Frustrated! Poor Live TV quality (newbie)

[bo989]

Thanks for the reply Korben (btw, nice nickname. That's my favorite movie of all time). I am already using the default video renderer.

teedublu: I don't have either card, so maybe I will try the V3. If I can find a place in Canada that sells it, that is!

The cards ColorAmp Engine and Cipher Video Processo seem like they'll be really useful. Are these novel, unique technologies, or is XGI simply giving it's own names to technologies that most cards have?

[bo989]

Hi guys. I changed both my H and V stretch in the AR settings to 100% and this did improve things. However, now, the image doesn't fill the entire T.V. screen. Anything I can do about this?

Also, just fooling around, I set both to 80% and I noticed that the image was so much sharper. Would it be advisable to set it at 75-80% and then just increase my Windows Desktop resolution?

[stanger89]

It probably only "seems" sharper at 80% because the smaller you make it the better TV tends to look.

As for filling the screen at 100%, does your desktop and/or Sage UI fill the screen?

[bo989]

Hi guys,

Stanger, the Sage UI and my desktop do fill the whole screen. It's just the TV signal that doesn't. There's just a small black border on the left and right. I suppose I could boost the horizontal stretch again, but that would just degrade picture quality, right?

[stanger89]

That's probably part of the recording. The video doesn't actually go to the edges of the frame. Video is designed to be viewed on an overscanned monitor (TV) so the black sides are normal (but you don't usually see them. Since you're running your desktop not overscanned (I assume you can see your whole desktop) you actually see stuff in the video that you normally wouldn't.

And that's kind of where my suggestion to set the Zooms to 100% falls apart, that assumes everything is 720x480 when in fact since your destop isn't overscanned it's output smaller than 720x480 so it's getting resized anyway.

[mls]

stanger89 -

For some time now I've always wanted to do some discussion with you about that 720 x 480 idea, but I don't really want to clutter up the forum with a bunch of stuff nobody else (maybe even ourselves) would be able to understand. Do you mind if I PM you sometime for further discussion?

[stanger89]

Go for it.

[bo989]

Another hardware related question guys,

Upgrading the video card is about upgrading the quality of TV-out, right? If I'm recording at a 'DVD Standard Play' quality setting and I watch the recording on my PC monitor, it should look almost as good as the cable signal regardless of my video card, should it not? Quality in this case will be pretty much completely determined by the encoder card right? Or am I completely missing something ?

Thanks again guys.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by bo989

If I'm recording at a 'DVD Standard Play' quality setting and I watch the recording on my PC monitor, it should look almost as good as the cable signal regardless of my video card, should it not?

I've got to be careful on this one so I'll try to be as specific as possible.

IF you were to compare the live feed (un-encoded) through a TV card and the MPEG encoded file (say via the 250), then yes they should be quite close.

However, it's quite likely that viewing the MPEG encoded stream (or the live stream for that matter) will look worse on your monitor than it will on a normal, small-ish SDTV. The reason is because the monitor will display stuff in the picture that the TV is not capable of.

FWIW....
To continue, on larger screens (maybe 36"+) and especially HDTVs, it's very possible for the MPEG encoded stream to look better than the live feed directly to the TV, since the MPEG encoding (and the 250) can do a little noise reduction that can smooth the image out, and then the video card (or software) can scale the image to high resolutions like 1080i. The end result of which can be an image that's smoother and cleaner than the direct feed. Of course this doesn't really help you a whole lot

[bo989]

Thanks for the reply. I'm going to hook up a monitor and check it out for myself me thinks.

By the way, if you don't mind me asking, what's your background when it comes to this stuff. You seem to really know what you're talking about! Is this a hobby for you or do you make a living in an A/V field?

I have another two questions for you stanger. I've decided to definitely upgrade my video card after reading about other peoples experiences with upgrades. It's either the FX5200, FX57000, or Volari V3 XT.

Do you, or does anyone else know where or when we can buy the Volari card?

Between the FX5200 or the FX5700, is the only advantage of the FX5200 the low price? In other words, if money were no object, would the 5700 be the no-brainer choice? I assume the answer is yes. Thanks guys!

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by bo989

Thanks for the reply. I'm going to hook up a monitor and check it out for myself me thinks.

By the way, if you don't mind me asking, what's your background when it comes to this stuff. You seem to really know what you're talking about! Is this a hobby for you or do you make a living in an A/V field?

Just several years of hobbying, spend enough time here or AVS, and enough time tinkering and you figure out quite a bit of stuff.

I have another two questions for you stanger. I've decided to definitely upgrade my video card after reading about other peoples experiences with upgrades. It's either the FX5200, FX57000, or Volari V3 XT.

I don't really know much about the Volari, other than XGI stands for Xaber Graphics Inc. And of course Xaber is/was the graphics card line from SIS. Basically, how do I put this delicately. SIS had a horrible reputation when it came to graphics cards, XGI may be better, but I haven't heard anything since a couple mediocre reviews when the Volari first launched. I'm trying to be careful here since I don't have any experience or anything firm one way or the other. Guess I'm just saying I don't feel like being a guinea pig . Of course component/S-video out and really inexpensive aren't really my primary concerns either

Do you, or does anyone else know where or when we can buy the Volari card?

http://www.pricegrabber.com/redirect...=1&promo_id=40

Between the FX5200 or the FX5700, is the only advantage of the FX5200 the low price? In other words, if money were no object, would the 5700 be the no-brainer choice? I assume the answer is yes. Thanks guys!

