How-to make videos/recording look better on (HD) Plasma/LCD

[jcee]

Please share your ideas.

I use 43" Plasma (1024x768), set the gfx card to somewhat like 1244x680 (for overscan compensation)

But the recordings/videos look blury, especially when zooming or pan&scan. Obviously a job for ffdshow.

But when I select postprocessing and add sharpen and OSD.
What it tells me that INPUT size = 480x576 and OUTPUT size = 480x576.

So the question: Who/What does scale my picture to fullscreen. Is it the codec? Is it MP? Where/what could improve picture quality?!

How do YOU set up?

Should FFDshow be configured to rescale?! Can we tell a codec to output fullscreen with better sharpness?

I know, more questions than answers.. please share your thoughts..

[jcee]

Anyone?

I wonder whether 720x576 (PAL) is the best resolution for MP setup as this is the resolution of the source (DVD,broadcast).. so when I select fullscreen the gfx driver / codec does produce native resolution of the source format.

Then it is the task of the TV set to do the scaling/deinterlacing which might give better/sharper results than when MP is doing it?!?

[Marcusb]

Not sure if I read that bit right but you don't have to compensate for Overscan ona plasma. Only CRT's have screen areas that can't be viewed.

[robomonkey]

Agreed. If you panel is 1024 x 768, then using any resolution other than that will result in a blurry picture.

[CHli]

Originally Posted by Marcusb

Not sure if I read that bit right but you don't have to compensate for Overscan ona plasma. Only CRT's have screen areas that can't be viewed.

You're wrong on this. Only a small amount of LCD / Plasma support native 1:1 resolution from a computer without overscan.

Sad but true.

[CHli]

Originally Posted by robomonkey

Agreed. If you panel is 1024 x 768, then using any resolution other than that will result in a blurry picture.

Yup but 1024x768 is a 4:3 resolution, so you just can't send this signal directly to the panel (the image will look vertically compressed).

[CHli]

AFAIK the best solution would be to resize the video with Ffdshow to 1280x720 (perhaps try 1244x680 since that your output resolution) using Lanczos filter with 2.0 taps. And send this directly to your plasma.

What kind of connection do you have between your PC and your plasma (Pionneer ?). And what is the frequency used ?

[jcee]

I have a Pioneer 436RXE connected via HDMI..
unfortunatly it always displays with overscan, no matter which resolution...

I have problems with ffdhow. It sometimes squeezes the picture horizontally, I mean the right half is black..
I do not know why it is doing this. All resize options are off..

[aphilgr1]

First of all even if the resize button in ffdshow is turned to off, the acpect ratio settings still functions so go there and select no AR correction.

Second, you can only get a good picture with ffdshow Lanczos resize if your source is film based where simple weaving (combining) the odd and even fields of film content is enough. But is your source is video, the ffdshow/lanczos does not de-interlace the image properly. If you add a de-interlacing proccess in the chain, then your CPU goes to the ceiling and video is choppy. The best workaround is to use a hardware accelerated video decoder (without ffdshow since it bypasses acceleration) and VMR9 renderer. Tou can also try the free dscaler mpeg decoder that gives a very crisp image. It is a software decoder without acceleration but using the NV12 out mode with VMR9, should enable the advanced video decoding capabilities of your graphic card like pure video for nvidia 6+, or AVIVO for latest ATIs

Third, if you live in a PAL country, you need 50Hz out to enjoy smooth, tearless video. Use Powerstrip for best results

As far as scaling is concerned, remember that your VGA card will scale everything to the selected output resolution. Even if you set ffdshow resize to 1920X1080, the decoder feeds the card with this signal which is then scaled down to the selected output res. Furthermore, whatever the VGA out, your TV's internal scaler will scale everything to your panel's native resolution.

Do not hesitate to test your TV set with a standard HTDV resolution like 1280X720p@60Hz (or 50Hz for PAL) or even 1080i@30Hz (or 25 for PAL). Although you get no 1:1 pixel mapping, You might be surprized by the results. It depends on your TV's internal scaler behaviour