. Are we sure the app is handling interlaced material properly? Does it matter what the STB output is set at?

I'm not really comfortable with absolutely no configuration capability with the CyberLink software, but I know they did it that way to make it idiot proof. Maybe someone will hack it so we can access the settings.

I guess I'm just going to shelve this until I see a more of reason to spend $600 to upgrade my computer, a computer that handles everything else thrown at it, including stellar cable-sourced HD 1080i content. $600 is just about enough for 2 more TiVo-HD's.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Upgrading Nvidia drivers is like driving over an IED, you never know what's going to happen.
> 
> The 1080i channels do seem to be the problem, of course this was a problem with SageTV/cable MPEG2 until the correct settings were used for interlaced content, 720p always played fine. Are we sure the app is handling interlaced material properly? Does it matter what the STB output is set at?
> 
> ...


I spent $200 on a CPU & GPU upgrade to add some life to an old AGP box. 
BTW: I got it to play all of the SAT feeds and 1080p VOD, it's just my local 1080i MPEG-4 that it has problems keeping the sound in sync.


----------



## gopatriots (Jan 17, 2007)

I can't even get the application to start on my computer. When I double click the icon it does nothing. Everything seemed fine during the install. I have deinstalled and installed twice, with and without anti-virus running. Any suggestions.

AMD - 2 Ghz, 2 gb RAM


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

gopatriots said:


> I can't even get the application to start on my computer. When I double click the icon it does nothing. Everything seemed fine during the install. I have deinstalled and installed twice, with and without anti-virus running. Any suggestions.
> 
> AMD - 2 Ghz, 2 gb RAM


"suggestions" :lol: 
Sure but you're not going to like them.

AMD 2 GHz isn't going to do much for you other than SD recordings.
When this app first came out, there were "a few" that needed to do a fresh install of Windows to get it to work. Microsoft can leave all sorts of "trash" in the OS, that can stop the app from running.


----------



## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> I spent $200 on a CPU & GPU upgrade to add some life to an old AGP box.
> BTW: I got it to play all of the SAT feeds and 1080p VOD, it's just my local 1080i MPEG-4 that it has problems keeping the sound in sync.


Yeah, I have to decide which way to go, "band-aid" it, or do it right, but more expensively. It is kind of nice to be able to watch non-local content on the computer, can't do that with cable. Time to visit Newegg.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Time to visit Newegg.


They have a great return policy too. :lol:


----------



## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> "suggestions" :lol:
> Sure but you're not going to like them.
> 
> AMD 2 GHz isn't going to do much for you other than SD recordings.
> When this app first came out, there were "a few" that needed to do a fresh install of Windows to get it to work. Microsoft can leave all sorts of "trash" in the OS, that can stop the app from running.


Might try the MS cleanup utility, many times just removing the app using add/remove or it's own unistall program doesn't get everything and can cause problems upon re-install, this seems to be especially true for apps that use video. This app is supposed to do a better job of removal.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Might try the MS cleanup utility, many times just removing the app using add/remove or it's own unistall program doesn't get everything and can cause problems upon re-install, this seems to be especially true for apps that use video. This app is supposed to do a better job of removal.
> 
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301


ANYBODY using this PLEASE report back how it works.

"We"ve" been waiting for something like this to work.


----------



## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> They have a great return policy too. :lol:


I was going to go Intel this time around, but you're saying AMD seems to work with this app better?


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> I was going to go Intel this time around, but you're saying AMD seems to work with this app better?


Now "I'm not sure", but "before" in the single core days AMD seemed to kick Intel's butt.
If you look at the link way ^^^ there, there were some posts about AMD toward the end of the thread.
My last Newegg was a 2.33 Core2 Duo & Nvidia 8800GT and it handles EVERYTHING.


----------



## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> Now "I'm not sure", but "before" in the single core days AMD seemed to kick Intel's butt.
> If you look at the link way ^^^ there, there were some posts about AMD toward the end of the thread.
> My last Newegg was a 2.33 Core2 Duo & Nvidia 8800GT and it handles EVERYTHING.


Looking at this combo, $300 for both.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115018
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131299


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Looking at this combo, $300 for both.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And then there is the RAM, and then maybe a bigger power supply and then... :lol:

That was how it started with my Core2 Duo.


----------



## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> And then there is the RAM, and then maybe a bigger power supply and then... :lol:
> 
> That was how it started with my Core2 Duo.


I know, that's always the case with this stuff, I'm hoping I can get by with my current PS, it's an Enermax-465w, not sure if that's enough.


----------



## xmguy (Mar 27, 2008)

rahchgo said:


> My 4 year old IBM ThinkPad doesn't work  with DirecTV2PC.
> 
> I'm attached it directly to my router (Linksys WRT160N). My HR20 is attached wireless with a Linksys WGA600N game adapter.
> 
> ...


I got the same EXACT issues on my HP ZV5000 Notebook.


----------



## evan_s (Mar 4, 2008)

keenan said:


> Okay, but that's the part I don't get. If the GPU is doing the decoding, then what the heck is the CPU getting so hot and bothered about? Does MPEG4 processing require over 4 times the amount of CPU power than MPEG2, even with a capable vidcard? When running MPEG-HD content my machine cruises along using about 20% of the CPU, with this DirecTV app it swamps it. It makes me think the app doesn't know the card is capable and is directing everything to the CPU. I've seen something like this before in SageTV, where sometimes you have to "force" the application to use a specific device/software to do the decode by setting it's priority. This app has no configuration capability at all that I can tell.
> 
> Using the Playback Advisor it shows a grey circle(unknown) for CPU(Hardware acceleration) with the vidcard in red. The Graphics Card entry show the vidcard in red and a green circle(yes).
> 
> ...


