Hardware Card Resolution (2 Viewers)

[BigBuddha]

Sky looks crisp and sharp, my output from my VBOX card looks like the screenshot above.
At first I thought it was the S-VHS signal to my TV, but viewing the output on my monitor the effect is just the same. I wondered if an alternative card was the way to go..?

What model VBOX are you using?

And sadly if you are suffering the same problem and since we are both using different cards with different chipsets I would not think that an alternative card would solve the problem.

Would you agree jawbroken ??

 

[jawbroken]

Elf: You are having quality issues with a DVB-T card? As MediaPortal just saves the incoming MPEG2 stream (I presume) this seems really strange?
Unless you are using some sort of composite in on your DVB-T card (I am not aware of the features of your card).

BigBuddha: I never particularly thought that a different tuner card would solve your issue. It seems it is more a limit of the whole analogue conversion process than any particular problem with your tuner, though I could be wrong there.

 

[Elf]

It's the VBOX-DTT150 that came with my Showshifter bundle (Showshifter itself has since been confined to a dusty drawer) - sorry I have no idea what chipset it uses.

As far as I'm aware, I'm not doing anything clever or unusual with the card! I'm taking an antenna in, and output is from my GeForce4 card - as I mentioned above, I thought tv-out through s-vhs might be responsible but viewing the output on the monitor has the same effect. Let's get this in perspective - it's perfectly watchable and I possibly wouldn't question it if it wasn't for the comparison with the Sky STB output!

 

[dipje]

hauppauge's (at least 250's and 350's I tried) have settings in the registry (which can be tweaked with some tools or manually) to control the antinoise filtering (combing filter, not to be misread as something todo with deinterlacing) but maybe more interresting, a sharpness setting. I don't know if the 150 has this.

The problem I had was that my 250 did the colors wrong by default. Less saturation and way too much brightness compared to the picture my old tube TV gave. I've been playing with the image-settings and the sharpness values until I could switch between live TV on my tube TV and the scart-channel (with MP hooked up playing the same thing) and I couldn't notice any difference at all, but it took some time.

And yes, it seems you loose some detail anyway with the encoding done on the hauppauge cards, and that becomes visible when you hook it up to a large digital TV

I also had strange results when I hooked MP up to a philips LCD/Ambilight TV. It (like any other modern TV I guess) has loads of options and filters all set to default settings (auto-color-adjust, auto-brightness, etc..). The hauppauge card is also doing some filters, so it looked kinda weird and blurry. Turning off all the filters on the digital TV and the image was clear and exactly the same as on a CRT monitor.

Ah well... it could also be that you're too sensitive about the PQ or something, or just really picky . And the setup with an analog MPEG2 card and a large TV just isn't right for you.

Good luck!

 

[BigBuddha]

hauppauge's (at least 250's and 350's I tried) have settings in the registry (which can be tweaked with some tools or manually) to control the antinoise filtering (combing filter, not to be misread as something todo with deinterlacing) but maybe more interresting, a sharpness setting. I don't know if the 150 has this.

Any links to where you got ahold of these tools or even where the registry settings are and what they do for manual manipualtion?

Cancel everything above here ... already found it ... Everything below is still good

Ah well... it could also be that you're too sensitive about the PQ or something, or just really picky . And the setup with an analog MPEG2 card and a large TV just isn't right for you.

Good luck!

I think all of the above is probably true apart from the second last, I am sensitive and really picky, I'll take your good luck and put it to good use, just for goodmeasure. But come hell or high water, I will have my analog MPEG2 card and large TV or die trying :lol:

 

[jawbroken]

http://www.cask-of-amontillado.com/pvr_tweak.html

and

http://www.cask-of-amontillado.com/pvr_reg.html

may help you out.

 

[BigBuddha]

http://www.cask-of-amontillado.com/pvr_tweak.html
http://www.cask-of-amontillado.com/pvr_reg.html
may help you out.

Thanks jawbroken, I've downloaded the tweak application and as far as I can tell all of the major setting that would affect something like this are already set correctly.

