DVB-S, mediaportal and blurred action

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › DVB-S, mediaportal and blurred action - upgrade time?

password1

64 posts

Master Geek

# 21119 16-Apr-2008 11:16

Hi all

Have been enjoying freeview on my HTPC through mediaportal for a little while now, but have noticed that when there is action on the screen, the things moving quickly are very blurry. this happens in live tv and when playing back recorded tv. It doesn't happen when using mediaportal to play DVDs. Picture is fine with slow movements.

I'm guessing it's a hardware problem. Everything I've got is pretty old but works well enough - which part is most probably the bottleneck?

P4 2.4, 1Gb DDR400, 6200AGP low profile, Nova-S, inside a HP compaq D510 small form factor case

Thanks
Scott.

Disrespective

1846 posts

Uber Geek

# 123993 16-Apr-2008 12:00

Can you give us some more info on your TV? Some older LCD's had a lot of trouble with tearing due to their refresh rate. Sounds to me like that is the problem. Has it always happened?

sbiddle

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# 124015 16-Apr-2008 12:52

What MPEG2 decoder and renderer are you using?

password1

64 posts

Master Geek

# 124037 16-Apr-2008 13:28

Thanks for replies

TV is a Panasonic CRT - TX32-F500A - screen refresh is currently set at 100Hz. S-video from Pc to composite plugs.
Could change 75Hz (=833i). Progressive scan is just ugly.

Sbiddle - I've not installed any MPEG2 decoder or renderer other than that which came with Mediaportal and WMP11. What would you recommend I try?

Vorbis

176 posts

Master Geek

# 124133 16-Apr-2008 18:04

I spent ages on my shiny new E8200 8800GT 2 gig Vista Monster trying to play with codecs etc under mediaportal to stop stuttering and other random weirdness whilst watching freeview/movies off hard-drive.
That machine is now being downgraded to something more suitable for my needs, in the meantime I've got a centrino-based laptop with a 6600 card in it, running mediaportal under WinXP. I've left all codecs as mediaportal defaults and the results are fantastic.

Could be you vid card...does it support hardware mpeg2 decoding?

richms

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# 124195 16-Apr-2008 22:10

password1: Thanks for replies

TV is a Panasonic CRT - TX32-F500A - screen refresh is currently set at 100Hz. S-video from Pc to composite plugs.
Could change 75Hz (=833i). Progressive scan is just ugly.

Sbiddle - I've not installed any MPEG2 decoder or renderer other than that which came with Mediaportal and WMP11. What would you recommend I try?

I have a panasonic with the same image processor in it. Could never get it working right from the svideo or composite inputs without tearing and weird artifacts on horizontal lines (like when there are blinds in a scene it would get patches where the looked to almost invert) - Also on horizontal pans vertical lines break apart

It will be much worse with a PC driving it since it will be deinterlacing it into the frame buffer and then reinterlacing after scaling it on the tv out chip, possibly with vertical filtering to reduce flicker.

And if you use component you are stuck with 50Hz modes if you dont want it to go all juddery when panning etc, which means you will have the flicker problem that progressive mode out of the deinterlacer will give you.

Sorry to say it but your stuck with crap deinterlacing since thats what these panasonics have in them :( Film is ok off dvd because its not really interlaced to start with.

Richard rich.ms

password1

64 posts

Master Geek

# 124285 17-Apr-2008 09:19

Thanks for that. So I guess the upgrade will have to include a new TV as well :)

richms

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# 124332 17-Apr-2008 11:07

Pretty much, there is no way to get the interlaced video out of a PC as transmitted, but even on unmollested interlaced video those panasonics do many artifacts on movement. 100Hz mode seems to have less then the 833 line 75i mode, but still enough to make watching it result in a few obscenities being screamed at it a few times an hour. I havent had a screen less plesent to watch since then I had a pixel plus philips to try briefly.

If you can get component out of your video card try the different progressive modes, you may find something a little more tollerable then what you are getting now.

Oh, and you lose PiP with progressive in. Great eh...

Richard rich.ms

sneakattack

36 posts

Geek

# 124362 17-Apr-2008 12:18

I have the same problem, but hooked up to my Samsung 32" TV via VGA. It's weird and I've tried all sorts of codecs to try and smoothen the playback. It's quite noticable on TVNZ 7 during the news with the ticker. I've pressed Shift+1 to get the debug info and it's doing ~25fps. It definately isn't as smooth as, say, Sky (I can actually tell it is a lot smoother on there, with moving text being a lot nicer to look at).

I haven't used it to watch DVDs that much so can't comment there, nor watched video with fast action shots for comparison.

What codecs do people use? I'm using the MPV decoder.

sneakattack

36 posts

Geek

# 124909 19-Apr-2008 11:43

Last night I had a play and added the "DScaler MPEG2 Video Decoder" post processing filter and it gave a somewhat better image. Not perfect however, framerate seems to go from silky smooth to "just-as-before", but with less blurriness (i.e. I can read the ticker on TVNZ 7 clearly now). I'm going to be upgrading to Vista soon anyway, so get to toy with a clean slate again.

password1

64 posts

Master Geek

# 125799 23-Apr-2008 10:12

Had a closer look at the problem last night. I paused playbeck during an advertisement that had fast moving lines (vertical and horizontal). All lines had 'shadows' that were also paused, so I don't think it's a TV issue. Maybe two images are being displayed?

sneakattack

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# 126382 25-Apr-2008 21:41

Have you tried playing some of the video in something like Media Player Classic? And have you added the codec's filter to the TV Post Processing page and enabled it?

Also, have you upgraded to RC1 yet? They have been working on the new TS Reader lately so there may be some performance improvements.

richms

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# 126385 25-Apr-2008 21:58

password1: Had a closer look at the problem last night. I paused playbeck during an advertisement that had fast moving lines (vertical and horizontal). All lines had 'shadows' that were also paused, so I don't think it's a TV issue. Maybe two images are being displayed?

Can you get a picture of whats happening?

Richard rich.ms

password1

64 posts

Master Geek

# 127245 30-Apr-2008 09:25

Thanks for the suggestions

This is what I was enduring
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/8426/exadbp5.png

I tried the Dscaler codecs and found the frame rate dropped noticeably. And TV3 did a weird thing where if I paused the playback, the audio kept going but the video stopped.

Solution was to install the full k-lite codec pack. Something in that suite worked, because the blurriness has gone now. I think I also selected a media player codec, but can't remember.

password1

64 posts

Master Geek

# 132299 21-May-2008 11:55

Update - coedc pack didn't resolve all issues. But this did

http://www.100fps.com <-- showed me that my issue was to do with interlacing

Then set the following in MP config:

Television - MPEG-2 video decoder - MPV video filter
- interlace method - bob

Directshow filter control - MPV decoder - deinterlace method - bob

Picture is now perfect. No need for additional codecs or fluffing around with Powerstrip

This setting works brilliantly on my 32 widescreen CRT

--------------

Actually, it didn't, it lead to all sorts of flaring and squares on the video. This is what seems to be working well
I uninstalled all codec packs
I installed nvidia purevideo - all set to defaults in mediaportal (MPEG-2). Also using purevideo for the audio - otherwise the iming seems to be a bit out.
I uninstalled the current 6200A videocard drivers and replaced them with the 84.15 set

Without the older video card drivers, I was having lots of stuttering and jerking in the mediaportal video using just the purevideo codecs.

Powerstrip doesn't seem to have any impact, other than making the proportions of things seems a bit squashed at 720x576 @50hz

Rolling back directx to 9b (by downlaoding quartz.zip) had some strange and not good impacts, so I reversed that.