I'm not convinced that the gpu decoding is working either. At least not with nvidia GPUs. I upgraded from a 6600gs to an 8800gt 512. The 6800gs has no HD decode acceleration and supposedly has full GPU decoding and I saw no change in performance.

The offloading is suppose to take care of all the complicated video decoding but I don't think it handles the audio and it definitely doesn't handle the encryption but in the tests i've seen with blue ray disks a moderate single core was more than enough to handle h264 playback with the gpu handling all the heavy work.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

evan_s said:


> I'm not convinced that the gpu decoding is working either. At least not with nvidia GPUs. I upgraded from a 6600gs to an 8800gt 512. The 6800gs has no HD decode acceleration and supposedly has full GPU decoding and I saw no change in performance.
> 
> The offloading is suppose to take care of all the complicated video decoding but I don't think it handles the audio and it definitely doesn't handle the encryption but in the tests i've seen with blue ray disks a moderate single core was more than enough to handle h264 playback with the gpu handling all the heavy work.


There seems to be a bit of a "wildcard" here.
The DirecTV MPEG-4 is "really" compressed. Remember PSmith listing CPU usage? 
Well it turns out the dish 1080p he knows about is streaming @ 15 Mb/s while the DirecTV is down @ 7-8 Mb/s.


----------



## evan_s (Mar 4, 2008)

gio12 said:


> So which do I get?


If all you are looking for is GPU decoding offloading there are many other options.

If gaming performance isn't very important something like

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131096

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814145146

should handle it just fine.

If you want better gaming performance a 9800gt like

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127379

or a 4850 like

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261027

are good options.


----------



## evan_s (Mar 4, 2008)

veryoldschool said:


> There seems to be a bit of a "wildcard" here.
> The DirecTV MPEG-4 is "really" compressed. Remember PSmith listing CPU usage?
> Well it turns out the dish 1080p he knows about is streaming @ 15 Mb/s while the DirecTV is down @ 7-8 Mb/s.


A lower bitrate encoding with the same encoding options otherwise is going to be easier to decode not harder but either way I'd expect some effect going from 0 decoding by gpu to full decoding by gpu especially when the system is just barely managing to handle decoding.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

evan_s said:


> A lower bitrate encoding with the same encoding options otherwise is going to be easier to decode not harder but either way I'd expect some effect going from 0 decoding by gpu to full decoding by gpu especially when the system is just barely managing to handle decoding.


3.4 GHZ single core with ATI = ~70% CPU with 1080i MPEG-4
2.33 GHz Core2 Duo with 8800GT = ~ 50% CPU with ^
The first thing I see "falling off" is audio sync.


----------



## wingrider01 (Sep 9, 2005)

xmguy said:


> I got the same EXACT issues on my HP ZV5000 Notebook.


With the CPU reading 1/2 of the rated, being intel would be willing to bet speedstep is engaged, this slows the processor down automatic, on AMD's it is called Cool'N'Quiet


----------



## PAJeep (Mar 8, 2008)

Seems like a very knowledgable group. 

Currently have:
Asus K8n-E MB 
AMD Athlon x64 3400+ (2.4 Ghz)
Nvidia GeForce 6800 GS/XT (256MB)

SD seems fine but HD is a bit choppy at times.

Any suggestions on how I can make this work without a lot of cost?
Video card first? CPU? start over?


----------



## sunking (Feb 17, 2004)

The video card requirements sort of boggle me here. Almost any fairly modern card should be more than adequate for 30fps of video assuming it has enough memory. Now I understand the mpeg4 decoding is a pig. My 2G older dell can't transcode into MPG2 and stream to media play without hiccups. But the reality is that should be about 95% of the work load and the video display itself is easy peasy. We're just talking drawing directly to the video buffer here, not opengl or directx 3d texture processing. I mean 10 years ago i was running Quake at 1280x1024 at 70fps doing 3D rendering. Video display is a piece of cake compared, even with scaling to meet screen resolutions. 

One thing that does come to mind for those of us with onboard cards is to make sure that you have enough video memory allocated to allow for double buffering. This can usually be set in the BIOS, and probably defaults to something like 64M.

If you are trying to do 1080p video that means each frame requires 1080*1920*32 bytes, ~66M. Really you should probably use your desktop resolution rather than the video resolution for this calculation as it needs to be scaled to fit the screen anyway, but lets assume you have a 1080p display. Now, what you really want to do is double this figure to allow the video card to double buffer, so you want at least 132M of memory allocated to the video card. Keep in mind that this will effectively be taken away from your main memory.

Anyway, the short of it is that you may want to up this setting if possible. Remember, this really only affects those with built in video cards. Stand alone cards come with there own memory and typically can't be tweaked. Assuming you have the memory, the video card itself shouldn't matter. They are all plenty fast enough to keep up.

Of course, none of this talks about cards with mpeg4 decoding, but that's an entirely different thing and doesn't really have anything to do with video displaying.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

sunking said:


> The video card requirements sort of boggle me here. Almost any fairly modern card should be more than adequate for 30fps of video assuming it has enough memory. Now I understand the mpeg4 decoding is a pig. My 2G older dell can't transcode into MPG2 and stream to media play without hiccups. But the reality is that should be about 95% of the work load and the video display itself is easy peasy. We're just talking drawing directly to the video buffer here, not opengl or directx 3d texture processing. I mean 10 years ago i was running Quake at 1280x1024 at 70fps doing 3D rendering. Video display is a piece of cake compared, even with scaling to meet screen resolutions.
> 
> One thing that does come to mind for those of us with onboard cards is to make sure that you have enough video memory allocated to allow for double buffering. This can usually be set in the BIOS, and probably defaults to something like 64M.
> 
> ...


MPEG-4/h.264 decoding seems to have EVERYTHING to do with DirecTV2PC.
This needs to be either done by the CPU [dual core] or to be off loaded to the Video card [when you can use a single core].


