Very poor image quality with Vista MCE and sky

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#107509 30-Jan-2008 09:10

Nice. I intended on purchasing the 150. I think that's that decision made...

sbiddle

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#107510 30-Jan-2008 09:21

Satch:
sbiddle:It's called the Hauppauge HD PVR and is due for release in the 1stQ 2008 with a RRP of US$249.

There isn't really a lot more info available yet, a Google search at present really just gives a lot of sites who have published the Hauppauge press release. I read sub (author of GB-PVR) posting the other day saying he was hoping to get one to play with shortly and that GB-PVR would support it. Since it's H.264 based however it can't work with Vista MCE until the H.264 support is available.

I did Google it after your first post about it and saw that it was a digital card. That won't suit Sky as the Sky decoder outputs an analogue signal. Or am I missing something?

I'm not quite sure what you read. The card will work fine with Sky and virtually any STB on the market. The only limitation would be recording HD content if the ICT flag is enabled, this results in HD content being downscaled to 576i for component output. ICT will probably be enabled on some or all of the Sky and Freeview DVB-T shows that are broadcast in HD which means you have to use HDMI to view the HD signal.

laurasaur

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#107518 30-Jan-2008 10:18

Dixm: got to say using svideo from a sky box ( zenith pos ) into a mce150 card on mce 2005 I got fantastic results. Ditto when I tried it on vista, no idea what driver it was, no issues, no need to dig for what was working....
Switching to composite was a bit worse but not too bad, going to the hvr 4000 was ALOT worse. I have yet to see better than the 150 for analogue sky watching.

This was running on either a 40" 768p set or a 90" 1080p projector.

hmm i am thinking i need a new sky decoder with s video out?
can i request a specific one or should I just get one with a S vid out

Dixm

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#107538 30-Jan-2008 13:17

laurasaur - not sure which sky you have but most of them will support svideo via the scart port - they just dont tell you that.
On mine I got the adapter from teh installer after I told him to go and get one with svideo he caved and admitted mine did do it. I then went into teh scart setings and switched to svideo, voila colour sky via svideo.
Still compared to freeview via sat all sky looks like crap. Can't wait for dvbt to go fully live

Satch

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#111849 20-Feb-2008 13:52

RustyGonad:
You need to turn all of this off before you will get an acceptable image quality, especially the Temporial stuff... This makes the images look all washed out and blurry. It also adds motion blur - whcih you will notice - it adds a kind of ghosting effect to the picture. It will also makes the colour look terrible especially reds, and darker areas.

There used to be an application called TweakHauppauge under XP that would help do this,

Hi Rusty,

I've downloaded Hauppauge Tweak (I assume this is the software you were referring to), but cannot see where you can turn everything off. You only seem to be able to change the settings up or down.

Can you please provide some more info? Thanks.

geekiegeek

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#111853 20-Feb-2008 14:17

Your graphics card also plays a large part in all this. I have an ATI HD2400 pro which out of the box has a number of things turned on that effect the playback - noise reduction being the main one.

I found a number of reg tweaks to turn all of this off - makes a huge difference.

I also use FFDSHOW as my mpeg decoder to upscale and sharpen everything to 1080i which also makes a very noticable difference to the picture. This also works on all other video formats as that is the only codec I have loaded.

I run Vista MCE by the way, with a ATI 550 Pro analouge card - s-video from Sky decoder.

If you want a copy of the ATI or FFDSHOW settings PM me.

munchkin

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#111949 20-Feb-2008 21:42

Do you have the option to use DVI when connecting your PC to your TV? (Even if you have to use a DVI to HDMI adaptor)

A VGA connection to a flat panel TV tends to look quite washed out - have a look here to gain a better understanding.

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CYaBro

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#111997 21-Feb-2008 07:42

I've got a Hauppauge PVR500MCE (2 PVR150s on one card :D) with my sky decoder connected by s-video.
I run the media PC on a 47" true HD Toshiba LCD TV connected by HDMI.
I think the picture looks just fine and all the Sky onscreen data is quite clear.

I am using Mediaportal with the MP codecs though if that makes any difference??

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

sbiddle

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#112003 21-Feb-2008 08:24

munchkin: Do you have the option to use DVI when connecting your PC to your TV? (Even if you have to use a DVI to HDMI adaptor)

A VGA connection to a flat panel TV tends to look quite washed out - have a look here to gain a better understanding.

