Please help with TV - Picture Quality (1 Viewer)

[DigitalFusio]

Hello All,

I really need some help. I guess we will start with SD picture quality. Slow moving images are fine, such as newscasts, or when people/things are not moving fast. With sports, racing, and things of that nature where the picture is moving fast, the quality is so bad that its nearly unwatchable. I was watching some motocross racing last night, and all the racers literally blended together and I could not distinguish between the crowd, the racers, or the track. It was one big moving blob!

My HTPC doesnt have cutting edge, new hardware in it, but its also not a relic.

Win Vista 32bit
Intel D920 Dual Core 2.8
2 gb DDR2 Memory
Two Hauppauge HVR-1850/1800's via S-Video in from cable STB
ATI Radeon 512mb X1900XT PCI-e via Component (RBG) out
56" Panasonic HD (rear projection TV)

Am I wrong in assuming that the above HW should be good enough to view TV? I know the Vid card is a bit old, but it still should do the job, should it not? I have FFDShow set for both the mpeg2 and HD codec in TVServer Setup. However, I set ffdshow to have the on screen display, so I can tell when its running. When watching videos I do see the OSD, but when watching TV I do not. I went into the TV Post-Processing Screen in the config, but when I select FFD show, and click the settings button, nothing happens.

Are there any other options/settings I can try, or is my HW just not up to the job?

 

[Spragleknas]

Some pointers:
1 - Make sure to choose a good codec - preferably w/DXVA capabilities.
--> For XP, my recommendation is CyberLink (ie using SAF *unlocked*) or ATi's AVIVO (free).

2 - Make sure TV is set to same refreshrate as broadcast (for NTSC I believe this is 60 Hz).

3 - If your TV-card is capable, enable and tweak PQ settings in TV-server config

4 - Update your drivers

 

[Owlsroost]

MP 1.0.2 blocks th use of FFDShow for live/recorded TV (due to channel change problems) so it will be falling back to another decooder (probably the MPC-HC one included with MP).

As Spragleknas suggests, using a good MPEG-2 decoder which supports DXVA should enable hardware de-interlacing in the video card - this will considerably improve the picture quality for TV.

Tony

 

[jonm]

Two Hauppauge HVR-1850/1800's via S-Video in from cable STB

That's never going to give a great picture IMO.

 

[zanlation]

Make sure that you have any noise reduction settings for your video card (or if possible your TV tuner) have a low value. I also bring satellite STB into my HTPC via an s-video cable, which is outputed to my old analogue TV via s-video. The quality from the STB is poor, especially when compared to digital TV, but it is made worse if I set a med-high noise reduction value.

 

[DigitalFusio]

Some pointers:
1 - Make sure to choose a good codec - preferably w/DXVA capabilities.
--> For XP, my recommendation is CyberLink (ie using SAF *unlocked*) or ATi's AVIVO (free).

2 - Make sure TV is set to same refreshrate as broadcast (for NTSC I believe this is 60 Hz).

3 - If your TV-card is capable, enable and tweak PQ settings in TV-server config

4 - Update your drivers

1) I am using Vista, and while I did managed to get FFDShow to process TV and look OK, it did have some issues with channel changing and the screen going to white/static after running for long periods of time. I guess I will have to look into AVIVO?

2) it is set at 60hz

3) I didnt see any picture quality type settings in TVServer config other than where you can select which codec?

4) all drivers are up to date

MP 1.0.2 blocks th use of FFDShow for live/recorded TV (due to channel change problems) so it will be falling back to another decooder (probably the MPC-HC one included with MP).

As Spragleknas suggests, using a good MPEG-2 decoder which supports DXVA should enable hardware de-interlacing in the video card - this will considerably improve the picture quality for TV.

Tony

Yeah, I got ffdshow working, but ran into issues. Looks like I will have to investigate further.

Two Hauppauge HVR-1850/1800's via S-Video in from cable STB

That's never going to give a great picture IMO.

What are my other options? I havent found a TV card that supports HD inputs that doesn't cost insane an insane amount of money.

Make sure that you have any noise reduction settings for your video card (or if possible your TV tuner) have a low value. I also bring satellite STB into my HTPC via an s-video cable, which is outputed to my old analogue TV via s-video. The quality from the STB is poor, especially when compared to digital TV, but it is made worse if I set a med-high noise reduction value.

I dont have any noise reduction set. I bring the STB into the puter with the SVideo cable, then out to the HD TV via RGB from the x1900xt. If I connect the STB directly to the TV with SVideo, the picture quality is far superior than it is with the computer.