Hauppauge PVR150MCE connections & quality (1 Viewer)

[waveslam]

Hi Guys
I have the SCART video output of my Sky Sateliite STB connected to the composite input (ie. yellow RCA) on my Hauppauge PVR-150-MCE. From there, I have DVI out going to HDMI in on my new Phillips 42" LCD TV.

It works but I have 3 problems:
1. The TV picture I am seeing is quite dark and the colours are not very vivid i.e. its all a bit murky. This was OK when I was using a CRT but its very obvious now I have the LCD. However, if I play DVD or video from the HTPC, the colour seems better, indicating that its a problem with the capture/colour quality on the PVR-150-MCE. However, I cannot find any application or utllity etc that lets me adjust the colour (or in fact any aspect at all...) of the Hauppauge card. Does any such configuration application exist?

2. Presumably I would get better picture quality from the STB if I used the S-video input on the PVR-MCE-150 instead of composite. I got a Scart-to-SVideo cable and plugged it in, but the picture I get on the HTPC is now in black-and-white. I connected the same cable directly to the S-video input on the TV and its all in colour (and a better picture too) so where am I going wrong ie. why does the PVR-150-MCE only get black-and-white from S-video?

3. Finally, I have also noticed that the frame rate of live TV via the HTPC seems to be much lower than it should be eg. when watching sport, the action seems jerky and not smooth at all . This happened when using the CRT as well as on the LCD, so again seems like a problem with the capture frame rate of the Hauppauge (given that CPU usage remains at about 20%). Is there anything I can do to get a better frame rate?

As you can see, I am a bit underwhelmed with the performance of the Hauppauge, so for the bonus point, I would love to hear any recomendations for a better card I could replace it with (bearing in mind I dont need a TV tuner at all, just video input from my STB). After all, if I have spent 3 and a half grand on a TV, I might as well get the best out of it!

Thanks heaps in advance
Cheers
Brett

 

[niekh]

Re the black-and-white issue and questions about picture quality you will find plenty of information in the PVR-150 forum at http://www.shspvr.com.

If you're using the S-video input (on the PVR-150) make sure that your STB can output S-video (usually there's a setting in the STB's menu system where you can set the format for a specific output terminal).

 

[waveslam]

PVR150MCE and S-Video

Hi
Thanks heaps for the link to the PVR150 forums: I will get surfing through there now

As for setting s-video output on the STB: I dont think this is the problem, because if I take the same Scart-to-S-Video cable and plug it directly into the S-Video input on the TV, I get a colour picture (and noticeably better quality than via the HTPC) :-(

Thanks anyway though - much appreciated.
Cheers
Brett

 

[waveslam]

Hauppauge PVR-150-MCE S-Video connection: FIXED!

Wait! I take it all back. A bit of reading on the SHSPVR forum suggested that not all S-Video outputs were created equal. So, I took your advice and tinkered with the SCART output settings on my STB and you were eaxctly right: by changing the SCART output type from Composite to S-Video, it all works perfectly and I have a noticeably clearer picture in MP. Not 100% sure why it previously worked when connected direct to the TV though: perhaps the TV had cleverer software and was able to detect it was getting a composite signal over a S-Video connection and adapt accordingly.
Anyway, you officially rock mate!
Thanks heaps
Cheers
Brett