I don't necessarily agree with that comment and neither do some of the people in that thread.

In an ideal world HDMI/DVI would deliver a better picture on a LCD/Plasma than VGA however in reality it's not necessarily the case. Virtually all TV's will give you true 1:1 pixel mapping over VGA whereas not all TV's will give you 1:1 pixel mapping via HDMI and you do have the overscan issue to deal with (which isn't really a problem with most modern cards and TV's). If you don't have 1:1 pixel mapping via HDMI then IMHO you're far better off using VGA. The scalers in most modern TV's also tend to scale the incoming image to the native resolution of the panel whereas driving the panel via VGA is normally at the native resolution.

Plugging a HDMI video card into a HDMI capable screen should be a simple step. Unfortunately it's far from that!

The biggest issue with hooking any PC up to a TV is the refresh rate but the whole 50Hz/60Hz debate and inability of screens to accept 50Hz inputs is whole different kettle of fish!

freitasm

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#112004 21-Feb-2008 08:32

sbiddle: Plugging a HDMI video card into a HDMI capable screen should be a simple step. Unfortunately it's far from that!

Well said... I plugged my Mac mini running Windows Vista to a Sony Bravia LCD - tried with HDMI and there was no way to get the correct resolution without having to hack the thing. At then end I just plugged the VGA cable and it worked - simply worked.

Satch

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#112010 21-Feb-2008 09:16

munchkin: Do you have the option to use DVI when connecting your PC to your TV? (Even if you have to use a DVI to HDMI adaptor)

A VGA connection to a flat panel TV tends to look quite washed out - have a look here to gain a better understanding.

I've got a Leadtek PX8500GT video card, which has an HDMI output. So I'm going from HDMI to HDMI.

Satch

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#112011 21-Feb-2008 09:19

Using VGA is fine until I move into the high def realm where it just won't cut the mustard. HDCP will get me!

RustyGonad

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#112016 21-Feb-2008 09:46

Satch - the main one to look for is Temporial Motion Blurring - turn this right down, it makes an mess of a clean S-Video signal. It adds the ghosting effect, not sure why it was ever there in the first place.

Not sure how TweakHauppauge goes under Vista, There's another tool called ChrisTweak which apparently has better chances under Vista.

Now, as for the HDMI vs VGA, if you do manage to get HDMI/DVI set up correctly there is simply no comparison. The digital signal is cleaner, has better colour differentiation, better sharpness (when using it as a monitor).

I would agree this can be a minefield to setup - however many/most of the newer panel's are now accepting that fact they will/can be plugged into PC's. Most of this blame has been thrown at either NVidia or ATI drivers, but IMO it lies with the panel manufactuers inability to allow thier TV to be used as a dumb old monitor... They all wan't to scale, image process, say they are 720/1080p, overscan etc etc etc

My Samsung LA46F81BX for examply has a "Just Scan" mode, which does exactly what it says... 1920x1080 1:1 pixel mapping, no overscan. One click of the NVidia drivers to tell it to do the same and its done. Can't do that through VGA - it makes an absolute mess of it... Most LCD's should be able to to this...

Then theres the subject of HDCP - try PowerDVD with a HD disk - blank VGA screen anyone...

BarTender

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#112021 21-Feb-2008 10:09

There are other much superior ways around this issue to get the content digitally without needing to re-encode, but we don't talk about such things on this board.

Satch

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#112027 21-Feb-2008 10:30

RustyGonad: Satch - the main one to look for is Temporial Motion Blurring - turn this right down, it makes an mess of a clean S-Video signal. It adds the ghosting effect, not sure why it was ever there in the first place.

I've turned this setting off completely. My main issue is that the picture looks very dark. I've borrowed a copy of Digital Video Essentials, and will use this to configure my panel to get a better picture.

RustyGonad: My Samsung LA46F81BX for examply has a "Just Scan" mode, which does exactly what it says... 1920x1080 1:1 pixel mapping, no overscan. One click of the NVidia drivers to tell it to do the same and its done. Can't do that through VGA - it makes an absolute mess of it... Most LCD's should be able to to this...

I'm not sure if my 2 year old Bravia has this function. In what part of your Samsung's menu is this "Just Scan" setting? No doubt Sony will call it something completely different...

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