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

PAJeep said:


> Seems like a very knowledgable group.
> 
> Currently have:
> Asus K8n-E MB
> ...


If your Athlon was a Pentium 4, with a 533 MHz FSB, then it would be easy, you need more CPU, but in an earlier thread, an Athlon 64 @ 2.6 GHz was working.
So, guessing that your motherboard is AGP, it seems that one of the ATI HD 2xxx/3xxx cards with on board MPEG-4/h.264, "should" get you going.


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## evan_s (Mar 4, 2008)

PAJeep said:


> Seems like a very knowledgable group.
> 
> Currently have:
> Asus K8n-E MB
> ...


I have a fairly similar system.

AMD Athlon 64 at 2.6 ghz with a 6800gs and I could play national HD and some locals but ran at 90-100% cpu utilization. I'm gonna guess that a 2.4 isn't going to be quite enough to keep up. Upgrading to a 8800gt didn't seem to help either.

The first and easiest solution is going to be try over clocking your current processor. From looking at your motherboard specs you don't have an AM2 processor so there is no easy processor upgrade option currently. You could try an amd video card upgrade but my nvidia video card upgrade didn't seem to help.

If you could find a used dual core athlon that would work in your motherboard that should getting it working well.


----------



## PAJeep (Mar 8, 2008)

evan_s said:


> I have a fairly similar system.
> 
> AMD Athlon 64 at 2.6 ghz with a 6800gs and I could play national HD and some locals but ran at 90-100% cpu utilization. I'm gonna guess that a 2.4 isn't going to be quite enough to keep up. Upgrading to a 8800gt didn't seem to help either.
> 
> ...


That is what I was afraid of. I will have to do some research on the MB but I may just get an ATI card in the mean time and see if it improves. definitely using 100% CPU but the stuttering of HD is slight.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

PAJeep said:


> That is what I was afraid of. I will have to do some research on the MB but I may just get an ATI card in the mean time and see if it improves. definitely using 100% CPU but the stuttering of HD is slight.


The ATI card is fairly cheap, so I'd go that way first.


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## mfrost (Dec 17, 2006)

I have a Dell Dimension 8400, Pentium P4 3GHZ, ATI Radeon X300, 1 GB RAM, Linksys WRT54G Wireless network.

Playback of both SD and HD is very jittery with a several second lag between audio and video. I tried an upgrade to an ATI HD4850 but that did not make any difference so I took the card back. Also tried a wired connection just to make sure it wasn't an issue with wireless but again no change. CPU runs quite high during playback, normally ~90%.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

mfrost said:


> I have a Dell Dimension 8400, Pentium P4 3GHZ, ATI Radeon X300, 1 GB RAM, Linksys WRT54G Wireless network.
> 
> Playback of both SD and HD is very jittery with a several second lag between audio and video. I tried an upgrade to an ATI HD4850 but that did not make any difference so I took the card back. Also tried a wired connection just to make sure it wasn't an issue with wireless but again no change. CPU runs quite high during playback, normally ~90%.


I was able to get "up to 720p MPEG-4" to work with a 3 GHz Pentium 4, but needed to overclock it up to 3.3 GHz for 1080i MPEG-4 and use a newer ATI card [like what you had].
Dell doesn't let you overclock and can "be weired" with the motherboard/CPU combos.
"You may" be able to get a BIOS update and then use a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4.
I went that way and can play everything BUT my local NBC/CBS 1080i MPEG-4. Even the 1080p VOD plays though it's pushing everything to the limit.


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## stungeon (Sep 15, 2007)

I have got an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz. I have tried a GeForce 6 Series, 8800 GTS and 9800 GT. They all swamp both CPU cores. The GeForce 6 Series works the best for me. The other two stutter constantly. I can't explain why the older card is working better. Thoughts?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

stungeon said:


> I have got an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz. I have tried a GeForce 6 Series, 8800 GTS and 9800 GT. They all swamp both CPU cores. The GeForce 6 Series works the best for me. The other two stutter constantly. I can't explain why the older card is working better. Thoughts?


Now that is  
Got milk? [well the latest drivers from Nvidia?]
I'm running a 2.33 Core2 Duo & 8800GT and don't see my CPU "Swamped".
Maybe some more info might help: Vista/XP, how many other services are running, etc.


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## schneid (Aug 14, 2007)

When I built my HDCP capatible HTPC from my bone yard of PC's past I relied heavily on this:

http://www.cyberlink.com/prog/bd-support/diagnosis.do

If you can green light this test which is written by the same folks that did the D* test and write the directv2pc software, you are good to go for most anything.

I used an old P4 Asus mobo that I upgraded the processor to a 3.2ghz and added a mid-range $80 ATI HD3650 video card that is HDCP (and that is a must for HDMI). With XP, 512mb RAM is supposed to be okay but I added more for 2gb. I was also fortunate that my old mobo has on board s/pdif digital audio out that will really pass dolby digital to my amp. A lot of sound cards will downcode it to 2-channel stereo.

Pitfalls. A lot of video and audio cards don't do HDCP or Dolby Digital 5.1, respectively no matter what they claim in their pretty ads.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

schneid said:


> When I built my HDCP capatible HTPC from my bone yard of PC's past I relied heavily on this:
> 
> http://www.cyberlink.com/prog/bd-support/diagnosis.do
> 
> ...


Your link is the same program that DirecTV wants everyone to run before downloading DirecTV2PC.
Your "bondyard" HTPC, sounds just like one of mine [actually my "forum/email" PC].
Cyberlink "advisor", is just that, and advisor but not the final word.
If you've got the lastest ATI driver, it will show "red" [fail] for HDCP support, when in fact it works and passes with the older drivers.
I've had [this PC] show "red" for everything but the OS and been able to play "most" recording & also had it show everything green and not [still the case] been able to play my local NBC & CBS recordings.


