Big Picture Quality?

[mn3kgtvr4]

From reading many reviews on Avsforum, SageTV sounds like a real winner. My concern, though, is the picture quality resulting from using these hardware MPEG cards on a large projection screen.

Using standard analoge cable, I'm able to get a watchable picture using a BT878 or CX23883 based card. Using a card compatible with Dscaler results in a great picture with filtering and better deinterlacing techniques.

I'm assuming that watching television using one of the hardware MPEG cards is really watching a scaled-up MPEG image. I'm also assuming this results in a poorer image on a big screen. Am I correct? I really want to use SageTV, but I also require a high quality picture.

I haven't tried one of the hardware cards so I'm curious if others are happy with the picture quality on a projection screen setup.

My system:

A7N8X Dlx MB
AMD 3000+
Radeon 9800 Pro
Accessdtv HDTV
Prolink Pixelview PlayTV PVR (software recording tuner card)
XGA LCD Projector
6 foot wide screen

[JJarmoc]

I'm not using a projection screen, but the picture from SageTV through Dscaler is noticably clearer than from my TiVo on a 34XBR800. If you're comfortable with the PQ from TiVo or replay, SageTV should be noticably improved, especially with Dscaler.

[mn3kgtvr4]

Do the Hauppauge cards (or others) work well with Dscaler utilizing the tuner on the card or only with an external tuner (VCR, cable box, etc.)?

I would like to use the tuner on the card and have audio work as well which doesn't always happen with Dscaler.

[Mark Lamutt]

Keep in mind that the SageTV uses dscaler plugins, not the dscaler software itself. SageTV works very well with just the tuners on the capture cards, and then processes the video output through dscaler plugins to improve the picture quality. Audio isn't an issue because SageTV deals with the audio, not the plugins.

The capture cards that SageTV supports are not supported under the dscaler software package because the capture cards are hardware based, and the dscaler software package only supports software based capture cards based on the bt787(?) chipset.

[mn3kgtvr4]

Thanks Mark. Now, given that quality on the big screen is important, can you recommend one card over the other for pq or are they all pretty much using the same chip/have same quality of playback?

[Mark Lamutt]

I'd recommend the PVR-250 or PVR-350 Hauppauge cards. I'm using the PVR-350 on my 51" Sony HDTV, and the quality is very good. Quality doesn't look HD (that us until SageTV starts recording HDTV :D), but it's every bit as good as my dish network source standalone.

[JJarmoc]

I've got the PVR-250, and what Mark described applies pretty well to this card also. It's definitely one of the better looking SD sources I've seen. Like Mark, I'll be ecstatic when Sage supports HD.

[mn3kgtvr4]

Great. That's a comparison I needed. I've watched MPEG2 recordings done via software like PowerVCR and the quality just got degraded so much I wouldn't be able to enjoy watching anything. If the Hauppauge/Sage setup could get it as good as a DSS feed, I'll be plenty happy.

BTW, I've got an Accessdtv card so here's another vote to support HDTV!!

[JJarmoc]

When they get HDTV support in, I'm sure a lot of the AVS HTPC folks will start using Sage... HDTV recording as it stands now works, but just barely. Sage+HDTV would probably be the first elegant HDTV Timeshifting solution. I'd bet they'll beat Tivo, Replay, et al to the punch, and at a lower pricepoint to boot.

Go Sage!

[Mark Lamutt]

Getting closer and closer all the time to the HDTV thing. But, it'll be on a card by card basis because all of the HD tuner cards work differently. Jeff has mentioned that there has been the beginnings of talks with the MyHD folks, and I've been working with him with the Hipix. AccessDTV should become easier once the AVS open-source development team gets started on that front. As for the Fusion and HiDTV cards, I have no idea at this point.

But, we're getting close with the Hipix card right now. Unless things go downhill from here, that'll probably be the first one supported, even though it's no longer readily available.

[jimbobuk]

I use Sage with my PVR-250 through my monitor, tv, and panasonic 300E projector...

The image is very pleasing.. I've not seen tivo before but i assume its interlaced throughout and will be better than PVR-250 with faster moving scenes... it can blur a little to a lot with these types of scenes... the decoding can help with this but i've not found a perfect solution yet... the projector sometimes makes DVDs feel a little this way with motion so its even more evident with this tv card... all in all though with the encoding set to dvd standard the recording is very nice... as good as it was originally :)

I am also having hiccups in the video stream which vary from every couple of minutes to not happening for an hour or more at a time... hauppauge are apparently on the case of this hopefully.. it seems to vary on an individual setup by setup basis...

