Frustrated! Poor Live TV quality (newbie)

[bluenote]

Hi bo989

Stanger can comment, since as you can tell he knows just about everything, but I feel compelled to add on to what dgeffs had to say. I agree that my personal experience (and, I've had my 350 and PVR set up for about a month now) is that for tv-out you can't beat a 350 tv-out (ie: hardware decode/encode). I haven't tried every combination, but if you can at all justify going for a 350 (meaning you get another tuner as well as a hardware tv-out) I think you'll find this is excellent PQ.

And, having just gone through the whole 350 config situation, I can say that I use OSD and I feel quite comfortable with the stability of my 350 card. From these forums it DOES seem clear that in the past there has been some question about 350 stability, my opinion is that this seems to be a thing of the past. Just based on my own limited experience though .. perhaps other that have just picked up a 350 can chime in here.

I wouldn't NOT buy a 350 because you're afraid of stability issues I think is what I'm saying in summary.

I have a FX-5600 with DVI that I haven't tried, but I hated my PQ on my monitor vs. my SDTV through the 350 tv-out.

[bo989]

Thanks so much for the advice. It's possible i could just return my other 150 and put it towards a 350, but i have a question:

What can be sent through the 350s output? In terms of video, its just MPEG2 right? Can you view your desktop using the 350? i'd hate to have to hook upa monitor evertime i needed to make an adjustment.

Also, is Sage TV the only program that supports OSD through the 350? What about GB-PVR and BeyondTV?

Thanks

[bluenote]

Hi Bo

Yes, the 350 tv-out will only support mpeg-2 (and mpeg-1 I believe, but I doubt youll ever use that) and the OSD from sage specificly. I can't comment on OSD's from other programs though, since I didn't have my tv-out hooked up when i was trying out all the different PVR s/w for functionality evaluation.

No, you will *not* be able to send your desktop through the 350 tv-out, *but* if you're concerned about hooking up a monitor for administration on the machine, don't be -- just use remote desktop or VNC to administer the box from remote. (keep in mind that you can't really use RDP to look at playback, but that shouldn't be an issue). When I'm using sage on my TV, I basically use the remote only and do everything through the tv-out/OSD, although right now I can walk over to the PC and use my monitor too, but when I set up a dedicated HTPC I think I'll be doing what I describe and just using RDP to connect to the box for administration.

In theory, using a 350 for playback also means that a dedicated HTPC could also be lower powered, since CPU usage is near 0 for playback and record, and you won't need an expensive video card etc. I guess it's all about tradeoffs .. I admit that the lack of a desktop MAY be a stumbling block *depending* on your actual usage patterns. If you aren't using XP Pro and/or haven't used remote desktop before just let me know and I can help you with that. I find it extremely useful since I have two lab PC's that I borrow from work to do labs and such and they are headless, using RDP and virtual server to create a whole domain.
Hope this helps

Cory
(depending on your usage, I think the added cost of the 350 probably makes up for lower CPU and no real use for a high end video card in the box as well...) but YMMV

EDIT: I just saw in another thread that MCE doesn't support the 350's tv-out (at all, I believe) and I suspect that if you are considering other pvr s/w you probably want to confirm their OSD support through the 350 as that isn't a given by any means. If you are considering different s/w then perhaps a video card tv-out is a better idea. Some people talk about the X-card, but I don't know too much about it except that it is another hardware tv-out that is supposed to have good PQ but apparently isn't supported directly in sage.

[stanger89]

I think Sage and possibly GB-PVR are the only apps that support the 350 TV-out at all, and I think they both support the OSD.

[CollinR]

There are some physical issues related to PCI-E that need to be considered as well.

I just setup mine with an Asus 925x chitsep PCI-E board.

1st the AGP slot is gone, shouldn't be a shocker.

2nd The PCI-E x16 slot is approx where the 1st PCI slot used to be, this isn't really a problem in itself however when you go to adding the tuners and stuff it can get pretty cramped. This also pust the GPU REALLY close the the next PCI card over! I don't like this at all.

3rd You often get fewer normal PCI slots for tuners, my board has only 3 plus 2 PCI-E x1 which don't help much. Since my board has 1 PCI-E x16, 3 PCI, and 2 PCI-E x1 (in that order) you basically shouldn't use the 1st PCI due to the heat issues from #2 above.

Overall I am REALLY happy with the system performance, love the 6600 PCI-E! But don't expect to be building a medusa with whats currently out there in the PCI-E offerings, I expect the new form factor to help in this area considerably though.

