Poor output quality--muted colors etc.

[mismith356]

In fairness to members who fequent htpcnews and here...this is a cross post..(I have not recieved any response there).

~~
Please forgive if this topic would be better suited for another topic area...was not where was best to post a genic issue like this.

I am new to the whole pvr thing but after stopping by this forum...I decided to give it a shot.

I have a pvr250 and am have tried the bundled software - suckz a$$.

Also downloaded sagtv - which I really like and will likely buy.

In both cases though, I do not have would I would consider good quaility output.

My system...still upgrading it:

AMD XP 1900+
1gb crucial ram
200gb hdd
geforce 3 ti 200 64mb

I am using basic cable coming in direct from wall jack...

I have tried several different "quality" formats but the output is always cloudy or grainy in appearance.

pdf's attached.

Wether played back on windows with divX player or WM9...still looks faded out or not shape if this makes sense.

Also tried vlc player on the mac and found same thing.

Any suggestions welcome.

Regards,

Mike

[mismith356]

sorry...pic #2.

1st one is opening credit and 2nd is early in scenes...

Audio always sounds great and is in sync...but images always look cloudy-ish...



Currently recording with sagetv "great quality" ~ 2GB / hr

Thanks

[mismith356]

I just looked at the faq....duh!

Hoping this will help...

http://users.mcleodusa.net/r/ratpac/..._contrast.html

I will be trying this after stargate sg1 is finished recording :-D

Any other suggestions?

Thanks

[jennyfur]

I too am curious about this. I bought Sage about a week or so ago and I've been trying to improve the quality of my recordings ever since. I'd already tried the suggestions using FFDSHOW and DScaler from that link msmith356 mentioned awhile ago. It helped my colors a little but the recording is still fuzzy and inferior to watching my digital cable (standard definition 27" TV) normally.

I'd also found some threads about customizing the quality settings in the .ini file and tried that as well with a high quality setting, but I still find my recordings lacking. I have the latest drivers for all my components, and this was a clean install of XP Pro. My system specs aren't all that great, but I figured with the WinTV PVR-250MCE I'd still be able to record some decent stuff (900mHz athlon, 384MB RAM, ATI 9200SE). Am I wrong to think that? Or does it all just come down to the decoders I choose?

I've already tried the Hauppauge ones as well as one from my PowerDVD install and I don't see much difference. Certain settings (usually involving FFDSHOW) make me drop so many frames that TV is unwatchable. I'm more concerned about looks right now though...

[stanger89]

Assuming you're using the TV out correct jennyfur? If so, I've heard people comment that on nVidia cards reducing the flicker filter improved sharpness noticeably, and if I remember correctly ATI has something similar. Perhaps that would help.

mismith356,
Yeah, fixing the brightness contrast should help, the default settings seem not so good. On my 250 the defaults make black gray and crush white badly.

[mismith356]

I played with setting last night until my eyes hurt ~02:30...LOL

every concievible combination of contrast, brightness, hue and saturation....got maginally better...not great. I did get VMR9 working though...WOW! see through menus rock!

I can't say I am thrilled though to be honest. I encoder is intervideo noncss.

Adjusting the recorder values using histogram.dll comsumed nearly 100% of cpu and was a lengthy process.

The guide in my link above did not mention reversing out the changes made to set recorder brightness etc....but when it continues to run at 100% cpu it's easy to figure out...duh!

I will will see if pvr-250 home page has newer driver...but the couple I checked the other day all seemed current to what I got from the CD.

Any other suggestions??

Thanks

[kny3twalker]

well the problem maybe the video card's TV out
have you watched anything on a monitor see if you like that quality better

without using a computer monitor or HDTV compatible TV
you are using the svideo output and there areproblems with it
you first are rescaling the image and then reinterlacing the image before it appears on the TV

the best setup I could get with using a TV out on a video card was
using NVDVD with VMR9 rendering the picture was pretty close and the color was not as crushed
and better deinterlacing than any other decoder I have seen

you may want to use default wave out though as your audio render to keep it from skipping (wave out does not use directx)