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## grandpaken (Feb 4, 2006)

System: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1gig mem, Sapphire x1600pro AGP, Toshiba 61H70 connected via component.

After installing the app yesterday the video was very choppy and the sound was so far out of sync that It would have the sound of a female speaking as the lips of a male moved. I tried turning off all services and apps that were not needed and it still didn't work. I went to the ATI site and noticed new video drivers were released last week and after installing them directv2pc is now working pretty good. The CPU is maxed out but the video was not choppy and perhaps just replacing the video card with one with full hardware acceleration would take a bit of the load off the CPU.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

grandpaken said:


> System: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1gig mem, Sapphire x1600pro AGP, Toshiba 61H70 connected via component.
> 
> After installing the app yesterday the video was very choppy and the sound was so far out of sync that It would have the sound of a female speaking as the lips of a male moved. I tried turning off all services and apps that were not needed and it still didn't work. I went to the ATI site and noticed new video drivers were released last week and after installing them directv2pc is now working pretty good. The CPU is maxed out but the video was not choppy and perhaps just replacing the video card with one with full hardware acceleration would take a bit of the load off the CPU.


For those that don't know AMD like they do Intel [me for one] what is the speed of your CPU?
[googling] Is this really a 2 GHz single core CPU?


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## stungeon (Sep 15, 2007)

Have tried 3 different cards all with that latest Nvidia drivers.

Vista 64, 4 gigs of ram, no other applications open, no unusual services, not even virus protection. I am seeing 80-90% usage on both cores while watching an ABC sitcom.

My Vista score is a 5.0. The lowest score is the processor (5.0).



veryoldschool said:


> Now that is
> Got milk? [well the latest drivers from Nvidia?]
> I'm running a 2.33 Core2 Duo & 8800GT and don't see my CPU "Swamped".
> Maybe some more info might help: Vista/XP, how many other services are running, etc.


----------



## grandpaken (Feb 4, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> For those that don't know AMD like they do Intel [me for one] what is the speed of your CPU?
> [googling] Is this really a 2 GHz single core CPU?


 Yes it's single core Winchester and it shows up as running at 1.8 GHz.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

stungeon said:


> Have tried 3 different cards all with that latest Nvidia drivers.
> 
> Vista 64, 4 gigs of ram, no other applications open, no unusual services, not even virus protection. I am seeing 80-90% usage on both cores while watching an ABC sitcom.
> 
> My Vista score is a 5.0. The lowest score is the processor (5.0).


Strange.
My "data points":
PentiumD [4.8 Vista] with Nvidia 6600GT seems to work "the same" with either Vista 32 or 64, though this was a while back.
Core2 Duo [5.4 Vista] with 8800GT is running Vista 32.

"My guess" must be something to do with the 64 bit OS and/or drivers.


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## stungeon (Sep 15, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Strange.
> My "data points":
> PentiumD [4.8 Vista] with Nvidia 6600GT seems to work "the same" with either Vista 32 or 64, though this was a while back.
> Core2 Duo [5.4 Vista] with 8800GT is running Vista 32.
> ...


That's what I was thinking. Do you have a PCI Express 1.0 or 2.0 motherboard?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

grandpaken said:


> Yes it's single core Winchester and it shows up as running at 1.8 GHz.


As I seen/read in an earlier thread, AMD seem as if it can really "kick butt" over some older Intel.

A 1.8 GHz single core should completely "fall on its face" trying to play MPEG-4 HD recordings.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

stungeon said:


> That's what I was thinking. Do you have a PCI Express 1.0 or 2.0 motherboard?


The PentiumD is PCIex16 [SLI] & the Core2 Duo is "1", while the card is "2".


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## stungeon (Sep 15, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> The PentiumD is PCIex16 [SLI] & the Core2 Duo is "1", while the card is "2".


Well that kills my only other theory (a problem with running a 2.0 card on a 1.0 board). Sounds like that works without an issue.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

stungeon said:


> Well that kills my only other theory (a problem with running a 2.0 card on a 1.0 board). Sounds like that works without an issue.


Yes, the Core2 Duo is the only one [of my three] that will play everything well.
1080i MPEG-4 [local NBC & CBS] seems to be the hardest [CPU] to play well.
My weakest [3.4 P4 single core] will play 1080p VOD & "SAT" 1080i MPEG-4, but fails with NBC & CBS [A/V sync issues].


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## RegGeek (Mar 14, 2007)

FWIW, I've had a great experience with this software.

I have a Dell Latitude D410 (circa 2005) -- Win XP, Pentium M750, 1.86 GHz, 1 GB RAM and a Mobile Intel video card w/ 128 MB.

As I expected after reading the First Look document it doesn't work well over my wireless g network. However, with the computer in my docking station and hardwired to the internet I have very good results.

Standard def programs play with no problem. HD (I just watched Fox's Fringe) is acceptable to me. The audio has no problem, but every so often the picture is a bit herky-jerky but still very watchable.

Given that I was expecting no success at all, I'm glad I gave it a try. Thanks to VOS and this thread for inspiring me to give the software a try even after the Advisor predicted doom and gloom!

If I upgraded my wireless network, could I expect similar performance as when I'm wired?


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## KCCardsfan (Apr 18, 2007)

Can stream SD content perfect, & HD content (content only, non-HD computer) on my 3 yr old Toshiba laptop. This is using 54Mbps wireless, on AT&T 3.0Mb DSL:

Intel Single Core T1300 1.66GHz processor
1Gb Ram

From what I read before downloading I was sure it wouldn't work on this computer. After running adviser I had red dots on CPU, CPU Hardware acceleration, and Graphics card driver, and a gray dot on the Graphics card.
I'm shocked, surprised and very pleased that it works. On my son's souped up gaming computer it all works including HD with no problems.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

Does a quad core proc have an advantage over a dual core for this type of use? Does the application use all 4 cores in a quad processor? Never really researched what happens with multi-core processors.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Thanks for the feedback.
I hope it helps others that don't have the "latest greatest" [pooper scooper].


