Overall Video Quality (1 Viewer)

[shred444]

I am curious on how to get the best overall video quality from my system and media portal. I am using a hauppauge 500mce dual tuner and using an agp video card's tv-out port to a brand new CRT tv.

there is a serious degradation in video quality when using my computer, rather than using the TV's tuner. There is even more degradation when i turn time shifting on. Text is jittery on the screen as well. Where are the places i should look to bump up the quality?

Could it be:
-Media Portals video settings are set too low. I believe i already changed this in the config utility under tuner A and tuner B. What kbps should i use?
-My video out card is too cheap to handle quality video ($40 Gigabyte GeForce FX 5200 / 128MB / AGP 8X / DVI / AV Out / TV-Out / Video Card)
-My RCA cable from video card to tv is too crappy, or too long (4' standard RCA cable)
-should i be using s-video to the TV instead of RCA?
-My hauppauge dual tuner is automatically compressing the video when it comes in (how do i turn this off)
-video card's settings are off (i am using highest quality and 800x600 display)
-something is creating noise in the machine, causing it to radiate to the tuner/video card
-anything else?


What do you guys think.... what would be your first guess?

Thanks
Jonathan

 

[deppeler]

I am curious on how to get the best overall video quality from my system and media portal. I am using a hauppauge 500mce dual tuner and using an agp video card's tv-out port to a brand new CRT tv.

there is a serious degradation in video quality when using my computer, rather than using the TV's tuner. There is even more degradation when i turn time shifting on. Text is jittery on the screen as well. Where are the places i should look to bump up the quality?

Could it be:
-My RCA cable from video card to tv is too crappy, or too long (4' standard RCA cable)

What do you guys think.... what would be your first guess?

Thanks
Jonathan

On your question of cable length, I use a 50' length composite RCA cable to my TV from my PVR 350 and get good/very good results.
I am going to get an s-video cable (50') and see (as it is supposed to be a better quality image) what that looks like.
I don't use my graphics card tv out as I only have a GeForce 4 420 (which works fine) and I think the 350's video quality would be better.

Paul

 

[ASiDiE]

My setup is very close to yours. I also have a Hauppauge 500MCE card using some beta drivers 2.0.43.24108. I saw some improvement in picture quality when using these drivers. The latest from Hauppauge’s site seem to give me wavy lines on some channels and this cleared them up. When I find those drivers I will post a link. You also might want to edit your TV card properties and see what your settings are at. Try putting it at high quality for some tests and see what kind of results you are getting. Medium quality is set by default.

I also had a Gigabyte Geforce FX 5200 that has the exact same spec's as yours. I suggest using a high quality S-video cable instead of RCA. My card had S-video out and did not have the Yellow RCA Jack. If you have a S-video connector, I suggest using that.

As for the display, I usually use 1028x768 because I do not have a real monitor hooked up so I use a remote admin program. I want it as large as I can get it. This really shouldn't have a huge effect on what your screen looks like but at least try it.

Usually the Cable is picking up some sort of noise, that’s why I suggest a high quality shielded cable.

I posted a link to the driver for about 2 minutes and then took it down after seeing they have it listed on their website. HERE is the link for the 24108 drivers.

 

[shred444]

I use a 50' length composite RCA cable to my TV from my PVR 350 and get good/very good results.
I am going to get an s-video cable (50') and see (as it is supposed to be a better quality image) what that looks like.
I don't use my graphics card tv out as I only have a GeForce 4 420 (which works fine) and I think the 350's video quality would be better.

Paul

Paul, how do you go to the tv from your PVR? does the 350 have rca-out. Because i dont think the 500 has it?

 

[roosterx]

svideo (y/c) cable will give you a bit better picture quality(sharper) - though i guess you still will get a more blurry picture compared to built-in tuner on TV - i believe the newer gfx cards has a better s-video out than these 'old' ones - preferable you should use vga or rgb, but i guess your crt does not have vga (and nvidia cards dont support rgb)

 

[shred444]

does anyone know their tuner's settings off hand. When you edit the tuner in the config window, there is a tab for video quality. what are the best settings to use there, before the system cant handle the load.

 

[deppeler]

Paul, how do you go to the tv from your PVR? does the 350 have rca-out. Because i dont think the 500 has it?

The 350 has a Vid/Aud out and they supply a A/V breakout cable with S-Video, composite video and stereo audio out.
The recorded video to the TV uses the on-board hardware MPEG-2 video decoder.

I bought this 50' RCA (A/V) Python cable for about $15.00, it seems good quality.