Theater 550 - what settings do you use? (1 Viewer)

[pglenn]

I would like to create this thread as a help for anyone currently or potentially using a theater 550 card. I would like to keep it "clean" and just have posts from people with what detailed H/W and S/W and MP settings they are using currently with Theater 550 cards. Also including results, as in perfect, terrible, or whatever in between. Comparisons will then allow others to know what does and doesnt work and plan and configure accordingly. Please no debates or requests for help or other in this thread, lets keep it to settings and results.

I am struggling with the quality using XTASY Theater 550. I have the below listed system. I have read all the threads I found on the theater 500 card and still cant get mine to work satisfactory. I have read other people have great success with this card so I know it potentially works. I really want to use this card w/MediaPortal.

I am able to view TV in beyondTV (tho it is also crappy, about same as MP) and in GB-PVR (which actually has very high quality live-TV) so I know that card and drivers work and that my system is very capable of quality live-TV with this card. and my AIW 9800pro pulls in a great signal using MMC9.03 so I know my signal is not a problem.

The MP Setup finds the card as ATI ELITE (same card really) and it is a H/W/ card. I verified the device-ID in the capture card config file is the same as GRAPHEDIT shows.

My current settings (Nvidia Video Decoder, VMR9) work good but not yet "perfect". picture is very good but still a little "soft" - it is kinda like a very very thin veil has been placed over the screen, kinda washed out colors, to best describe it. I am also experiencing freezing or stuttering of the picture sporatically but continually, similar to dropped frames,

Patrick

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0.2.0.0 RC2

WIN-XP MCE
Athlon 64 3200+
GIGABYTE GA-K8NSNXP-939 nForce3 Ultra
1gb Ram, DDR SDRAM 400
ATI AIW 9800Pro
MMC 9.03
Catalyst 5.13 Windows XP Media Center Edition
XTASY Theater 550 w/driver ver. 6.14.10.102

system runs at 2.08ghz

 

[Taipan]

My current settings (Nvidia Video Decoder, VMR9) work good but not yet "perfect". picture is very good but still a little "soft" - it is kinda like a very very thin veil has been placed over the screen, kinda washed out colors, to best describe it.

This sounds like you need to adjust the "Brightness" control within the nVIDIA Decoder - you can do this from the nVIDIA icon that appears in the System Tray whenever it is in use.

You need to reduce the Brightness until you get good blacks, and then you will probably need to increase the contrast to get the correct white level.

Unfortunately, the controls do not take effect in real time, so you have to make a change to the settings, apply the change, and then re-start TV viewing to see the effect of the change. But it is worth it in the end....

 

[Mutly]

Gidday,

I am running a TUL (Powercolour) theatre 550pro. MP found it as a Sapphire ATI 550 - that could be the first part of your trouble - wrong driver?. Initially I had similar colour and picture issues when viewing TV, but found that turning off exclusive directX mode and using the Cyberlink mpeg decoder cleaned everything up really well. It lost the overbright look, and much reduced compression artefacts.

 

[Judaz]

Stick with the nVidia decoder, I've tried several decoders and nVidia seems to be the best choice. I am using the Sapphire Theatrix 550 card, but it shouldn't matter as all the cards are identical. I too have problems with picture sharpness, but I believe it can to some extent be solved by applying ffdshow post-processing filters (if your system can handle it).

- Judaz