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Does a quad core proc have an advantage over a dual core for this type of use? Does the application use all 4 cores in a quad processor? Never really researched what happens with multi-core processors.


The decoding is so CPU intensive, that "the more the merrier" it seems.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> The decoding is so CPU intensive, that "the more the merrier" it seems.


That makes sense, but it's also part of what I don't understand. If the video card is supposed to be doing this decoding, why is the CPU getting such heavy use? Is this application designed to take advantage of video card MPEG4 decoding?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> That makes sense, but it's also part of what I don't understand. If the video card is supposed to be doing this decoding, why is the CPU getting such heavy use? Is this application designed to take advantage of video card MPEG4 decoding?


"I think" there are two parts:

decoding the DirecTV encryption
decoding the MPEG-4 [h.264]
I'm "fairly sure" it's using the h.264 hardware to "help" decode the MPEG-4.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> "I think" there are two parts:
> 
> decoding the DirecTV encryption
> decoding the MPEG-4 [h.264]
> I'm "fairly sure" it's using the h.264 hardware to "help" decode the MPEG-4.


Could be...something else to consider, you know darn well the DVR box doesn't have the sort of horsepower these computers do, so what are the using?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Could be...something else to consider, you know darn well the DVR box doesn't have the sort of horsepower these computers do, so what are the using?


Linux and a broadcom chip(s)


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## evan_s (Mar 4, 2008)

keenan said:


> Could be...something else to consider, you know darn well the DVR box doesn't have the sort of horsepower these computers do, so what are the using?


The DVRs don't have this kinda general performance but they do have a lot dedicated hardware setup to handle specific tasks like all of the Mpeg4 decoding etc. Dedicated hardware is always more efficient at those tasks than general hardware just less flexible.


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## pikespeakhiker (Jul 27, 2008)

mfrost said:


> I have a Dell Dimension 8400, Pentium P4 3GHZ, ATI Radeon X300, 1 GB RAM, Linksys WRT54G Wireless network.
> 
> Playback of both SD and HD is very jittery with a several second lag between audio and video. I tried an upgrade to an ATI HD4850 but that did not make any difference so I took the card back. Also tried a wired connection just to make sure it wasn't an issue with wireless but again no change. CPU runs quite high during playback, normally ~90%.


Similar computer to mine. Except my proc is 3.2 ghz and I have 2gb ram. I am also running with a wired network.

My experience was similar with the 128mb non-mpeg4 decoding x300. I upgraded to an nvidia 9600gt 512mb and now i can play just about everything very cleanly. Worst recordings for me with choppiness are my OTA locals.

With my new setup I never exceed ~55% cpu, and it is often lower.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

pikespeakhiker said:


> Similar computer to mine. Except my proc is 3.2 ghz and I have 2gb ram. I am also running with a wired network.
> 
> My experience was similar with the 128mb non-mpeg4 decoding x300. I upgraded to an nvidia 9600gt 512mb and now i can play just about everything very cleanly. Worst recordings for me with choppiness are my OTA locals.
> 
> With my new setup I never exceed* ~55% cpu,* and it is often lower.


This sounds like you're recordings are HD MPEG-2.
Your OTA locals are MPEG-2.
What do you get off the new MPEG-4 channels [both 720p & 1080i]?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> That makes sense, but it's also part of what I don't understand. If the video card is supposed to be doing this decoding, why is the CPU getting such heavy use? Is this application designed to take advantage of video card MPEG4 decoding?


MPEG-2 decoding isn't done by the video card, so I recorded a program off HDNet from channel 79, which is 1080i MPEG-2.
CPU loading varied much more than with MPEG-4, but seemed to "center" on just about the same "70%" as with MPEG-4, but with swings of +&- 20%.
This seems to be what is required to decode the DirecTV encoding + MPEG-2.
It's been almost four years since I first put together a HTPC with MCE and a HDTV tuner card, which "only" needed a Pentium 1.4 GHz and an Nvidia 4400 for full 1080i HD playback.
This PC has twice "the horsepower", yet swings from 50%-90% CPU loading as it plays HDNet 1080i MPEG-2, and with HDNet 1080i MPEG-4, runs between 60%-80%, which shows that the Asus [ATI] 3650 video card "must be" handling the increase load of the MPEG-4/h.264 decoding.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> MPEG-2 decoding isn't done by the video card, so I recorded a program off HDNet from channel 79, which is 1080i MPEG-2.
> CPU loading varied much more than with MPEG-4, but seemed to "center" on just about the same "70%" as with MPEG-4, but with swings of +&- 20%.
> This seems to be what is required to decode the DirecTV encoding + MPEG-2.
> It's been almost four years since I first put together a HTPC with MCE and a HDTV tuner card, which "only" needed a Pentium 1.4 GHz and an Nvidia 4400 for full 1080i HD playback.
> This PC has twice "the horsepower", yet swings from 50%-90% CPU loading as it plays HDNet 1080i MPEG-2, and with HDNet 1080i MPEG-4, runs between 60%-80%, which shows that the Asus [ATI] 3650 video card "must be" handling the increase load of the MPEG-4/h.264 decoding.


Sounds logical. I'm beginning to think the larger issues here are, as you've noted above - DirecTV's encryption, and the fact that this is streaming as opposed to being on a local HDD. My connection is DVR to a 4-port switch, which in turn is connected to a 4-port router. This router is what the viewing PC is connected to. This setup shouldn't matter, but I'm wondering if it is causing issues.

