Jumpy picture on some programmes

[harryf]

As I am still very new to Sage TV, I have to ask a basic question. Some Freeview programmes have a very poor, jumpy picture, the worst is BBC News 24, while others are fine. It does not seem to be related to the multiplex that they are on. I have been using an indoor aerial, so I took the setup downstairs and used the main loft aerial connection but the results were the same. The loft aerial was installed when I had OnDigital tv, one of their engineers put it in, so I would have thought it would be suitable for Freeview. I am using a Nova T 500 card.

Any thoughts?

[John@TunerUK]

If you go to setup, then go to setup video sources, and then channel list I think it is, by hitting 'View' on the choppy channels you can view their signal strength.
You may need a booster right where the aerial enters the house if the signal is poor.

Have you tried viewing these channels with the software that came with the TV card, just to narrow it down to either the card/drivers or the software?

[harryf]

Thanks, John. I had checked the signal strength as you suggested and it was fine, but there is no check for signal quality, so that may be a problem. I will try using WinTV and see if that is better.

[harryf]

Same problem on WinTV. I also tried playing a DVD on the Sage DVD player and that was fine, so it can't be caused by the processor or grafx card.

[jaminben]

Try ScanChannelsBDA UK utility, I think that little app is normally quite accurate for us UK'ers.

http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=12079

Regards

Ben

[harryf]

Try ScanChannelsBDA UK utility, I think that little app is normally quite accurate for us UK'ers.

Thanks, I tried that and signal quality on almost all programmes is 100%, including the ones I am having trouble with. What I have found now is that if I leave a "jumpy" programme on for a few minutes it settles down and is stable. If I then change to another programme and then back to the first one, it is back to being "jumpy" again for a few minutes. Only the video is affected, sound is fine.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by harryf

Thanks, I tried that and signal quality on almost all programmes is 100%, including the ones I am having trouble with. What I have found now is that if I leave a "jumpy" programme on for a few minutes it settles down and is stable. If I then change to another programme and then back to the first one, it is back to being "jumpy" again for a few minutes. Only the video is affected, sound is fine.

That is most strange. What you discribe is exactly the same problem I have and have put up with since buying Sage. I've always put the problem down to my hardware and lack of experience with HTCP's.

Perhaps this a bug with Sage as if it was a signal problem it would do this "Jumpy" thing all the time and not just for the first 5 mins then be fine.

I've also considered that it maybe an epg updating problem but I've disabled over the air now as I'm using xmltv but it still jumps.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

[bartley9]

I occasionally get similar results when I am watching in real-time. There appears to be some conflict with reading from the active part of the stream when it is being written at the same time. Pausing for a few seconds normally clears it.

[harryf]

Update.
If I make a manual recording, when I play it back either in Sage or in Media Player, this fault is there.

[rickgillyon]

If it's the same in WinTV and Sage, it's either a system or tuner problem. If you view the recorded file in WMP, is the problem there?

Do you have the latest drivers for your tuner?

[Opus4]

Is the drive where the recordings are stored formatted using 64K clusters?

- Andy

[jaminben]

My problem is only related to Sage, other programmes like Media Portal or WinTV dont suffer from this. The jumpy picture only lasts for 5 - 10 mins then its fine for the rest of the night until I change the channel to a channel on a diffrent mux.

The really strange thing is my DVB-S channels never have had this problem which would indicate that its not a Sage issue but a tuner/signal issue with my DVB-T setup, but if thats the case why does it only affect Sage and not MP or others programmes.

I've tried many diffrent things from diffrent tuners, new Aerial fitted by an engineer who said that my signal is perfect to fitting inline attenuators, all have the same results. Got really desperate last night and done a fresh install of WinXP and Sage still no luck. I also have a seperate drive for recording which is formatted with 64bit clusters, also tried the default 4k clusters.

I'm still thinking its something to do with the epg trying to update even though I use XMLTV and have disabled epg scanning in the properties file. If it was a signal or tuner problem then it would be jumpy all the time and not for the first 5 - 10 mins of viewing the channel, wouldnt it?

Cheers

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by harryf

Update.
If I make a manual recording, when I play it back either in Sage or in Media Player, this fault is there.

Thats to be expected in my opinion as the file can only be played using the information it has. So if you record a show which has a jumpy picture for 5 mins then no matter what programme you use to play it back it will still have the jumpy picture.
Have you tried watching live TV using Media Portal, WinTV or another peice of software? is it still jumpy?

[jaminben]

I have now solved my issues with the jumpy picture

The solution was to return the Nova T USB back to PC World and replace it with a NOVA-T TD DUAL TUNER USB. http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...&category_oid=
The unit works 100% ok and it works so good I even went and bought another stick so I have 4 DVB-T tuners.

harryf, I believe the Nova T 500 is basically using the Nova T USB tuners but bolted onto a PCI card instead of a USB stick. Perhaps you might want to try and return the card you got and get one of the newer dual USB tuners.

[harryf]

If it's the same in WinTV and Sage, it's either a system or tuner problem. If you view the recorded file in WMP, is the problem there?

I tried viewing it in Media Player on the HTPC and also on another PC and it is still there.

Do you have the latest drivers for your tuner?

Yes.

Is the drive where the recordings are stored formatted using 64K clusters?

I have a separate partition on the drive for Sage recordings, formatted with 64k clusters.

Have you tried watching live TV using Media Portal, WinTV or another peice of software? is it still jumpy?

I tried WinTV and the picture is still jumpy.

Jaminben, I am thinking that your solution of changing the tuner for another type may be the way forward for me too. The reason I bought the Nova T 500 was to have the tuner inside the PC so there was nothing hanging out the back, also, I had checked that other people were using it with no problems. I am wondering now if it is actually faulty.

Thanks everyone for your inputs. If anyone has any other ideas, I would be very pleased to hear them.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by harryf

Jaminben, I am thinking that your solution of changing the tuner for another type may be the way forward for me too. The reason I bought the Nova T 500 was to have the tuner inside the PC so there was nothing hanging out the back, also, I had checked that other people were using it with no problems. I am wondering now if it is actually faulty.

Thanks everyone for your inputs. If anyone has any other ideas, I would be very pleased to hear them.

I was the opersite to you and wanted to keep my pci slots spare for satelite tuners, so usb suited me better. Having said that the new tuners are very slim and dont take up too much room and you also get a very samll usb extension cable which you could use and tape to the back of your pc. You proberly wouldn't even know it was their unless you pulled it out and looked.

Have you tried the M$ hotfix? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896626

Hope it works out for you ok.

[harryf]

I tried the hotfix, but no change. Tried it again with WinTV and noticed that it is unstable for only the first few seconds and then ok. Sorry if I misled anyone. Something I have noticed with either WinTV or Sage is that the picture quality is not very good, it's sort of fuzzy. I get a better picture on my analogue tv in the lounge. Is this normal with these cards?

[rickgillyon]

No, poor picture is not normal. The Terratec cards I have give a better picture than any of my TVs...no jumpy picture. Raise a call with support, there may be problems with your signal.

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by harryf

I get a better picture on my analogue tv in the lounge. Is this normal with these cards?

What sort of TV are you watching it on? or is a PC monitor?

You may also want to consider trying diffrent codecs. I personally prefer Nvidia purevideo for mpeg2 playback.
It also took quite a bit of fiddeling with the Nvidia settings and TV settings before I got a nice picture quality as good or better than normal tv.

[harryf]

I am using a TFT monitor at the moment, connected using VGA. If I play a DVD, the picture is fine so that suggests to me that there is not a problem with the video decoding, but please tell me if I'm wrong.