My SD Digital subchannels are being recorded poorly. Any ideas?

The Standard Definition (or is it Density) subchannels from an ATSC OTA signal are recorded choppy or slow (only a few frames per second and Audio is also missing samples or otherwise choppy). The thing is, my HD channels are OK. During recording or liveTV the CPU is never over 15%. Although during HD playback it does hit 85-94%.

The SD recordings seem about the right size, a 1.5hr show had a 3GB file. (Vs. a HD recording of 1.5hr at 10GB)

Here are system details:
KnoppMyth R5A15.1
TVcard: pcHDTV HD3000, (using DVB driver)
Proc: Athlon XP 3200+ (actually an overclocked 2500)
Ram: 512MB PC3200
Video: nvidia Geforce FX 5200 (using s-vid out)
HD: 160GB Seagate (hdparm -i /dev/hda --> shows udma5 is "in use")
MB: Shuttle AN35Nultra
Antenna: crappy (its the building antenna in urban area, but 3 channels do come in regularly)

During recording/playback, top indictes all the ram is being used (for either SD or HD).

I wondered if the machine was underpowered for a while, but wasn't sure where to lower the resolution of the software TV encoding (is that Settings -> TV settings -> Recording -> Hardware Encoders -> default/liveTV/high/low?)

Thanks,
Jesse

under mythtv-setup for your dvb card have you tried changing the advanced setting to record ts instead of ps? you get bigger files supposedly, but it helped with my hd recordings, and I've heard others say it helped various problems.

_________________
Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

Thanks! That works much better. I now use the "+" to switch to the main audio track on some channels where it starts off on the visual description playing in only one speaker.

Now if only there was a setting to make up for crappy antennas....

Jesse

Actually, a booster amp can work wonders with crappy antennas, or crappy antenna locations. I have a 10dB RCA amp on my system and it's quite good. The ATSC shows were unwatchable without the amp. You can get them at any store that sells TV stuff.

_________________
Do you code to live, or live to code?
Search LinHES forum through Google