HTPC not grunty enough?

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spk18

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#60634 29-Apr-2010 12:30

Hi guys

I have the following:

Dell Dimension E520 with the following upgrades from new:
Q6600 Quad Core 2.4MHz CPU
4GB 667MHz RAM
550W PSU

It has the following add-ins:

XFX HD4350 Graphics card
AverMedia PCI-hybrid TV tuner digital terrestrial, FM radio etc
An extra 500GB HD along with the standard 160GB HD that came with the system, both SATA 7200rpm

I have also upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate which I love.

I expected to have no stutter issues when recording HDTV - you see I upgraded from a Pentium D 3 GHZ CPU to this setup, upgraded the RAM and, on the advice of Ascent (who are generally great) bought the video card and tuner card. With the Pentium D I of course did have such stutter issues, but that was expected.

However, I still do have those issues, using the AverMedia built in recorder. I will try some other recorders and see but this is somewhat frustrating.

Is there anything you can see that stands out as being the problem here? I recorded to the PC's HD not through the network to a NAS or anything.

I think I have provided all the specs that are relevant, apologies if I have not. Any ideas/hints/suggestions most welcome

Thanks!

Simon

freitasm

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#324662 29-Apr-2010 12:36

Did you do a fresh Windows 7 install, or an upgrade (changing so much I'd imagine a fresh install).

Why are you using the AverMedia recorder and not Media Center?

Perhaps AverMedia software is not using hardware decoding? do you have this problem if watching a program via Media Center instead?

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spk18

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#324676 29-Apr-2010 13:05

freitasm: Did you do a fresh Windows 7 install, or an upgrade (changing so much I'd imagine a fresh install).

Why are you using the AverMedia recorder and not Media Center?

Perhaps AverMedia software is not using hardware decoding? do you have this problem if watching a program via Media Center instead?

Thanks Mauricio - yes it was a fresh install.

I just went with the AverMedia recorder as it came with the tuner. I dont have a problem watching Freeview HD on the PC at all using the AverMedia software. I will check out Media Centre and try that and see how I go - forgot about the hardware decoding aspect (doesnt seem to be any options in AverMedia to specifically allow that).

To be honest I never had Windows MCE so I am still learning on the Win7 front!

Thanks for the input, now to get some time to have a good play which unfortunately might not be until tomorrow night.

freitasm

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#324686 29-Apr-2010 13:20

Basically, if you can watch with the tuner software you should have no problem with Media Center...

Once you have that done, check the MHEG5 Grabber project here in our Freeview forum to load the full week EPG into Media Center.

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kyhwana2

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#324725 29-Apr-2010 14:27

Hmm, I'm using MC on Win7 here. I have a Q6600, ATI 4850 and 6GB of RAM. I have no problems with stuttering (even on tv3).

Make sure you're doing hardware decoding? Although your CPU should be able to decode it fine as well.

berrys

225 posts

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#324988 29-Apr-2010 21:44

I just went with the AverMedia recorder as it came with the tuner. I dont have a problem watching Freeview HD on the PC at all using the AverMedia software. I will check out Media Centre and try that and see how I go - forgot about the hardware decoding aspect (doesnt seem to be any options in AverMedia to specifically allow that).

To be honest I never had Windows MCE so I am still learning on the Win7 front!

Thanks for the input, now to get some time to have a good play which unfortunately might not be until tomorrow night.

Definately use windows media center! So very easy to setup the dvb-t when you first run mce. The only thing would be whether the AverMedia installation changed things around... A fresh install of Win7 might be best.

spk18

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#325065 30-Apr-2010 07:30

[SOLVED]

Got home late last night and set it all up within a matter of mintues - scan taking the longest. Recorded a program on TV3 (well part of it), played back with no stutter and no problems whatsoever! Very happy, it is a great interface actually from the smalll play I have had with it thus far.

Definitely look at that EPG scraper over the weekend now thanks Mauricio, particularly as it looks like a wet and wild one (at least here in Wellington).

Have a great weekend guys and thanks for your help

Simon