HD300 Deinterlacing issues with latest firmware

[sagetv5150]

I'm wondering if anyone else has observed something I'm seeing with the latest upgrade to the HD300 beta firmware 201012009-0. My setup is SageTV server V7.0.23.246 with HD300 extender. I'm noticing that when watching interlaced TV captured by my Hauppage HVR-2250 card (either HD or non-HD channels), I now see frequent interlaced video when viewed on a progressive display like my 720p DLP. For example last night's NFL game broadcast on KNBCDT's Cox cable feed (1080i). The fast moving sports makes it more obvious. I never noticed this before the firmware upgrade. I see the same on many of the non-HD (and non-progressive) channels as well.

I started poking around the setup menu of the HD300 (when in standalone mode). I noticed a new menu option under 'Advanced Setup' --> Multimedia. At the very bottom of this menu beneath 'Force HDMI Display Mode' is a new option called 'Motion Adaptive Deinterlacing', with a default value of enabled. While this would seem like a good thing, I wondered if disabling it might help with the HD300's ability to properly deinterlace. After setting this to disabled and restarting in extender mode, I still see a bunch of interlacing. I then went back into this new menu, and noticed it still set to enabled (as though my setting of disabled didn't stick).

I rolled back to the previous firmware 20101007-0 where this menu option isn't even present. And the interlacing goes away. So what happened in the new firmware?

[notverysage]

How can you tell what is interlaced and what is not?

[phelme]

oddly for me with the new beta, Survivor on CBS now has fewer interlacing issues. before it was very noticeable.

[sagetv5150]

Originally Posted by notverysage

How can you tell what is interlaced and what is not?

If you mean how can I tell the content was of an interlaced source vs progressive, I can view the mpg file in VLC and the like on the PC and tell. Or I can find out what the source was broadcast at. For example CBS and NBC's HD sources are at 1080i. ABC and Fox's HD is at 720p.

If you mean what am I seeing that tells me it was interlaced, it is the "combing" effect you see when one interlaced field follows another interlaced field 1/60 of a second apart on fast moving motion. Resulting in combing.

[sagetv5150]

Originally Posted by phelme

oddly for me with the new beta, Survivor on CBS now has fewer interlacing issues. before it was very noticeable.

hmm...strange. How about non-HD channels broadcast at 480i? Do they look ok? I have the non-HD cable package with Cox cable. So the only HD channles I get are the networks. The rest is SD. So ESPN in SD (presumably 480i) definitely was a channel with a lot of obvious poor deinterlacing by the HD300, given the nature of the fast moving content. Now that I've rolled back my HD300 firmware, the content is properly deinterlaced.