Picture Quality (1 Viewer)

[kalinium1]

Are you sure it's a DXVA problem?
The little stutter in the news scroll can indicate a refresh rate problem.
Did you check the native resolution capabilities of your TV set?
Maybe your TV set can't handle 50hz using the HDMI connection in it's native resolution?
You have to output 50hz from your computer in order to watch smooth picture, and the TV has to support it.

 

[joboehl]

The most important thing IMHO is to get HW deinterlacing to work (only for interlaced material of course). But the difference is outstanding. It took me two days to find out that MP setup broke it. The fact that nobody noticed this before seems to indicate that most of the people around do not care about high picture quality at all.

Not true.

Maybe most people that care about PQ or have a good picture quality/equipment to compare with the HTPC don't have the same setup/issues you have.

I always used HW accelerating, deinterlacing and 3:2 pulldown correction for example. And I can clearly see those working with HQV. But keep in mind I'am an nVidia user, not ATI.

If I do use a SW only solution, picture quality does suffer a lot, as HQV itself makes very clear to my eyes.

As I also said, I compared my PQ with a Standalone player (samsung 1080p7). HTPC It's better, specially for deinterlacing and upscaling. It's perfect? No. It still has issues with noise reduction and film detection (that BTW I also see in my standalone player). The HW deinterlacer and scaler, altough good, might also not be perfect. Keep that in mind.

The point is: If you whant the best possible picture quality for DVD playback, I think you should go for dedicated devices: Scalers, top line DVD player (from Oppo to ElectroCompaniet) and etc. My (personal) opinion is that making an HTPC to achieve the same PQ as those devices is to expensive, if possible at all.

 

[grubi]

Maybe most people that care about PQ or have a good picture quality/equipment to compare with the HTPC don't have the same setup/issues you have.

Maybe. However if they are using Mediaportal, AVIVO cards and Cyberlink they will as Medipaortal setup breaks HW deinterlacing. Setup always set "HKCU\Software\Cyberlinc\Common\CLVSD\Mediaportal\ UIVMode = 1" where it has to be 0x40020 to work correctly.

Maybe this is also true for NVIDIA. I don't know.

I always used HW accelerating, deinterlacing and 3:2 pulldown correction for example. And I can clearly see those working with HQV. But keep in mind I'am an nVidia user, not ATI.

If I do use a SW only solution, picture quality does suffer a lot, as HQV itself makes very clear to my eyes.

Absolutely.

The difference I see between SW and HW deinterlacing (esp. the new adaptive deinterlacing of AVIVO) is impossible to be overseen.

As I also said, I compared my PQ with a Standalone player (samsung 1080p7). HTPC It's better, specially for deinterlacing and upscaling. It's perfect? No. It still has issues with noise reduction and film detection (that BTW I also see in my standalone player). The HW deinterlacer and scaler, altough good, might also not be perfect. Keep that in mind.

The point is: If you whant the best possible picture quality for DVD playback, I think you should go for dedicated devices: Scalers, top line DVD player (from Oppo to ElectroCompaniet) and etc. My (personal) opinion is that making an HTPC to achieve the same PQ as those devices is to expensive, if possible at all.

That is exactly my observation. The HW capabilities of ATI cards (I can't speek for NVIDIA as I do not have any experiences with them) are a big step forward. However there is still a gap when compared to the higher end dedicated HT equipment, esp. noise reduction on motion is still not at a par level.

grubi

Are you sure it's a DXVA problem?
The little stutter in the news scroll can indicate a refresh rate problem.
Did you check the native resolution capabilities of your TV set?
Maybe your TV set can't handle 50hz using the HDMI connection in it's native resolution?
You have to output 50hz from your computer in order to watch smooth picture, and the TV has to support it.

No it's a deinterlacing problem.

The display operates at 100 Hz, the ATI at 50 Hz and ReClock also operates correctly.
The display is also 1 to 1 pixle mapping at 1080p.

But I have solved it. I simply delete the regkeys MeidaPortal Setup sets automatically every time when I launch MediaPortal.

What I still have not solved it the problem with the blacks. It seems that the device I compare it with has something like an enhancement function for dark scenes without breaking black level.

 

[grubi]

Today I tested a Denon DVD2930 against my MediaPortal PC. I was quite disappointed about the delinterlacing quality of my PC compared to the deinterlacing capabilities of the Denon.

