Best Quality for Interlaced Displays (3 Viewers)

[knutinh]

And you are never using any of the zoom/crop modes either?

 

[brainbone]

Not for live/timeshifted/recorded Television.

 

[jbrinker]

Sorry to dredge up this somewhat dated thread... But I have had no end of problems getting a decent "non tearing" and deinterlaced picture on my MP system.

Dell Optiplex GX240, 2.0GHz PIV
Nvidia fx5200 (MSI) to S-video out
Avermedia PVR-150 Hardware tuner
Fast PATA drives
1GIG ram

Installing (clean) WinMCE seems to work fine - with or without the Nvidia purevideo decoder.

MP seems to work, but utilization is high when doing any kind of deinterlacing. But my question is this:

It would seem I do NOT want to bother deinterlacing, since my ONLY output is interlaced??? How exactly are the deinterlacing/decoder options in setup supposed to work? There are settings under Decoders, and other sets under TV, Videos, etc.

What takes presedence?

How (and can) I set up for Interlaced IN --> Interlaced MPEG file --> Interlaced out? Seems that would be the ultimate goal for a SDTV. Why bother deinterlacing, then re-interlacing? Seems a lot of extra work, and almost sure to introduce more artifacts.

Also, seemingly regardless of the codec I use (MPV, Intervideo or Purevideo) I get "ghost frames" every few seconds, especially after scene transistions. For example a quick cut to a back screen, then ~1 second later a couple frames of the prior bright scene will "intrude". Any ideas?

I would dearly love some (ANY) help here. Im by far not a newbie, or at all new to digital video. I understand interlacing, deinterlacing, etc, but cannot seem to get MP to do what I want....

Thanks for all the GREAT work, Im 99% of the way there, but the picture needs to be better for WAF and occular sanity

J

 

[Flerbizky]

Since you're running Purevideo on a 5200, to the best of my knowledge, all de-interlacing in Purevideo is done via software, as the 5200 doesn't support any of nVidias video tech. I switched from a 5200 to a passively cooled 6600GT - and boy did that make a difference.. The TV out quality from the 6600GT is afr superior to that of the 5200.. In my case at least. I know Gfx cards differ so your mileage may vary..

I'm also using Exclusive DirectX and when watching TV with Bob or Weave turned on, I'm at 7-10% CPU usage - with a CPU clocked at 981Mhz...

[Edit:] Sorry - Forgot... Running 720x576, MP on Primary (only) screen, SVHS connection between TV and Gfx card...

 

[jbrinker]

Thanks for the reply...

If you dont mind, could you describe for me how you have your codecs set up in MP setup:?

For example, under TV, selected (insert options here)
and under "decoders" at the bottom of the setup category tree, what do you have set?

Can someone explain what these two (and more, for video etc) sections do?

I.e. why is there a seperate section for codecs (Or is it decoders) in the setup section? What is used? What overrides what?

Thanks, and I expect that I will have to either upgrade the machine (I do have a 2.6 lying around) or get a better card.

Is there any way to turn de-interlacing OFF entirely?

Jeff

 

[Flerbizky]

I'll have to check my settings a little later - The EO has thrown her evil forces onto the TV.. (Read: Gilmore Girls. ed.)

But.. For short, I'm running a very very tight and minimalist system software wise. A clean XP install, all patches, drivers etc. Then use a good solid hour or two with XPlite removing all sorts of weird stuff like system restore, Wifi services, network discovery et al.

The only codecs I have installed are : FFDshow, AC3codec and Purevideo.

IIRC, I belive my TV settings are : Codec: PureVideo, De-Interlace set to Bob (could be weave, still testing) and Stretch applied to size (removes some black bars top to bottom)...

I'm wondering - What kinda TV quality to you get if you're not using MP but only whatever program came with the TV card.. Are there newer drivers out for the TV card. Updates drivers made a world of difference with my Hauppauge card... So much I couldn't believe it.. Also - while I've been swearing by a 84.xx version of the Detonators, the latest HDTV enabled ones (93.xx) also increased the picture quality...

Anyway - I'll check the exact settings once the EO has dozed off ;-)

Cheers,
Steffen

 

[Flerbizky]

Buuump (for Jeff )

If you're in MP, under Settings and look under My TV, my settings are :

Video Codec: NVIDIA Video Decoder
Audio Codec: NVIDIA Audio Decoder
Deinterlacer: None (Odd.. Could've sworn it was Bob or Weave)
Aspect ratio: Stretch

In MediePortal Setup, my nVidia Settings are (Under Decoder Filters):

Use Hardware Acceleration (This could be an issue with your 5200)

Display Type: Content Default
De-Interlace Control: Automatic
De-Interlace Mode: VMR Default
Colour Scheme: Theater (Modified with a little less Digital Vibrance)

And basically - That's is.. I do think you should take a long hard look at your Gfx card, though I haven't seen anything as bad as what you describe with your 5200 back when I had one of those...

Cheers,
Steffen

 

[jbrinker]

Steffen,

Thanks a lot for clarifying this for me. Over the last day or so, I decided to go back to "square one" and work forward again. So I removed everything but the basics. .NET 1.1 and 2.0, MP, and windows patches.

I removed MP, cleaned it out, and reinstalled 0.2 stable. Then the 0.2.0.4 patch.

I installed the latest downloaded drivers from Nvidia, and reinstalled the latest drivers for my tuner card (averTV pvr-150).

Fired it up, and even at the default MP settings it was better. It seems almost all, if not all of my problems are solved - even using the default MPV codec.

Now the card will capture at the correct resolution (whatever I set it to under MP).
Now deinterlacing is working properly
Now the herky jerkies are 99% gone, and the last 1% I attribute to CPU, as it only happens when the CPU pegs at 100%. So, now I have to try to figure out how to optomize CPU.

It does seem "strange" to me that CPU load on this box is low when playing an MPEG file in say MPClassic. But it is much higher in MP.

So, I set the box to record 3 shows last night, and it appears to have recorded them all fine. But this AM it was at a "MP has preformed an illegal operation" screen, - i.e. MP crashed. So back to the drawing board...

Once I get this straightened out, I intend to try the purevideo codec again. For now I have the MPV codec set up as you described for PV, and it looks 99% good to me

Thanks again!
Jeff

 

[Taipan]

when the CPU pegs at 100%. So, now I have to try to figure out how to optomize CPU.

If you use a video decoder that supports hardware acceleration (DxVA) like the Nvidia decoder, you should see the CPU% drop considerably. The MPV decoder does not use the video card's hardware acceleration, hence the higher CPU% ...