Hauppauge MVP darkness / too red issue?

[valnar]

I've read a couple posts here and other forums about the MVP having a darkness issue and/or pushing too much red. Of course, I didn't read any of these posts until I bought one, since I then noticed the problem myself. Funny thing is I have the latest "H3" revision with digital-out. I thought these were supposed to be okay?

Well, I know my recordings are okay because I've got several different tuners and they look fine my on main HTPC connected to my TV through an ATI Radeon 9600 card. When I play back any file on my PC they look fine. The best test of course is HD which can only come one way, as there is no contrast/brightness adjustments made on the stream as it is saved.

I've tried the MVP on two different TV's I own with the composite output - my 19" bedroom TV (it's intended target) and my main 36" TV in the family room with the HTPC locally attached. It was easy to flip between the two Sage instances on the 36" TV, so there is no question it's darker and the colors are off.

What I've read here and other places is the same complaint, and one person suggested I should open a ticket with Hauppauge to get it fixed as it's a known issue. What I have not read anywhere is followup after the surgery. Has anyone had this done by Hauppauge and it fixed it? If there is no hope, I'll send back the MVP to Sage and get my money back. I suppose I'll have to build my own.

-Robert

[paulbeers]

Have you tried using the svideo out? I have 2 older MVP's (one even came with the 35? button remote). One is hooked up using the Svideo and one is hooked up using composite. The composite one seems to have more red. If I remember correctly (its been awhile), that the one I had hooked with svideo, I orginally had hooked up with composite and switching made a difference. I could be wrong though.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Have you tried using the svideo out?

Not unless there's a cheap composite->svideo adapter I could buy to try.

Robert

Edit. Duh. Of course there is. Hitting eBay now....

[paulbeers]

I am not guarenteeing that it will fix your problem. If you have a tv with both composite and svideo, I would give it a try first.

[tmiranda]

From what I've heard many people have returned the unit to Hauppauge and the replacements worked fine. It can't hurt to RMA it and see what happens.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by valnar

Not unless there's a cheap composite->svideo adapter I could buy to try.

Robert

Edit. Duh. Of course there is. Hitting eBay now....

That totally defeats the purpose of S-video in the first place and probably isn't going to change anything. Does your TV not have an S-video input on it? The purpose of S-video is to separate the chrominance and luminance signals. When they are on the same wires like composite video they tend to interfere with each other and you get weird color effects where there should be none.

If neither your TV nor any other equipment has an S-video input on it then there's no real point in getting an adapter because you're just repeating what the MVP is already doing with it's own composite output.

As a side note, on SD there is no substitute for S-video. It gives such a nice sharp image compared with composite. If you have the means and the equipment it is very much preferable to composite.

[derelicte1]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

From what I've heard many people have returned the unit to Hauppauge and the replacements worked fine. It can't hurt to RMA it and see what happens.

True, but people are returning much older revisions which are being replaced with revision h3, which is what the op has. I'm not sure a replacement will fix this issue.

All analog output devices have differences in their output levels and require slight adjustments to color/brightness/hue etc. The 15% decrease in brightness quoted by the op is significantly different that the brightness issues I had with my two d3a versions. The output on my older versions was about 50% as bright as it should have been.

[valnar]

Does your TV not have an S-video input on it? The purpose of S-video is to separate the chrominance and luminance signals.

No this TV does not. Yes, I know how S-video works. Last year I used to have a Sage Client PC on this TV running WinXP, with a Matrox G400 card, but my wife didn't want a PC near the bedroom TV anymore. It looked fine.

If neither your TV nor any other equipment has an S-video input on it then there's no real point in getting an adapter because you're just repeating what the MVP is already doing with it's own composite output.

You are probably right, but the adapter was only $6.00. And I don't know enough about the MVP to know if the circuitry controlling the composite vs s-video output are linked or discrete. In either case, I doubt that's the problem. The picture quality is noticeably inferior to the point that any gains in s-video couldn't possibly bring it up to par.

True, but people are returning much older revisions which are being replaced with revision h3, which is what the op has

Now that statement really worries me. I hope I just got in with a bad batch, or it's back to my Matrox enabled PC.

-Robert

[valnar]

I called Hauppauge tech support today because it was taking them too long to read my email. They admitted there were problems with earlier versions of the MVP, but this is the "first they've heard" about a rev H3 unit with the issue. Well, I told them I was the lucky one.

They reluctantly agreed to give me an RMA after I described the problem in detail. I'll ship it tomorrow.

Robert

[valnar]

Well, I got a replacement back and it doesn't look any better. There was nothing listed on the packing slip or anything about what was done.

At this point, I can only assume the design is flawed. All my other output devices, be it a Sage PC client, DVD player, VCR, etc. look fine on every TV I own. I think there was a post somewhere about how to mod this unit to fix the brightness issue. I'll look into that.

Robert

[Taddeusz]

Sure you don't just need to calibrate your TV's settings?

Digital sources vs live TV do tend to be over saturated because the image is so pure. Kind of like how a game console looks on a TV with such pure colors.