Has ANYONE gotten TV running without probs? (1 Viewer)

[Ronner]

TV-Server Version: tvengine3-11-12-2007--01-38h--Rev16511
MediaPortal Version: RC3
MediaPortal Skin: Spinsafe Revolve
Windows Version: XP Corp SP2
CPU Type: AMD x2 4200+
HDD: 1x 200gig maxtor sata - 3x 500gig seagate (raid5)
Memory: 1 gb DDR2 corsair twinx
Motherboard: Asus a8n-sli Premium
Motherboard Chipset: Nvidia Nforce4
Motherboard Bios: Dunno
Video Card: Geforce 7300SE
Video Card Driver: 6.14.11.6371
Sound Card: Onboard Realtek AC97
Sound Card AC3: coaxial out
Sound Card Driver: 5.10.0.5870
1. TV Card: FloppyDTV With Alphacrypt
1. TV Card Type: DVB-C
1. TV Card Driver: 4.3.0
2. TV Card:
2. TV Card Type:
2. TV Card Driver:
3. TV Card:
3. TV Card Type:
3. TV Card Driver:
4. TV Card:
4. TV Card Type:
4. TV Card Driver:
MPEG2 Video Codec: MPV/PureVideo/Cyberlink/Etc
MPEG2 Audio Codec: Whichever
Satelite/CableTV Provider: Casema Netherlands
HTPC Case: Silverstone LC20B-M
Cooling: Fans
Power Supply: 480Watt Sweex Silent
Remote: Came with Silverstone case
TV: LG 42" Plasma
TV - HTPC Connection: DVI


Where should I even start. I am more than disappointed with the quality and functionality of watching TV within Mediaportal. The quality is blurry and low FPS (shift+1 says it's 25, though it looks a loooot smoother on my external samsung decoder) and the TV functionality simply is buggy as hell. Changing channels is extremely buggy. It changes with stuttering and sometimes it doesn't even change at all but instead plays back stuff it had buffered on timeshift. Some channels don't play sound and often it simply crashes.

In other words, it simply does not work smoothly at all. It's quite unusable in it's current state.

For picture quality I've tried tons of codecs, including the standard MPV/Dscaler etc and also Nvidia Purevideo and Cyberlink PowerDVD, all to no avail. None of them come even close to what my external samsung decoder is showing on my tv.

I've made sure that the floppydtv and the alphacrypt are all up to date firmware-wise and driver-wise and I've tried all kinds of things to test if it's just the setup or not. I've tried installing MCE2005 as well and that also gives the same crappy quality. FireDTV-Viewer, same thing.

Am I the only one having such major issues with how crap it works and looks, compared to an external decoder or am I really having a screwed up set up?

Please don't read my post as being nothing but negative because I simply LOVE the way mediaportal works and everything, it's just this damned TV thing that bugs me and makes me go ape and wonder if anyone has actually got a normal running TV with sort of the same setup that I have.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Must say picture quality is as good (maybe slightly better) than my DVB-T TV, that's just using the PDVD7 codec with no other processing beside HW enabled.

May be a discrepancy between your graphic card\cable\TV setting that needs to be rectified.

Could be a hard one to find as you have stated picture quality crap with the FireDTV viewer.

Is the Graphics card set to native resolution of the TV for a start, correct refresh rate etc, quality of connecting cable\length.

Maybe someone with the same setup can give you some better advice.

Regards

 

[Ronner]

well, picture quality being crap is a big word imho. it's just not as good as my external samsung decoder. It's simply a little blurry and not as smooth.

The graphic card is set to the TV's native resolution, it has a refresh rate of 75hz and it's connected with a 1.5 metres dvi to hdmi cable. I also had it connected with the VGA connector but that doesn't make much difference (other than the picture quality of the PC in general is slightly better with DVI)

I also have a lot of channels that simply seem to have the wrong aspect ratio, no matter what I set it to manually.

It just seems to me that it's hard to believe that anyone has a stable and smooth running TV within Mediacenter using a floppydtv and alphacrypt.

 

[Troy]

Do you have ffdshow installed? Try to disable the uncompressed video support. This solved my problems with wrong aspect ratios.

 

[Eabin]

when watching PAL content, you should set your TV to 50Hz, not 75, which will be the cause of your un-smoothness.

 

[chemelli]

Eabin,

what to do if you have both PAL(analog tv) and digital DVB-T/S ?

Simone

 

[gibman]

when watching PAL content, you should set your TV to 50Hz, not 75, which will be the cause of your un-smoothness.

Yeah I can attest to that.

My HDMI projector does its best at 50hz with PAL material too.

Although I thought the refreshrate should just be a multiple of 25fps for PAL.

ex. 50, 75 and 100hz.

But 75 looks like crap here.

/Gibman

 

[tonyscha]

Yeah I cant get TV3 to work... My ATSC card has no video

 

[mbuzina]

Eabin,

what to do if you have both PAL(analog tv) and digital DVB-T/S ?

Simone

Europe DVB-T / S are also in PAL, so 50Hz should help a lot. If your TV can handle, 100Hz would also be OK, but nothing else.

PAL is 50 Hz Interlaced, so @75 Hz it has to "jump around" a lot.

 

[Ronner]

My tv can't handle 50hz. It's a 42" plasma panel connected with DVI->HDMI. I can only use 60hz, 72hz and 75hz. Any other frequency I get a black screen on with the message "no signal", in other words the frequency selected is not supported by the plasma panel.

Any other ideas?