It just seems a bit odd to me that the problem appears with interlaced content only, some of which probably has a lower overall bandwidth than some of the 720 stuff that does play.

I don't know, I'm just trying to explore all other possibilities before just throwing money at it.


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## pikespeakhiker (Jul 27, 2008)

veryoldschool said:


> This sounds like you're recordings are HD MPEG-2.
> Your OTA locals are MPEG-2.
> What do you get off the new MPEG-4 channels [both 720p & 1080i]?


MPEG-4s look fine. I am pretty sure my video card can perform hardware decoding of mpeg-1/2/4, so I was suprised by the difference. Although the channel I picked was likely 1080i OTA local mpeg-2.

Another thread asked about multi-core/multi-proc support. I have checked on two other computers that are newer 2.4ghz dual-core procs, and I didn't see any evidence of both cores being used by the direct2pc app.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Sounds logical. I'm beginning to think the larger issues here are, as you've noted above - DirecTV's encryption, and the fact that this is streaming as opposed to being on a local HDD. My connection is DVR to a 4-port switch, which in turn is connected to a 4-port router. This router is what the viewing PC is connected to. This setup shouldn't matter, but I'm wondering if it is causing issues.
> 
> It just seems a bit odd to me that the problem appears with interlaced content only, some of which probably has a lower overall bandwidth than some of the 720 stuff that does play.
> 
> I don't know, I'm just trying to explore all other possibilities before just throwing money at it.


MPEG-4 1080i is simply the hardest to play. 720p & 1080p can [do] have higher CPU loading, but all play [well] on this PC. My local CBS & NBC don't.
"Your network" sounds much like mine: 4 receivers going into a Netgear router, with a 1 Giga bit switch connecting my 3 PCs.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

pikespeakhiker said:


> MPEG-4s look fine. I am pretty sure my video card can perform hardware decoding of mpeg-1/2/4, so I was suprised by the difference. Although the channel I picked was likely 1080i OTA local mpeg-2.
> 
> Another thread asked about multi-core/multi-proc support. I have checked on two other computers that are newer 2.4ghz dual-core procs, and I didn't see any evidence of both cores being used by the direct2pc app.


Your 9600GT should/does have h.264.
Is your 3.2 GHz Pentium a 775 type or the older 478 socket?

As for multi-cores, isn't this controlled/handled by the OS?
I remember I had problems with a Vista install on a PentiumD, where playback was choppy and needed to tell Vista to use both cores, which solved the playback problem.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> MPEG-4 1080i is simply the hardest to play. 720p & 1080p can [do] have higher CPU loading, but all play [well] on this PC. My local CBS & NBC don't.
> "Your network" sounds much like mine: 4 receivers going into a Netgear router, with a 1 Giga bit switch connecting my 3 PCs.


Yes, only the PC is connected to router and the DVRs are connected to the switch. The router also feeds another switch that feeds 2 other PCs in other parts of the house. I run cable fed MPEG2 HD through out the house with no problem.

I guess I'll just have to spend the money, maybe...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> Yes, only the PC is connected to router and the DVRs are connected to the switch. The router also feeds another switch that feeds 2 other PCs in other parts of the house. I run cable fed MPEG2 HD through out the house with no problem.
> 
> I guess I'll just have to spend the money, maybe...


I should have bought stock in Newegg, back in May when this app first came out in test. :lol:


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

No kidding.


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## upnorth (Jun 21, 2006)

I posted this in the poll thread but figured I would post it here also. 

Just installed today have been playing with it the last few hours everything plays back great except CBS it is not as smooth, when first started audio takes about 6 seconds or so to catch up but it is very watchable i am sure if I upgraded my video card I would have no issues so I am very pleased and the wife loves it. 

After using directv2pc to catch up on the last 2 episodes of CSI Miami on CBS it worked great, I guess I am wondering why my Geforce 6600 128 works well when others with bigger and better cards are not

My System
Intel Pentium D 2.80
2gb memory
Windows XP SP3
Geforce 6600 128mb PCI Express
yep thats right 128mb video I was shocked at how well it played


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

upnorth said:


> I posted this in the poll thread but figured I would post it here also.
> 
> Just installed today have been playing with it the last few hours everything plays back great except CBS it is not as smooth, when first started audio takes about 6 seconds or so to catch up but it is very watchable i am sure if I upgraded my video card I would have no issues so I am very pleased and the wife loves it.
> 
> ...


CBS [local] is also having problems with my 3 GHz PentiumD & 6600GT.
NBC seems to be alright, but CBS keeps giving me sync problems.
I haven't gone with the $60 video card [h.264] upgrade on this PC as I have with my other two.


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## upnorth (Jun 21, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> CBS [local] is also having problems with my 3 GHz PentiumD & 6600GT.
> NBC seems to be alright, but CBS keeps giving me sync problems.
> I haven't gone with the $60 video card [h.264] upgrade on this PC as I have with my other two.


I edited my post above after watching a couple of episodes of CSI Miami I only had problems when i started the program and after FFW thru comercials and it only lasted about 5 seconds or so.


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## TheGish (Sep 19, 2007)

I can run the program, but when I try to play programming I get a black window with the playback time bar at the bottom. I doesn't even appear to be downloading data. 

P4 2.8GHz
2GB RAM
Intel 910 on-board video (128MB of sys ram)
Gig to the switch


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## the_dudeman (Jun 19, 2008)

Hello all,

I have read this entire thread and some others and seem to be having the same issues as a lot of folks:

When I try to play HD content over Directv2pc on my HTPC it's jerky. Below are HTPC specs:

Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H Motherboard
ATI Radeon HD 3200 on board graphics
AMD 4850e Dual Core Proc 2.5 Ghz
2 GB 800Mhz DDR 2
Vista 32bit

The Advisor showed grey ( I think on Processor and Video, all others green), but didn't pay too much attention because the advisor is junk IMHO.