The two primary advantages would be low cost, and lower power consumption. The 5200 is a slightly different design compared to the 5700 (which is the same design as the 5900). The drawbacks are that it's rather lacking in the oomph department. The 5200 should be fine for TV-out at 720x480 (I think mlbdude has or had one running like that). The advantage of the 5700 is that since it's more powerfull, it can run VMR9 successfully at higher resolutions, and also impliments more advanced deinterlacing algorithms compared to the 5200. I'd say from your use (no HDTV) that the 5700LE would be a reasonable compromise. It's more powerful than the 5200 (hopefully better deinterlacing), yet is less expensive than the full blown 5700s that probably won't do you a whole lot of good without an HDTV (which would run at higher resolutions).

S-Video output is kind of at the edge of my knowledge though, I've got a pretty good idea of the theory, but since I use VGA/Component out to an HDTV I don't have much practical experience, just an FYI to help you keep my comments in context.

[stanger89]

Oh! - drat, I got all excited, but for those interested...

FYI, I just found a great deal for ya! It appears the Geforce 6600s have surfaced, unfortunately PCI Express only.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...170-070&depa=0
You're really not going to be able to do much better than this for <$250 (meaning Geforce 6800) Of particular interest, is that they (mostly) include HD component output.

[g808]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Oh! - drat, I got all excited, but for those interested...

FYI, I just found a great deal for ya! It appears the Geforce 6600s have surfaced, unfortunately PCI Express only.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...170-070&depa=0
You're really not going to be able to do much better than this for <$250 (meaning Geforce 6800) Of particular interest, is that they (mostly) include HD component output.

That's really cheap! I'm sure you're probably talking about the good deal when you say "PCI Express only" since the 6600 AGP is available from XFX.

[dgeffs]

You are facing the same problem as countless others have regarding HTPC. You have received a lot of good suggestions and I'm sure some of them will help the issue. I've got to believe that your graphics card is probably the single biggest issue although it is going to be expensive to try a bunch of different cards until you find a suitable one. It seems the same card can often times give different results depending on too many factors like processor, chipset and the phase of the moon <g>. I've seen no "silver bullet" recommendation for a normal graphics card with TV Out.

Right now the holy grail to picture quality is a hardware decoder card such as the PVR350 or the Xcard if you want a solution that works out of the box with no funky filters, decoders or tweaking till your blue in the face required. I'm sure others will disagree but I have purchased these and find the output to be far superior to my graphics card (YMMV).

In theory the PVR 350 is supported by Sage but in reality only a small number of people can get it to work reliably when using the OSD output through the card. I found the 350 output superb but like most had such stability problems when using the OSD that I gave up. I purchased an Xcard and unfortunately had to switch front ends because Sage does not support this card. My output picture quality is now exactly the same as the input and it's pretty easy to switch between the two and nobody can tell the difference.

I love Sage and really want to use it. Sage functionality is far superior to most and it is a first class product. I think it's pretty tacky to recommend a competitors product in the Sage forum but if you are looking for the absolute best picture quality you may have to consider something else. The HTPC market is in its infancy and it is going to get nothing but better. Eventually digital will take over and products will no longer need specialty cards for SDTV output but that time is still many years away.

Dale

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by g808

That's really cheap! I'm sure you're probably talking about the good deal when you say "PCI Express only" since the 6600 AGP is available from XFX.

Yeah, the 6600GTs have appeared in AGP form, unfortunately they cost almost as much as 6800s

[GbrNole]

xfx isn't the only 6600gt agp vendor anymore.

leadtek, msi and albatron all have agp cards out now that are available through gameve.com.

the price is still less than a 6800 but not by too much. the big difference is that a 6600gt agp absolutely crushes the agp competition in gaming even put a decent whipping on an ati 9800xt.

since most pc users are still in the agp frame of mind nvidia has all the right in the world to set the prices a little high since ati wont be able to counter for at least 3 more months when their pcie/agp bridge will be ready.

for volari vendors check this forum link

http://www.volarigamers.com/viewtopic.php?p=7304#7304

the guy can ship lian guan volari v8 cards but he has to find out if the component dongle is included.

the xabres were always horrible gaming cards and the volari's follow that trend but all reports thus far show that they have very good tv out with hdtv encoding onboard for resolutions upto 1080i via component.

for $60 that's a heck of a card for a client pc.

[korben_dallas]

Check this. http://www.chumbo.com/Info.aspx?id=239864

[korben_dallas]

or this. http://www.pcsuperdeals.com/ProductV...10acc8&Refer=1

[korben_dallas]

or this ( sorry for all the spam ) http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...uctCode=321006

[bo989]

Just to let everyone know, I appreciated all of your suggestions. I'm probably going to have to lay off the HTPC for a while since I'm in the middle of exams, but I'll try all of your suggestions out int he new year and let you know how it goes!