I check with Peter Finzels Test DVD and my PC failed level 2 and 3 of the deinterlacer test, whereas the Denon passed all test sucessfully.

Conclusion.

Don't trust those optimistic marketing slogans about the outstanding AVIVO capabilities. It is simply not true.

So what's next. Think about buying a Nvidia grafic card and see what happens then. Quite expensive hobby to build a high quality media pc.

grubi.

 

[Spragleknas]

If you do buy a nVidia card, please keep us updated in this thread. It would be nice to hear your opinion on ATi vs nVidia.

Aslo: For DVD-playback I've heard that best results (for you PQ-geeks ) is achieved when using TheaterTek. (But you probably know this. I believe it is optimized for PureVideo).

 

[grubi]

If you do buy a nVidia card, please keep us updated in this thread. It would be nice to hear your opinion on ATi vs nVidia.

Aslo: For DVD-playback I've heard that best results (for you PQ-geeks ) is achieved when using TheaterTek. (But you probably know this. I believe it is optimized for PureVideo).

I don't think that the codec is much of interrest if DXVA (V2) is enabled. Then the quality is primarily influenced by the capabilities of the grafic card.

Seems that have to spend aditional 200 bucks to get the absolute truth about what's possible with HTPC qualitiy wise.

Of course I will post the results.

Regards,
grubi.

 

[scythelt]

I have an ATI x1300 and have been playing around with codecs and various deinterlace settings for months trying to hit on a good combination. I'm very picky about quality. While I've almost got the colour saturation and contrast right, I can never get the sharpness to a level where it matches the inbuilt DTV tuner in my Samsung LCD.

Watching tv via the internal tuner on my Samsung is like night and day compared to MP. As a result, I tend to only use MP TV for watching recordings, but not PVR style viewing or casual tv watching.

Can anybody report whether they have crisp, sharp deinterlacing? It's particularly obvious around text - watch any news bulletin and you will see the difference quite clearly.

 

[Taipan]

Can anybody report whether they have crisp, sharp deinterlacing? It's particularly obvious around text - watch any news bulletin and you will see the difference quite clearly.

Yes, I can report that I get "crisp, sharp deinterlacing" ...

I assume that you are referring to just DVB-T broadcasts? Because my experience with MediaPortal and DVB-T is that I get a PQ that is equal to, and mostly better than, any dedicated STB/TV setup.

 

[scythelt]

Yes, I can report that I get "crisp, sharp deinterlacing" ...

I assume that you are referring to just DVB-T broadcasts? Because my experience with MediaPortal and DVB-T is that I get a PQ that is equal to, and mostly better than, any dedicated STB/TV setup.

That's what I like to hear! Yep i'm just referring to DVB-T broadcasts - can you give me some information as to what video card, codec, dxva on/off, deinterlace settings you use?

 

[grubi]

Can anybody report whether they have crisp, sharp deinterlacing? It's particularly obvious around text - watch any news bulletin and you will see the difference quite clearly.

Yes, I can report that I get "crisp, sharp deinterlacing" ...

I assume that you are referring to just DVB-T broadcasts? Because my experience with MediaPortal and DVB-T is that I get a PQ that is equal to, and mostly better than, any dedicated STB/TV setup.

Partial disagree.

It really depends on the quality of you TV set. The new Pana 50" Plasma has an outstanding DVB-T unit. And it's not possible to achive similar results with a ATI x1xxx graphic card (the gap is quite small however it exists). Did not tested the X2xxx cards so far, but that's the next thing I will do and post what I found.

grubi.

Yes, I can report that I get "crisp, sharp deinterlacing" ...

I assume that you are referring to just DVB-T broadcasts? Because my experience with MediaPortal and DVB-T is that I get a PQ that is equal to, and mostly better than, any dedicated STB/TV setup.

That's what I like to hear! Yep i'm just referring to DVB-T broadcasts - can you give me some information as to what video card, codec, dxva on/off, deinterlace settings you use?

Currently I use a ATI X1650PRO HDMI, PowerDVD Ultra codec. Deinterlacing of MP has to be disabled, DXVA in MP must not be disabled and you have to add the reg entries for the Cyberlink codecs to enable HWA, VMR, VRM9 support.

BTW: What is your connection between coputer and TV? It has to be DVI or HDMI and you must have 1 to 1 pixel mapping ohterwise you will never achive a crisp picure as everithing is get scaled twice.


grubi.