Win7 and extenders - Colour problems

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CYaBro

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#57071 2-Feb-2010 14:57

Hey,

I have had a customer come to me for some help that has me stumped.

They have a HTPC running Win7 Pro 32-bit with Windows Media Center.
This has two PVR150 analogue tuner cards connected to two Sky digital boxes.
Everything works great on the HTPC and when watching live or recorded TV the colours are normal.

They also have two Linksys DMA2100 extenders on two other TVs in the house.
These connect to the HTPC ok and can listen to music, browse photos etc and watch live or recorded TV.
The problem is that the colours of the TV (live or recorded) are all messed up like the hue is wrong or something.
Reds are pink, yellow is more green etc etc.
Media Center menus and photos etc all look normal, it's only TV that has problems with the colours.
This happens on both extenders so don't think it's a problem with them or the TVs they are connected to.

They don't have any other codecs installed on the HTPC.
The customer used to have Vista HP and they didn't have this problem.

Any ides?

Cheers.

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

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Master Geek

#295428 2-Feb-2010 15:59

Sound like something silly that they cant' switch PAL/NTSC ? (or they're on auto and it's selecting the wrong region)

richms

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#295444 2-Feb-2010 16:17

Can they play video OK? Not just the hue/tint control is messed up on them?

Richard rich.ms

rvangelder

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#295499 2-Feb-2010 18:58

I don't know either, but perhaps these experiments will shed light...

How are the extenders connected to the network. Wireless or Wired? If Wireless, what happens when wired?

Extender Firmware up to date?

You mention vista hp... I'm guessing this is the old HTPC?
Are there any old recorded tv shows available from this box. Could they be copied to the new HTPC and played over the extender?

How are the extenders connected to their TVs? S-Video?

Strange problem indeed!

Masterpiece

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#296209 4-Feb-2010 21:31

Sounds like a colour space issue to me.

The basic problem for most ppl is, for the majority of the locally sourced gear, TV,DVD/BD players etc the colourspace choice and other settings are sorted automatically.(most of the time)

With computer based systems this is less so automatic as choice based upon installation or configuration.
Region or localisation can play a part in base settings.
Video card settings can play a part, actually the main part.

First mistake for most is a setting deriving the range of video information. For PC's the default is 0~255, for video 16~235 where 16 is black and 235 is white. The Tv itself will handle 0~255, ie pictures etc however set video at 0~255 and you will damage the image dynamic range and cause artifacts.

The colourspace for PC's, is generally sRGB, this is basically the same as HD rec709 as Freeview and Hidef material; except the first issue I pointed out.

Now if a setting has been configured for NTSC/ATSC colourspace and you view PAL or HD material the colours will get screwed about, most noticeable in skin tones and other visual cues.

Finially, what I discribed above may not be the actual cause.
It could be a calibration issue, that is, the display itself is most likely in default settings which invariably are woeful relative to the reference standards, it may or maynot be totally apparent at first glance.
Then add the computer which itself has it's own default out of the box look, which again can be artistic in nature. Add the 2 together and you can have what you discribe, overblown overstaurated with core settings so far away from the encoded standards that the result becomes noticeable to all.

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CYaBro

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#296248 4-Feb-2010 23:26

We've checked the video settings on the extenders and they are set to pal.
They are connected to the tvs with composite video and firmwares are up to date.

I will check and see if there are any old recordings from the vista setup.

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

Masterpiece

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#296311 5-Feb-2010 08:51

Composite video can suffer all sorts of ills, chroma bug is the major one.

Without measurement and reference devices it can be difficult to isolate these sort of issues because you can't trust any part of the signal train as being true and correct in the first place.

You say one of your customers? WHo do you work for? Installer?

Oh something to try, grab a DVD player, preferably a standard PAL DVD and use a PAL disk DVD, avoid any form of scaling or gamut changes. ie set to PAL
CHeck if the image looks correct from this source through the chain.

Me:"I'm not a robot!"

ET: "Maybe; you have some freewill, but you chose your path by arrangement"

Me "That sounds like a program with no freewill?"

ET: "We will catch up when you end this cycle"

Me: "Sounds like a 'KPI'!"

ET: "Did you read the terms and conditions?"

Me: .....

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CYaBro

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#296337 5-Feb-2010 10:25

Masterpiece: Composite video can suffer all sorts of ills, chroma bug is the major one.

Without measurement and reference devices it can be difficult to isolate these sort of issues because you can't trust any part of the signal train as being true and correct in the first place.

You say one of your customers? WHo do you work for? Installer?

Oh something to try, grab a DVD player, preferably a standard PAL DVD and use a PAL disk DVD, avoid any form of scaling or gamut changes. ie set to PAL
CHeck if the image looks correct from this source through the chain.

I work for myself :) My wife & I own a small IT/Home Automation company in Whangarei.

I have just been told that my other tech did try another Linksys DMA2200 with the DVD built in and DVDs play fine.
I think there must be something happening between the HTPC Win7 box and the extenders when streaming live or recorded TV.