Overall i think you'll be happy with Sage driving your projector.. the progressive input of your PC always helps.. I'll be getting a sky digital satelite box in the room shortly and will test that interlaced over RGB scart to the same box through SVIDEO hopefully via my PVR.. i'll be able to comment then on how PVR-250 compares with as high quality a tv stream as we can get in the UK (no hdtv :( ) on a projector...

[mn3kgtvr4]

""Here is one catch: to watch video on your desktop, it must be decoded via software. The HW decoder only works on the S/composite output.
The software decoder really chokes up my machine, and will consume 70-80% cpu time. I always disable the software decoder "playlocal" option when starting the wintv2000 software. There is currently no way to disable the playlocal option when starting the software, it always defaults to on.
Because of the encode/decode process, there is a significant delay, which will make video games unplayable, channel changing un-enjoyable, and navigating OSD's of other boxes a tricky process. ""

This is a quote I found from a user on Avsforums. This concerns me a bit since the only Output I'll want to use is the VGA from my video card to my projector. I'll also want to input via Svideo my Gamecube to be run through my pc and out to the projector. I do have a strong processor in my PC, but if there's going to be sound delays, frame drops, etc. due to the extra decoding being done this may be an unworkable solution for me. Any similar experiences? The reviewer was talking about the PVR 350.

[JJarmoc]

I'm running a PVR-250 and displaying video on my HDTV via a VGA->Component adapter. I haven't experienced CPU being anywhere near that high, even with Dscaler going on playback. Windowed playback works fine for me, though I usually run sage in full screen. This is on an Athlon XP2600+ with 512MB of 333mhz DDR though.

I have an xbox and a ps2 but I haven't run either of them through the PC. They both have component video adapters, and the xbox runs a lot of games at HD resolutions, so doing so would be counterproductive in my case.

In theory though, I'd have to agree with what they said on that point. Delay caused by encoding/decoding the video stream would make it really hard to play. Sage has a buffer, so the effect would probably be exaggerated even more so than 'live' with other applications, but I doubt either would be acceptable. You'd have a lag time between pressing a button, and seeing the screen update. If you want, I'd be willing to hook up the xbox and try it since I never have, but it doesn't seem likely to yield acceptable results to me.

[mn3kgtvr4]

I appreciate all the helpful answers. I just have one more question as I'm sitting here with my credit card in hand..

The only real complaints I've read on avsforum regarding these Hauppauge cards is with the OEM software. I'm assuming running SageTV negates the need for the OEM software and Hauppauge's somewhat notorius lack of support?

[mn3kgtvr4]

Thanks for the insight. My quest is for a "one box" solution for my home entertainment. I could run the Gamecube directly to my projector but that would entail running another cable through my ceiling which is not desireable. I have great luck running it through my current tuner card, but there's no encoding/decoding being done so it's just like running it to a t.v. I can see now this would be an issue. I do have an extra PCI slot, though, so I could keep my current card for the Gamecube. That's a thought.

[Mark Lamutt]

mn3kgtvr4 - on my celeron 1 ghz computer, I average about 15-20% cpu load when SageTV is running normally and I'm watching television. This is with a PVR-350. In sleep mode, my cpu load is around 5%. I've watched a dvd, recorded a high definition program and have SageTV recording NTSC all at the same time with no hiccups or problems at all. As for video games through it, I don't believe any of us ever tested that case, so I can't really say how it would do. Because SageTV buffers everything, I doubt it would be a good solution, but anythings possible.

[jimbobuk]

there is a way for the PVR-250 to let the stream through un-encoded... not via SageTV... but some users on SHSPVR have been experimenting with dvdgraphs for doing this.. I believe its working tho i'm not sure if sound is ok... some peoples machines bizarely take a big CPU hit doing this...

I am interested in at least trying to get this working but have not had a go yet.. and am unsure what programs are needed to do it... I doubt the quality would be that much better than your current tv card though, and its really the PVR working in a way its not meant to... still interesting though

[dkardatzke]

Originally posted by mn3kgtvr4
I appreciate all the helpful answers. I just have one more question as I'm sitting here with my credit card in hand..

