Please, owners of Theatre 550 Pro and PVR-150, help.

[Abbadon]

Hi guys,

I have been reading many posts in the forum, but none has given me a definite answer regarding the CPU usage of the new Sapphire Treatrix Theatre 550 chip. I was wondering if anyone could take the time to let me know the CPU usage while recording purely in mpeg1/2.

I am sorry to bother you with this request, but I am planning to buy a card with the capability of recording without the CPU assistance.

I also have in mind the PVR-150 from hauppauge.

Any help would be more than appreciated.

Best Regards.

[Abbadon]

Hi people,

It would be really nice to read any comments, positives or negatives.

Peace.

[farmkid]

There is a very extensive thread on the Theater 550 Pro over at hexus.net. See here: http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=29031&page=1&pp=15

In a nutshell, people are generally impressed with the hardware but not the software that comes with it. The card seems to do a great job, but at the moment, software support is severly lacking. It comes with Cyberlink Powercinema 3 which has been almost universally disliked if not hated by users. It is a very dumbed down program designed for novices only and in initial reports is very buggy. Some have had better luck with Beyond TV. Those using MCE 2005 have had the best success so far. According to the manual and earlier marketing materials, ATI's MMC 9.04 and later was supposed to support the 550 Pro, but they have since backpedaled on that.

Many of the problems have been solved (more or less) with a new driver released in the last couple of days. Powercinema works much better now and several people (myself included) have found that MMC 9.03 works with the card now (though the picture suffers from some interlacing issues). So, don't let the software problems completely turn you off the 550 Pro. The hardware is very good and it is just waiting for the software to mature.

As to your original question about CPU usage, both cards seem to be comparable in that they have very low CPU usage while recording. They usage is a little higher if you are watching as well because that requires the CPU to decode the video stream. Picture-wise, the consensus seems to be that the 150 gives a slightly sharper picture but some say it has some problems with fast motion scenes. The 550 Pro seems to do better with fast motion, but the picture is too soft for some. As far as which gives a better picture, well that seems to depend on who you ask.

Go look over the thread at hexus.net. As far as I know, that is the most complete and extensive discussion on the topic.

[Abbadon]

Thank you very much for this extensive piece of information.

My worst fear has been confirmed, even with a hardware mpeg encoder on board, these cards use pretty much the CPU, the ads are misleading and partially false, they claim the card will free your CPU, but this is not entirely true.

I was fooled to purchase the Avermedia UltraTV Media Center 500 when I read that it comes with a built in hardware mpeg encoder, I have made several tests capturing video and encoding directly to MPEG2 and no matter what I do, the CPU usage is over 30% all the time.

This is so frustrating, I have owned for almost a year a digital Hauppauge WinTV DVB-S card which comes with hardware mpeg encoder/decoder, I can watch and record directly to MPEG2 with it and the CPU usage is 0%.

[SHS]

30% has to do with soft decoding when in perview the video and yes the Avermedia UltraTV Media Center 500 dose have Hardware Encoder which directly to MPEG2.
There are only a very few full blow Hardware MPEG Encoder/Decoder cards one them is the Sigma Design REALmagic DVR when come analog capture card and there few in HDTV/DVB like in your case with WinTV DVB-S and no you where not being fooled in to purchase anything the problem is your not reading the card spec rigth.
There are way to go all Hardware but you need Xcard or NetStream and a 3rdparty software package that work with it like SageTV, GB-PVR and TVedia.
Note you read thought this page it may help get better unstand about Xcard and to make better use of it.
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=3514

[farmkid]

Thank you very much for this extensive piece of information.

My worst fear has been confirmed, even with a hardware mpeg encoder on board, these cards use pretty much the CPU, the ads are misleading and partially false, they claim the card will free your CPU, but this is not entirely true.

I just did a test to see how my computer does while recording. Under Powercinema, my CPU usage is 25-30% while just watching TV, and 25-30% while recording. Under Beyond TV, if I setup a recording and close the program (so it just records and does not show anything on the screen), the CPU usage is 2-5% and it stays the same after stopping recording. As SHS said, the 30% usage is due to decoding the MPEG-2 stream while you watch it.

[Abbadon]

Thank you very much for this extensive piece of information.

My worst fear has been confirmed, even with a hardware mpeg encoder on board, these cards use pretty much the CPU, the ads are misleading and partially false, they claim the card will free your CPU, but this is not entirely true.

I just did a test to see how my computer does while recording. Under Powercinema, my CPU usage is 25-30% while just watching TV, and 25-30% while recording. Under Beyond TV, if I setup a recording and close the program (so it just records and does not show anything on the screen), the CPU usage is 2-5% and it stays the same after stopping recording. As SHS said, the 30% usage is due to decoding the MPEG-2 stream while you watch it.