But here's the deal, I can play Blu-ray and HD DVD all day long on the HTPC and it isn't even straining. CPU never gets above like 70%. When trying play HD on Dtv2pc, CPU will sometimes jump up to around 85%. So again it's not taxed to the hilt, but is more CPU intensive.

An intersting thing is that if I start playback, pause for a time and then re-start playback, the video and audio are smooth for about the same amount of time that I had it paused. This would indicate that either my HTPC or HR21 is buffering for the amount of time I have it paused, but then the buffer runs out and then it's back to jerky video/audio.

This may be why the Advisor will show green for high end systems and not lesser machines because there is no buffer built into to the Dtv2pc software. Higher end machines can pass the HD content without the need of any kind of buffer.

I don't know, it's just my observations. If anyone has any info for me or help, it would be great. Maybe the next release of software will work better.

BTW, SD works fine with no judder or jerky video, however only plays in 4:3 ratio.

dudeman


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## TimG517 (Jan 2, 2007)

I get choppy play with HD and SD.
Connectev via wireless router - at 11.0 Mbps

Computer info
Dell Precision M6300
Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 @ 250GHz
2.00GHz, 4.00GB of RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M
Windows XP x64 Service Pack 2

Any suggestions to make it run smoother?


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

the_dudeman said:


> Hello all,
> 
> I have read this entire thread and some others and seem to be having the same issues as a lot of folks:
> 
> ...


"Dude", I've read this exact same post now in three different threads and now "wonder if you have read the whole thread or just copied & pasted the same post. :lol:

Joking aside, there is no buffer and stopping/starting seems to simply "resync" the program and then the hardware starts to lag behind the stream, drops a bit of it and tries to continue playing.
From this:
ATI Radeon HD 3200 on board graphics
AMD 4850e Dual Core Proc 2.5 Ghz

It looks like you have "enough" hardware. Grey in the Advisor is "unknown", where yellow is close and red in fail, though these aren't the final go/no go.
If you've read this thread, you will see that DirecTV2PC requires more decoding than other playback sources, as I've posted earlier.

I'd make sure ALL of my drivers were up to date, and then look to see what else is running on your Vista needing/using CPU cycles.


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## RehabMan (Mar 11, 2007)

How are your devices (HR & computer) networked?



the_dudeman said:


> Hello all,
> 
> I have read this entire thread and some others and seem to be having the same issues as a lot of folks:
> 
> ...


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

TimG517 said:


> I get choppy play with HD and SD.
> Connectev via wireless router - at 11.0 Mbps
> 
> Computer info
> ...


250 GHz WooHoo... :lol:

I've read/worked with another 64 bit user, with a Nvidia card, and there seems to be a problem with the 64 bit OS/driver, that isn't a problem with the 32 bit OS/driver.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> Joking aside, there is no buffer and stopping/starting seems to simply "resync" the program and then the hardware starts to lag behind the stream, drops a bit of it and tries to continue playing.


Maybe it should buffer given the slim amount of machines that can actually play this material. As noted, it's likely the D* encryption that's causing the problems since the actual bitrate of the content shouldn't even make the machine breath hard. These same machines are running high bitrate - 15-40mb/s - BD and HD-DVD content and aren't even breaking a sweat.

OTOH, these machines are having problems with bitrates that probably don't get past 10mb/s, with OTA locals being the highest and they don't get much more than 18mb/s. Plus, this content is already recorded on the HDD, it's not like all this processing is being done on a live stream.

IMO, this application needs some work in order to be more reliable across a wider range of equipment. Possibly transfer the data to the local machine before trying to display it, maybe the streaming, decrypting and decoding all at the same time is just too much. Maybe they should take a look at what TiVo is doing, they've got the PC viewing application working very nicely, and it doesn't take monster machines to do it. TiVo data is also encrypted.


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## the_dudeman (Jun 19, 2008)

veryoldschool said:


> "Dude", I've read this exact same post now in three different threads and now "wonder if you have read the whole thread or just copied & pasted the same post. :lol:
> 
> Joking aside, there is no buffer and stopping/starting seems to simply "resync" the program and then the hardware starts to lag behind the stream, drops a bit of it and tries to continue playing.
> From this:
> ...


Yes I posted same......post in multiple places so other might see my experiences and possibly gain something from it.

Yes I may have to look into what other things are running. But I won't spend too much time as this app is just a novelty for me. My HTPC is mainly for Blu/HD DVD playback and it works fine for that. I haven't tried the D2pc app on either of my gaming rigs because I'm not going to be watching TV on those, and HTPC?HR21 are in the same room so if I want to watch recordings HR21 will suffice.

I was hoping if this app worked, I could get a NAS terabyte drive and record tons of stuff and just use HTPC to play it, but again, eSata drive on HR21 will do the same job.



RehabMan said:


> How are your devices (HR & computer) networked?


Hard wired to 4 port 2Wire Home portal router 100mb, both HR21 and HTPC. 
Actually brings up a question: I suspected network issues at first, so checked network settings on hr21 and had yellow caution on network services. So I changed from auto to manual and it populated the fields with 21777 and 21778 for audio. Then yellow caution went away. But it didn't help. Then I tried switching back to auto and got a different yellow caution, so I put it back to manual. I didn't set my router to forward the ports as said you should do.

