Poor video quality on analog TV with HVR 4000 (1 Viewer)

[kronwerk]

TV-Server Version:
MediaPortal Version: 0.2.3.0
MediaPortal Skin: default
Windows Version: WinXP SP2
CPU Type: Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 @ 3200 MHz
HDD: [3 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320 Gb] @ Intel Matrix RAID 5
Memory: 2048 MB PC2-8500
Motherboard: Asus Maximus Formula SE
Motherboard Chipset: ICH9R
Motherboard Bios:
Video Card: ATI Radeon X1950XTX
Video Card Driver:
Sound Card:
Sound Card AC3:
Sound Card Driver:
1. TV Card: Hauppauge WinTV HVR-4000
1. TV Card Type: Analog, DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-S2
1. TV Card Driver:
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: ffdshow video decoder
MPEG2 Audio Codec: ffdshow audio decoder
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case:
Cooling:
Power Supply:
Remote:
TV:
TV - HTPC Connection:

After finally getting the card to work with MediaPortal (installed SoftMCE, added all 70 channels of my CATV provider) I realized that the video quality is very low. The ffdshow decoder I'm using shows an average bit rate of 4200 kbps for either live TV or recorded video stream.

In GraphEdit I found out, that 4200 is the default bit rate of MainConcept MCE Encoder, but no matter what I do with it there, it still shows that number (I thought it would change like for tuners with hardware encoders) every time i re-open GraphEdit and/or MP.

Does MediaPortal allow changing this value? I found a similar problem described by a HVR-3000 user, but there was no answer given.

 

[kronwerk]

Connected to the filter graph of a running MediaPortal instance with GraphEdit, saved the graph to a file, then disconnected and opened the saved file. Previously I couldn't construct a working graph based on the logs MP debugger gave, and I didn't know, that once connected to a graph in GraphEdit, you have to save it as a file to see the filters.

And setting the bit rate for MCE Encoder (see attached pic) to 12000 kbps made the video look great, without any blocks whatsoever. The only problem I'm facing now is lack of sound in GraphEdit, which is a bit weird since the graph was taken from working MediaPortal. Else I'd be using GraphEdit to watch & record TV.

 

[kalif]

Hi kronwerk.

I've got also some problem about quality with an hauppauge tv card and analog tv.

Do you have found the good tips to have a better quality ?
If i'm just compare the signal directly from the tv and from media portal ; it seems that from media portal it is "slow" with a lower quality.

It's a new pc that i'm sure is able to manage this stream (i have never reach the cpu).