The avermedia UltraTV media center 500 uses a NEC chip, the software should not be using the CPU and I will tell you why: According to the technical information provided by the manufacturer itself, the NEC is a full blow hardware MPEG decoder/encoder, so I can only conclude that the engineers did a very crappy job designing the circuitry or the applications/drivers are not coded to take advantage of the decoding capabilities of the chip.

[junkmalle]

The avermedia UltraTV media center 500 uses a NEC chip, the software should not be using the CPU and I will tell you why: According to the technical information provided by the manufacturer itself, the NEC is a full blow hardware MPEG decoder/encoder, so I can only conclude that the engineers did a very crappy job designing the circuitry or the applications/drivers are not coded to take advantage of the decoding capabilities of the chip.

While a combined display and capture card can use video overlay to display the decompressed image (without the data every coming off the card), a separate capture card cannot do this. It has to somehow get an uncompressed image to the display card. Hardware MPEG encoders send the compressed MPEG stream to the computer, the computer saves the stream and decompresses it to send to the display card. If you wanted to use the hardware decoder on the card, the card would then have to send an uncompressed video stream back to the computer over the PCI bus. You would be back to high CPU usage. So there's no point in using the decoder on the chip.

[junkmalle]

My worst fear has been confirmed, even with a hardware mpeg encoder on board, these cards use pretty much the CPU, the ads are misleading and partially false, they claim the card will free your CPU, but this is not entirely true.

While it's true you will still be using about 30 percent of your CPU to decode and display the picture while capturing, the big difference (at least with the Hauppauge PVR-250, the card I have) is you don't have to worry about dropped frames. You can still use your computer for just about anything else you want.

The Hauppauge PVR-250 runs at about 30 percent CPU usage (P4 2.8 GHz) while viewing or capturing at 720x480 with the display enabled. If I turn off the display CPU usage drops to about 3 percent.

[Abbadon]

Hello,

I really was wishing the same results I get with my Hauppauge WinTV DVB-S card, with which I can watch what is being broadcasted and record it at the same time in mpeg2 while the CPU usage is 0%.

But I guess that was too much to ask for.

[junkmalle]

Hello,

I really was wishing the same results I get with my Hauppauge WinTV DVB-S card, with which I can watch what is being broadcasted and record it at the same time in mpeg2 while the CPU usage is 0%.

But I guess that was too much to ask for.

Were you watching the video on a TV connected to the DVB-S' video out? Since it is sending the video directly to the TV it doesn't have to pass through the computer.

By the way, you can do the same with the PVR-350 -- it has video out directly from the card. You can disable the MPEG decoding on the monitor and the card will use hardly any CPU time while capturing.

[Abbadon]

No, I watch the video in my computer's screen while recording, zero CPU usage.

This is the beast:

http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/pages/products/data_nexus.html

[SHS]

The WinTV-NEXUS-S card he has just sent AVI stream over the PCI BUS to Video card that why his CPU usage is 0% which same type stream that reg TV card have for Live Perview.
Abbadon yes the manufacturer is NEC which shold be PD61051 but the chip it come is not Hardware MPEG decoder.

[Abbadon]

SHS, I read the technical information provided by the manufacturer, including a diagram of the chip, and it is in fact an MPEG decoder/encoder.

You may read the info here:

http://www.necel.com/digital_av/english/mpegenc/d61051_d61052.html

P.S.

Maybe my English is not good enough to read the information correctly.

[junkmalle]

Even if the chip can decode MPEG video, can it encode and decode at the same time? To decode the video it probably needs random access to onboard memory. Is there enough memory on the card for two full frames (one to decode to while the other is being transfered to the computer)? once the video is decoded it needs to be DMA'd to video memory -- does it have a DMA controller? All these things may simply be design decisions based on meeting a price point.

[tluxon]

Well, if you look at NEC's "solution" page, for PVRs they show the uPD6113xA chip for mpeg decoding. I'd guess that means the decoder portion of the uPD61051, 61052 chip is not intended for PVR-type (two-way) decoding. In that light, I wouldn't be so quick to criticize the engineers putting the chip to use.

Cheers,

Tim

[SHS]

Abbadon it not type decoder your think of which are for display on PC monitor you did not look at the picture very well nor did read the technical information rigth.
The Decoder it come with it allow for Transcode and or the option go to a Video Digitizer for S-Video/Composite output.
What you would have need was a PD61181 which would have give you what you want but most well not paid the high cost for thoses type of device.