Don't know if this has anything to do with anyting, but thought I would mention it. In any case either setting in hr21 network services didn't help my choppy video issues.

dudeman

Thanks,

dudeman


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## the_dudeman (Jun 19, 2008)

keenan said:


> Maybe it should buffer given the slim amount of machines that can actually play this material. As noted, it's likely the D* encryption that's causing the problems since the actual bitrate of the content shouldn't even make the machine breath hard. These same machines are running high bitrate - 15-40mb/s - BD and HD-DVD content and aren't even breaking a sweat.
> 
> OTOH, these machines are having problems with bitrates that probably don't get past 10mb/s, with OTA locals being the highest and they don't get much more than 18mb/s. Plus, this content is already recorded on the HDD, it's not like all this processing is being done on a live stream.
> 
> IMO, this application needs some work in order to be more reliable across a wider range of equipment. Possibly transfer the data to the local machine before trying to display it, maybe the streaming, decrypting and decoding all at the same time is just too much. Maybe they should take a look at what TiVo is doing, they've got the PC viewing application working very nicely, and it doesn't take monster machines to do it. TiVo data is also encrypted.


I totally agree with all you said. It's like everything else, the first release is usually buggy. And your right, my HTPC does even breath hard when playing Blu/HD DVD. CPU most of time is at around 40% with jumps to about 70%. Temp never goes up over about 4 to 5C above idle, memory runs around 35-40%.

So the problem is either no buffer, or possibly some encryption over the network issue. Gotta love DRM, HDCP and encryption!

Next yeaer isn't DTV teeming up with TiVo again to make DVRs? I sure hope so, but that is another topic.

dudeman


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

the_dudeman said:


> I totally agree with all you said. It's like everything else, the first release is usually buggy. And your right, my HTPC does even breath hard when playing Blu/HD DVD. CPU most of time is at around 40% with jumps to about 70%. Temp never goes up over about 4 to 5C above idle, memory runs around 35-40%.
> 
> So the problem is either no buffer, or possibly some encryption over the network issue. Gotta love DRM, HDCP and encryption!
> 
> ...


Yes, DirecTV and TiVo are back together again, supposedly having something in the later part of 2009. If the TiVoToGo/MRV capabilities are incorporated in the new box all this will become moot for those who go with the TiVo box as they've already climbed that mountain.

I think the biggest issue here is the DirecTV encryption is too heavy and is not being processed as efficiently as it needs to be.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

This isn't a Tivo thread, please there are enough of those already.
:backtotop 
Which is if you've forgotten: old computers and DirecTV2PC


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## the_dudeman (Jun 19, 2008)

veryoldschool said:


> This isn't a Tivo thread, please there are enough of those already.
> :backtotop
> Which is if you've forgotten: old computers and DirecTV2PC


Wonder if there should be a thread for new computers and issues with D2pc? My HTPC is less than a year old and others with powerful/newer machines are having issues. But I guess that's what the troubleshooting thread is for.

Just a thought.

dudeman

P.S. TiVo rocks way harder than hr2x cr*p, wish I had bought one.


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## Doug Brott (Jul 12, 2006)

Folks .. We have a TiVo thread .. let's talk DIRECTV2PC not TiVo in this thread .. Otherwise I'm going to have to start deleting posts.

So that this as another :backtotop


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

SD recording are the easiest to play
HD MPEG-2 either OTA or from the channels in the 70s. These will show how well your CPU can handle the load.
HD MPEG-4 will show whether your CPU & video card/chip can work together.
With my 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 HT & Asus [ATI] 3650 video:
1080i MPEG-2 shows ~ 90% CPU load [with an OTA channel]
1080i MPEG-4 shows ~ 70% CPU load


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

I'm not exactly sure how it all works, but looking at the DirectShow Filter Manager, all the listings for the Cyberlink listing installed by the D* application are all showing "Do Not Use". This includes the CyberLink H.264/AVC Decoder among others. I have to assume it's supposed to be that way, but it also raises the point that it looks like the only part of the CyberLink application being used is the DirecTV inspired UI, and all the processing is being done by the local hardware, which might also explain why it's so processor intensive as opposed to other applications that will breeze through with even higher bitrate demands.

Could be something, maybe nothing, like I said, I'm not an expert on how it all works.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

keenan said:


> I'm not exactly sure how it all works, but looking at the DirectShow Filter Manager, all the listings for the Cyberlink listing installed by the D* application are all showing "Do Not Use". This includes the CyberLink H.264/AVC Decoder among others. I have to assume it's supposed to be that way, but it also raises the point that it looks like the only part of the CyberLink application being used is the DirecTV inspired UI, and all the processing is being done by the local hardware, which might also explain why it's so processor intensive as opposed to other applications that will breeze through with even higher bitrate demands.
> 
> Could be something, maybe nothing, like I said, I'm not an expert on how it all works.


I'm not sure if this is a "Vista thing", or what, but close to half of what is displayed comes back "unknown" and trying to change "merit" fails.
I may need more than a "cliff notes" version of help, to have any clue what this does or how to use it.


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## toneman (Oct 23, 2007)

P4 3.2 GHz, ATI Radeon 9800 (256 MB), 2 GB RAM, XP Pro w/ SP3, Dell 2001FP LCD monitor...PC connected to wireless router via ethernet cable; HR20-100 connected to wireless ethernet bridge. SD and HD programming play back at acceptable frame rate and PQ when in a window (i.e., not full-screen). Didn't bother w/ full-screen since it's a foregone conclusion that playback will not be nearly as good, given the h/w specs of my PC.


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## evan_s (Mar 4, 2008)

I didn't find any noticeable difference when playing back windows vs full screen. Since your monitor isn't greater that 1080i resolution it's having to resize the video when viewing windowed or full screen anyway.


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## keenan (Feb 8, 2005)

veryoldschool said:


> I'm not sure if this is a "Vista thing", or what, but close to half of what is displayed comes back "unknown" and trying to change "merit" fails.
> I may need more than a "cliff notes" version of help, to have any clue what this does or how to use it.


Unknown? This is what it shows on my machine. I changed the merit on the H.264/AVC decoder but it didn't seem to have any effect. Haven't tried changing all of them. The merit of "0x00200000" means Do Not Use. "0x4D26000" means "Preferred".


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