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

rvangelder

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#296355 5-Feb-2010 11:21

Hey Whangarei. That's where I live!

1. Have you tried connecting the extender into the network wired, instead of wireless?

2. I suspect a quirk with the tv tuners.
Assuming their box is called WinOld. Take a fresh Windows 7 box to their place (WinNew)
Turn off WinOld, take out 1 of the TV Tuners, put WinOld in the corner for a sec.
Put the TV Tuner in WinNew. Install TV Tuner drivers on WinNew.
Pair an Extender to WinNew. Does Live TV still get the colour problem?

Nety

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#296356 5-Feb-2010 11:21

To me it sounds like the Linksys is not fully compatible with either or both Windows 7 and our Freeview HD service. Have you had a look on the Linksys support sites to see if anyone else is having the same issues?

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rvangelder

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#296358 5-Feb-2010 11:25

I am running Linksys DMA2100 with Windows 7 using DVB-S as a source via Hauppauge Nova-S-Plus cards. Live TV and Recorded TV work perfectly to the extenders.

It's most likely the analogue signal processed and stored by the PVR150 is not compatible with the extender.

Masterpiece

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#296388 5-Feb-2010 12:53

Check the HTPC, look at the video card settings, could be set to NTSC or is triggered to run NTSC.

Check that no one has set colours to anything but defaults,

Check and try the video card set to cinema modes.

Check and try setting advanced video settings, 4:4:4 to 4:2:2

Me:"I'm not a robot!"

ET: "Maybe; you have some freewill, but you chose your path by arrangement"

Me "That sounds like a program with no freewill?"

ET: "We will catch up when you end this cycle"

Me: "Sounds like a 'KPI'!"

ET: "Did you read the terms and conditions?"

Me: .....

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RustyGonad

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#296397 5-Feb-2010 13:10

Its 2010 - analog should be dead and buried.

Two cheap DVB-S tuners, One $50 card reader, and $43 worth of DVBLink TVSource - you could/should cure the problems forever. Let alone getting rid of a mess of decoders, cables, missed channel changes, crappy analog picture, lack of 16:9 support etc etc etc. You've probably wasted twice that in time already trying to cure it...

Nothing in Windows 7 is designed for analog anymore... There's plenty of "stuff" in there designed to protect content which may be causing the issues.

Nety

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#296398 5-Feb-2010 13:14

@rvangelder, DVB-S freeview uses very common standards. However our Freeview |HD service does use standards which are not common globally which is why many devices including extenders have issues with it.

@Masterpiece, he is not having an issue on the HTPC. It is only happening on the extenders. As Windows 7 MC just saves the data stream to the HDD no video card settings on the HTPC are going to affect playback via the extenders.

EDIT: Doh missed the first part of the post. Is not using Freeview |HD not sure where I got that from. So reply to Masterpiece stands but rvangelder does not.

CYaBro

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#296410 5-Feb-2010 13:44

RustyGonad: Its 2010 - analog should be dead and buried.

Two cheap DVB-S tuners, One $50 card reader, and $43 worth of DVBLink TVSource - you could/should cure the problems forever. Let alone getting rid of a mess of decoders, cables, missed channel changes, crappy analog picture, lack of 16:9 support etc etc etc. You've probably wasted twice that in time already trying to cure it...

Nothing in Windows 7 is designed for analog anymore... There's plenty of "stuff" in there designed to protect content which may be causing the issues.

You have to have the correct Sky card for that to work don't you?
Also they have two Sky decoders so will it work with two card readers?

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

Masterpiece

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#296416 5-Feb-2010 14:09

Whilst I agree that the HTPC running win7 runs very well with HD Freeview, Win7 has a degree of auto sync which can cause issues when sending ANY format.

Basically as you say the extender may be the ultimate cause, the HTPC has difficulty detecting what to send as a medium. ie do I send HD, PAL or derivative.
Hence my reasoning behind just trying to enforce a few settings on the HTPC, wasn't pointing the finger of blame this bit.
In the end when dealing with mixed arrays of video chains you are always dealing with compromise.

As a side note, PAL gamut standards are not too disimilar with HD, Rec709, only blue is a little distance away. The secondarys though are derived in PAL by an automatic transform that self adjusts, hence why you never see/saw hue adjustment controls on PAL based TV's. Note now you see Hue adjustment on HD based TVs.
My reasoning behind this comment is again to do with the combination of PAL based extender and sRGB/HD based HTPC....just maybe the HTPC is not communicating with the extender correctly.

In the end it may be a case of unresolvable, however this shouldn't be a reason not just to try to enforce a few settings on one of the components(HTPC) to see if it works.

Me:"I'm not a robot!"

ET: "Maybe; you have some freewill, but you chose your path by arrangement"

Me "That sounds like a program with no freewill?"

ET: "We will catch up when you end this cycle"

Me: "Sounds like a 'KPI'!"

ET: "Did you read the terms and conditions?"

Me: .....

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