The only real complaints I've read on avsforum regarding these Hauppauge cards is with the OEM software. I'm assuming running SageTV negates the need for the OEM software and Hauppauge's somewhat notorius lack of support?

You are correct, SageTV is a separate third party application that runs outside of the WinTV 2000 app. I recommend installing the Hauppauge application because it helps with troubleshooting in certain instances to see if issues are hardware related or software related. Plus you still need the drivers installed for SageTV to recognize the card and you may want to use the Intervideo decoder that comes with the PVR-250.

[mn3kgtvr4]

All good news. You'll have a new customer as soon as I receive my pvr350 (I like the FM option). I'll just use my existing tuner/capture card for the video games. Looking forward to trying out Sage.

[BillQPublick]

Wondering if you had any difficulty setting SageTV to work with the PixelView PlayTV PVR card. My first attempt with the trial version resulted in a crash. Since my PVR case is about the same height as a VCR my choice of tuner cards is limited (PixelView and FlyVideo only, AFAIK). But if the PixelView does work I'm ready to buy the full version, plus an IR tranceiver.

Thanks in advance for your help.
BillQPublick

[dkardatzke]

What chipset does the PlayTV PVR card use. Currently we only support hardware based MPEG-2 encoding cards like the PVR-250 from Hauppauge.

[Funky D]

I'm pretty new to Sage myself, and I'm having the exact problem that is being described here....

I'm projecting onto a 100" screen, and some channels (usually ones with fast movement, like sporting events) look downright awful. The pixelation and blur effects are miles away from what the standard cable feed on a CRT look like. I'm sure this is because the MPEG encoding is working double time (hard to encode effectively, possibly hard to decode, but CPU usage is still minimal).

So many places to try to improve this....

Try a new decoder? (any suggestions?)
Use Dscaler? Will this solve all my problems?
Just can't be done?

I'd love to hear more about people's success/frustration with dscaler. It's integration into Sage's fairly spartan configuration options makes me think it's likely a good move....

On a related subject, I'm pretty sure I have more than enough horsepower for all the things I'm trying to do, but with the timeshifting, changing channels still takes a second or two. Shouldn't this be seamless, or you I need to start troubleshooting my setup?

Mucho Thankso,

Funky D

[jmeeks]

What do you have your recording quality settings set to?

Sporting events quite often are not very good quality broadcasts.

I wouldn't expect a 100" projection to ever look like a 27" TV. You just get to see all the poor quality of the broadcast. The hardware MPEG2 encoding can match DVD quality.

The channel changing will not be instantaneous. The playback is always recorded to the hard disk first and then played back from there. This buffer required is small, but that's why you won't get instant channel changing.

[mlbdude]

Don't forget that Sage is using the VBR capabilities of the Hauppauge drivers as well. So it is recording at the lowest bitrate it can for the quality setting. Then, as it detects that more bits are needed, it starts to rasie to the maximum allowed. It can take a seceond or two for this to happen. I notice this on fast moving scenes (rain, water expecially) but it usually cleans up quickly.

[Funky D]

Well, I have the recording quality set to 2gb/hr, so I'm pretty sure the bitrate is high enough.

No, no.... sporting events are usually broadcast just fine... you've never heard millions upon millions of people complaining about them, have you?

Hmmm, mlbdude's and jmeek's comments contradict each other. Fast motion is where I usually see a lot of pixelation, and blurring in other parts of the video. Constant changing motion (like football, basketball) seem to distort the picture quality all over the screen.

I've tried dscaler (with the elecard mpeg2 decoder) but no great change.

Maybe I'll start re-examining my cable feed to that computer....

D

[jmeeks]

I don't see the contradiction. Although I wasn't taking into account the possibility of VBR causing the pixelation of fast motion on a temporary basis.

I thought there was a way to specify CBR vs. VBR. I'll have to look that up.

Millions and millions of people do not view NTSC broadcasts on a 100" size screen. They just don't see what your seeing, but it's there. I've seen large fluctuations in quality and quite often some sporting events are terrible. In fact, I can see these quality variations a lot easier using SageTV on a 21" monitor than on the 27" tv.

I agree with you on verifying your input feed as well. I know I had a problem with that. (because of too many splitters) and after resolving that, and improving the signal, our reception even on a regular tv was greatly improved.

[jmeeks]

Ok, I figured out how to check and change if you are recording VBR or CBR.

