Media Center Hell....I need help or therapy

[JC12]

After reading many articles and seeing several segments on Tech TV regarding media center PC's, I finally took the plunge and built myself one. In all the things I've read or seen on TV about media center PC's, I've never heard anything negative about them. However, my experience has been a complete disaster so far. My PC's specs are in my sig below. The TV I bought to use with the PC is a Sony 32" (model #SON KV32HS510) HDTV. The PC by itself is great and the TV by itself is great, but put them together and things get ugly.

Problem 1:

I wanted more out of my picture quality than just what S-Video could provide, so I forked out the $44 to get the HDTV adapter from ATI to work with my VGA out on the AIW card and the component in on my TV. That gave me a better picture, but the overscan problem I got at every resulution was unfixable. I tried every resolution in Windows XP and all the resolutions my TV would allow (480p, 720p and 1080i). To make a long story short, I spent $104 ($44 on the adapter and $60 on the component cabling) and ended up going back to my lower quality but more functional S-Video picture.


Problem 2:

I have DirecTV and learned very quickly that changing the channels with a satellite receiver is a lesson in wireless technology. I was told by the kind people on the snapstream.com forums that I need a device called an IR Blaster to get that to work. That seems like a relatively cheap and easy fix, but I was told that an IR Blaster doesn't always work very well with Hughes receivers (which I have of course) so I haven't ordered that yet. I've already blown $104, so what's another $25 right? So if I order an IR Blaster and I have my S-Video picture working right I'll be living in Tivo heaven right? Wrong.

Problem 3

I have tried 3 different PVR (DVR) type of programs and I'm not happy with any of them. The one that came with my AIW (MMC) gives me the best sound and video quality, but it's interface sucks so it is very clumsy to work with. I downloaded the 30 day trial for Snapstream's Beyond TV and Intervideo's WinDVR. I really like the interface and customization options that those two programs offer, but Beyond TV's picture quality is horrible and WinDVR's audio quality is horrible. Unfortunately, I can't take features from each of these programs and make my own "perfect" dvr software package. Even if I could, I think I would still be a master's degree in videography shy of having this all going perfect.

Problem 4

Why is it so freaking difficult to get files in the right format and get them burned to DVD so that they will play on any (newer) DVD player? I mean if you encode you have to do one thing. If you software decode you lose this and if you hardware decode you lose that. You need to DeInterlace if you do this and you don't if you do that. I actually got Beyond TV to record a couple of PPV movies the other day and then when I went to author them in TMPGEnc it told me they weren't in the right format. When I checked the settings in Beyond TV it said MPEG-2 Best, which I thought was an easy sign that a file created in that format would already be in DVD specs. Nope, I was wrong. My recordings were in 640x480 mode and they needed to be 720x480 mode or 320x480 mode.

The funny thing about all this is that I have ran a computer business for 10 years, so I understand the PC side of things very well. I feel horrible for the person that doesn't get PC's and tries to do all this stuff. Is there anyone on this site that either has or understands a setup similar to mine and can get me on my way to recording, watching and burning bliss?

Thanks in advance

JC

[Nelson37]

OK, let's try a few. Do not have HDTV or Satellite, but --

#1. Check refresh settings and specs. The display control in ATI software should allow you to resize screen to minimize overscan issue. display will no longer be optimum for PC monitor, however.

#2. Not sure why this is a problem. Should be using S-Video input, which requires tuning on Satellite box. You don't really need the tuner on the ATI card. Synchronize the clocks, set timed tuning on the Sat box and timed recording on the ATI.

#3. SFAIK, only ATI software will use hardware-assisted encoding, has lot's of options and continually updated for free, best results obtained with this program, IMO.

#4. DVD are picky about resolution, GOP, etc. These dependent on software and settings. Latest ATI creates DVD-compliant files, mostly.

[indolikaa]

AAUUGGHH!!!

Hello, and welcome to therapy.

You have just learned why this is still considered by many to be a hobby, one which technically has a set of standards but in reality can be worked from a bazillion angles. Computer systems and broadcast/production video can work together and coexist reasonably well, but they are far from a marriage made in heaven, yet.

It's a good thing you have a solid technical background in this stuff. Otherwise, well, that kind of therapy requires pharmaceutical assistance.

For the record, we use the ATI MMC. The interface isn't perfect, but we've had no problems 'round here taking ATI's material and burning discs. Using it as a live PVR solution? Nope, that why I have a DiSH 5000 and DirecTV PVR. For now, anyway...

[JC12]

AAUUGGHH!!!

For the record, we use the ATI MMC. The interface isn't perfect, but we've had no problems 'round here taking ATI's material and burning discs. Using it as a live PVR solution? Nope, that why I have a DiSH 5000 and DirecTV PVR. For now, anyway...

I've had as much luck with MMC as I have any of the DVR solutions, so it is probably the one I'll try to make work. Since 90% of my purpose in doing this was to make the media center a TIVO solution that plays games and music, I'm determined to make it work as well as your DirecTV PVR. Wish me luck.

JC

[JC12]

OK, let's try a few. Do not have HDTV or Satellite, but --

#1. Check refresh settings and specs. The display control in ATI software should allow you to resize screen to minimize overscan issue. display will no longer be optimum for PC monitor, however.

#2. Not sure why this is a problem. Should be using S-Video input, which requires tuning on Satellite box. You don't really need the tuner on the ATI card. Synchronize the clocks, set timed tuning on the Sat box and timed recording on the ATI.

#3. SFAIK, only ATI software will use hardware-assisted encoding, has lot's of options and continually updated for free, best results obtained with this program, IMO.

#4. DVD are picky about resolution, GOP, etc. These dependent on software and settings. Latest ATI creates DVD-compliant files, mostly.

1. I can try the refresh settings. I pretty much had it at 60hz for all my resolutions, but that is something I could play with. The software doesn't allow me to resize the screen when I use the VGA to HDTV adapter. The option is there in the driver, but moving the screen up and down has no effect. However, as soon as I go back to S-Video as my input, the screen resizing works again.

2. I'm not using the tuner (coaxial that is) and am using S-Video, but you can't change the channel using the AIW remote without an IR Blaster. I think this has everything to do with satellite being digital and not analog. It is the same reason all my recordings are done on channel 4. I think the IR Blaster is the answer to this one, but I'm just hesitant to go buy anything else with the luck I've had to this point.

3. By ATI software, I assume you mean the MMC that comes with the AIW card? If not, is it another software package that I can get from ATI?

4. I honestly think I could fumble my way through the format issues if I could consistantly get to that point. I think this will come down to me learning what all the terminology means. When you don't know the difference between encoding and decoding it is hard to know which your doing let alone if you are doing it correctly.