Q: TVE3 = poorer PQ for (HW)analogue card users? (2 Viewers)

[misterd]

If your hauppauge card supports quality control which can be configured through SetupTV than there is no possibility to increase the maximum bitrate. The TvServer queries for the maximum bitrate and uses it at level "High". If the card doesn't tell us the real maximum value we can't use it.

If your card only supports the old hauppauge quality control which can not be configured through SetupTv than the maximum bitrate is hardocded in the code.

MisterD

 

[BKCH]

Hi Misterd - thanks for your post.

The card does seem to support the "new" quality control in TVServer because changing that in the TV Server configuration does have an effect on the card capture quality. However I know for a fact that this card is capable of higher than 8500kbps because the same card was recording at 10000kbps in the old MP (before TvServer was released). Also using the Hauppauge tweak tool I can set the rate as high as 12000kbps - but MP overides this figure

Also, if you search this thread for the word "stutter" you'll see 4 postes from people who set the capture rate to 10000kbps and 12000kbps but apparently had stutter... (so again the cards are capable of higher capture rates).

I'm happy to post logs and capture - or whatever else you guys might need - just let me know.

Thanks again for your post - I'd love to help resolve this if possible.

 

[misterd]

The new quality control is completely different approach and based on standardized interfaces by M$. Since this approach supports more cards and also software encoders we don't know the maximum bitrate. Therefor we query for the maximum bitrate through this interface. You can see the minimum and maximum bitrate in the log. It should look like:

analog: Encoder BitRate Min 65536 Max 80000000 Delta 1024

The values are in bps.
It seems that the drivers of hauppauge don't tell us the exact value. We don't have any influence on these values and can't do anything. AFAIK the best results are normally with setting "high" and "variable bit rate peak"

With the old quality control, which was also used in the old MP, it was possible, but those values are in the code and we have to set it to a value which is good for all users (stuttering). This old quality control will perhaps be configurable after the 1.0 release, but I don't know right yet.

MisterD

 

[BKCH]

Thanks again for posting with that extra info

I wonder if it would be worth asking Hauppauge if they are going to do a new driver based on the M$ standardised interfaces - what do you think??? I'm happy to ask the question if you want to suggest the wording??

I wonder if it would be worth asking on the WinTV PVR and MediaMVP Board - Index forum?? Can you suggest the key words I should search for??

 

[misterd]

Many drivers of Hauppauge have implemented the interfaces of M$. The main problem is that the standard methods doesn't tell us the exact maximum bitrate. There are still some other possibilities in those interfaces. But like for the old approach we won't change there something before 1.0. The reason is that this would be a new feature.

Perhaps we will add some additional features after 1.0 for both approaches and after the feature-freeze.

MisterD

 

[BKCH]

Bummer but fair enough and thanks for the further info.

(I guess in my quest for better quality I'll go down the path of trying to get the Hauppauge HD PVR supported in MP - does anyone on this thread have those skills? I'm still happy to fund a HD PVR for a dev if that will help get it supported - see: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/mediaportal-1-talk-45/hauppauge-hd-pvr-37487/index3.html.)