I did find this whilst combing through the log yesterday. It's also in all the logs (this one was just handy), happens everytime a channel switches to using the Hauppauge card.

Notice the:

23/01/2006 8:48:55 PM VideoCaptureDevice:FAILED:could not set capture Framesize to 720x576!

23/01/2006 8:48:55 PM VideoCaptureDevice: found output pin
23/01/2006 8:48:55 PM VideoCaptureDevice:get Video stream control interface (IAMStreamConfig)
23/01/2006 8:48:55 PM VideoCaptureDevice:got IAMStreamConfig for Capture
23/01/2006 8:48:55 PM SWGraph:capture FrameRate set to 25
23/01/2006 8:48:55 PM VideoCaptureDevice: capture FrameRate done :25
23/01/2006 8:48:55 PM VideoCaptureDevice:FAILED:could not set capture Framesize to 720x576!
23/01/2006 8:48:55 PM SinkGraphEx: Capturing:720x576
23/01/2006 8:48:55 PM mpeg2:add new MPEG2 Demultiplexer to graph
23/01/2006 8:48:55 PM mpeg2:create video out pin on MPEG2 demuxer
23/01/2006 8:48:55 PM mpeg2:create audio out pin on MPEG2 demuxer

I'm completely ou of ideas, I'll start praying for a miracle.

 

[wewe]

jawbroken: yeah - for sure I also meant composite (sorry for the confusion).

BigBuddha: be careful with Scart ... Scart can be everything. From composite over S-Video to RGB. You need to make sure that the STP is able to deliver S-Video!

And also be careful with the cable! Not all of them are fully equipped. And some of them are only one-way (in OR out) ....


thanks+regards
WeWe

 

[BigBuddha]

Hauppauge 150/500 MCE PQ HUGELY IMPROVED

Hi All,

I came across some interesting information from another forum dedicated to Hauppauge cards.

Apparently in the most recent drivers available for the 150/500 MCE cards, Hauppauge decided to turn the comb filter off completely. The comb filter is what tries to turn a composite signal into something resembling an S-Video signal. My HD Plasma must have an awesome comb filter in it and this is why the composite signal put into it was so much better than when the same composite signal was put into the Hauppauge.

I downloaded some registry tweaks that enable the comb filter and allow you to try some different settings. The result was nothing short of AMAZING. Whilst I would not say that the PQ was perfect, I would at least go as far to say that the improvement was off the scale compared to the PQ I had previously.

On the downside, when I got the best PQ after tryng the different registry tweak files, there was a VERY noticable increase in dot crawl. Luckily this was 99.99% limited to the OSD of the STB that I cam capturing the signal from so for me it is not an issue!.

Finally, (after finding out all this good info) I found a way to get my Foxtel Cable STB to output a S-Video signal and the PQ is perfect (or at least as good as DVD quality). I still thought it was worth posting the ways to get the best picture when using the composite input. But as everybody has told me, the S-Video input (wich does not make use of the comb filter, because it is not neccessary) is by FAR the best PQ I have seen my PVR 150MCE produce.

I will post the links to the topic that I discussed this in as well as some other relevant links about the issue. I will also place a link to the registry tweak files.

The first one is the topic that I discussed this whole matter about with another user on the Hauppauge unofficial forum:

http://www.shspvr.com/smf/index.php?topic=9618

The second link (in a uk Hauppauge forum) details a discussion about whether the comb filter should be on or off:

http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=6083

This link contains some links to some comb filter tweaks:

http://www.shspvr.com/smf/index.php?topic=9170.0

This last link is to an archive I am hosting ( I am hoping that I can get somone else to host it permanantly, it is only 2.14KB in size) and have created that contains all of the registry comb filter tweak files and a description of what each file does:

http://www.harmonycentral.com.au/downloads/PVR150Combfix.zip

Lastly, I would like to say a BIG thank you to all of the people who have shared their time and tried to hep me with this problem that I have struggled with for so long.

Thanks,

BigBuddha