Go to Detailed Setup, Multimedia, click on Video Capture Settings (Advanced). Click the Video Properties tab. There you will see a box for bitrate mode. Select Constant Bitrate or Variable Bitrate as desired. (I have mine set to Constant Bitrate)

[Narflex]

For sports, 2GB/hr is not really sufficient. I recommend the 3GB/hr setting (Best) for recording sports. At that level, there's almost no discernable artifacts introduced.

[Xleon]

mn3kgtvr4, your'll want to run the Cube straight to the projector and not put things in it's signal path. That really goes for most things. If you can avoid it, don't go through the PC.

I have a RGB SCART switcher so the Sky Digi, HTPC, GameCube can use the RGB cables to my Sony VPL-VW10HT projector and it makes a big difference. This also means you only need one set of RGB leads.

I've not actually tried Sage on the projector, even though it's connected, so I'll give it a try. Though, I have a Provideo 256T (very good compression quality) and the Sigma Xcard which is ideal for the projector as it can to progressive, SVHS, RGB and HD.


Funky D, I'd recommend 4Mbs as drive space is chepa now and that equates to about 2.3Gb ish used per hour with a 120Gb drive gives you 75 hours approx.
If you burn that to a DVD, it gives you 2 hours per DVD.

[Funky D]

Wow, thanks for the help guys... I'm really looking forward to getting this picture as clear as possible.

4gb/hr. Whoa. I have the space for it, but still, that's pretty steep.

I have plenty of processor power available. Has anyone tried a different codec (Divx, Xvid, etc) or even 2gb/sec at a lower resolution? Honestly, I'm using a basic cable feed, so am I really gaining that much from 720x480?

Very slight gains with dscaler. I'm still on the hunt it appears. :)

D

[Xleon]

Funky D, 4Gb/hr is quite a lot. Try using something lower, such as 4Mbs which eats us about about 2.3Gb/hr (ish) and work from there!

[Funky D]

Xleon, the presets in Sage are geared (though config) to GB/hr. Not mbs.

I had been using 2... but people are making me think that might not handle sports and the like.

D

[Funky D]

A-HA!

FINALLY, I have found the reason my recordings look so horrible...

It has something to do with the way Sage is decoding the mpeg2.

Most players (WMP, Zoomplayer, etc) Rely on internal calls to display video through software decoding. I think something is wacky with the mpeg decoder. Playing my recordings through ZP has them looking GREAT.

I looked in the settings to see if there was a way to enable pure software decoding, but no luck. Perhaps it's because I'm using 1.3.8 instead of the 1.4 RC2. Is that what everyone else is using?

Odd, as I tried a few different decoders, but maybe it was always hitting the hardware instead. It's funny that every windows app that displays video has these recordings looking amazing, yet Sage (the creator) can't seem to stream it out without pixelation.

If anyone knows what the problem might be, please feel free to give me a smack with the 2x4 of knowledge.

D

[Narflex]

Set your Video & Audio Decoders to be Default. That's what everything does for playback. I also highly recommend an ugrade to 1.4 (it's released now).

[Funky D]

Hmmmm, no dice. Viewing live tv and recorded shows is still showing a good deal of pixelation that doesn't appear when used with another viewer.

I'll try the RC2 next... possibly it has something different in this arena?

D

[Funky D]

Well, 1.4 isn't the huge change from 1.3.8 I was hoping. :)

I'm still getting the bad pixelation. Not sure if FDDSHOW is cleaning up the signal from the other players, or if Sage just isn't making the same calls.

All my filters are set to default.

Sigh... I'm running out of options, as I can only reproduce this problem within SageTV. No other player is distorting the picture. I'm on a fresh machine build here, so it's odd that nobody has run into this issue before. Can't think it's anything to do with the hauppage drivers, as the encoding is being done just fine. It's Sages playback that's the real burner. :bang:

D

[Narflex]

Playback a file in WMP. Then go to File->Properties. That'll tell you what Video & Audio decoders you're using to play it back. Select the same ones inside SageTV. Also, select Overlay for the video renderer.

[Funky D]

Thanx Nar, that did it... although I couldn't use the same audio decoder without it crashing.

It makes me wonder what Sage is doing when you set it to "Default". I would have guessed that it means windows default, but no dice.

Also, perhaps a suggestion (hopefully saving someone from doing as much troubleshooting as I had to do): After changing the mpeg2 decoder, a msgbox should display that these settings will take effect the next time you start SageTV.

D