[Hector]

cnovak is exactly right about picture quality. However I believe that cpu power is an important factor with Sage and the pvr-350.

As for quality, I have the 5200 and the pvr-350 in the same box that I can toggle with a remote key. I have both connected s-vid. In my opinion the 5200 with the latest nvidia drivers does not even come close to the quality of the pvr-350. Toggling between the two its not even an issue for debate. Esp on something fast and colorful like say a football game or an action flick.

As for cpu usage, the OSD uses gobs of cpu power (99%) when you use transport controls (FF/REW). FAR FAR more than software encoding solutions. Whatever Sage has to do to FF/REW and display the OSD at the same time consumes almost every available cycle. Disable the OSD, cpu usage drops 70%. In short, FF/REW stresses the system and the card itself a lot more than one would reasonably think. If you have a 350, open the task mgr and FF/REW, then toggle the OSD off and try it again. Having the OSD enabled is the key. Additionally the pvr-350 overheats because it's being stressed so much. Easily solved by a $4 fan. So I believe that if your pc isn't fast and your pvr-350 isn't cool you are certainly asking for trouble. But once I came to understand the issues my system went from annoying to very stable. Even so even the most enthusiastic of us can deny the card is/has been problematic. It's the vastly superior picture that made it worth it which is of course a lot easier to say now that I have the problems worked through.

And just as I did I got my first HDTV so now I am trying to figure out how to hook the 5200 to that.

peace . . .

[bo989]

Everyone here has helped me out so much, I thought I'd give you an update of my situation! I've decided to try the ATI 9600XT with DVI->Component Adapter. It should arrive early this week and I'll let you all know how it goes! I was THIS close to getting a 6600GT, but this was just so much cheaper !

Thanks again.

[Hector]

Please do, I am just unraveling this myself.

Shouldn't it look better than any s-vid/composite solution?

peace . . .

Originally Posted by bo989

Everyone here has helped me out so much, I thought I'd give you an update of my situation! I've decided to try the ATI 9600XT with DVI->Component Adapter. It should arrive early this week and I'll let you all know how it goes! I was THIS close to getting a 6600GT, but this was just so much cheaper !

Thanks again.

[bigjohn]

This is exactly the same system that I run and I am very happy with my picture quality

[bo989]

Hi bigjohn,

What part of the system are you referring to? The 9600XT?

[GbrNole]

bo989 - where exactly did you get the 9600xt and dongle from? from the way you describe it it sounds like it had to be one heck of a deal?

i'm looking to setup a couple of client htpc's and was originally going to use a volari v8 with the component adapter but if your setup isn't too much more expensive then i would likely go that route.

[mlbdude]

For a cheap component out solution check out the Radeon 9550's. You can get one for around $60 and the adapter for under $30.

[bo989]

Hi GbrNoble,

I got everything off eBay. It's hard to find the older 128MB cards, but when you do they go for less than $100 CAD. And I got the dongle of $18 CAD.

After shipping and everything I spent about $150 CAD (prob. $135 USD) I guess. Whereas 6600's start at $350 CAD retail here and the cheapest I could find one on eBay was $266 CAD before shipping and that didn't include the dongle.

[GbrNole]

not bad at all.

mlb - why is it again that you aren't using your fx5700 and when you did have it installed did you find that the video was equal to, greater than or less than that of the 9600?

i have an msi fx5900xt which is great but i find that my best video quality is by utilizing a transcoder rather than dvi. problem is that nvidia drivers wont work with a transcoder at 1080i and for some reason video at 1080i through the dvi port of that card is like a fast slideshow?

i can make 1280x720p work through dvi but my tv resamples that to 1080i and i don't like the result.

great card otherwise since it's powerful for games and the fan is very quiet.

i was set to buy a 6600gt agp this week but i'm just not liking some of the reports people are spitting out over at avs.

i'll have to look at the 9550 - i've read some reports which state they pretty well overclock to at least 9600 pro level.

just need to make sure i provide a solution which can do 1080i in vmr9 and not contribute to tearing since these client pc's will only be using mobile athlons clocked to around 3000+xp speeds?

[mlbdude]

I dumped the 5700 due to the bad drivers for DVI. Could not get 1080i working. Now that I am on the 9600 with component and 1080i I will have a hard time going back.

I even run my DVD's at 1920x1080i in VMR9 and get no tearing (though that is with the VPP in software). DXVA for TV programs are played back in MCE so no tearing or stuttering ever there either.

[GbrNole]

is it just a basic 9600 or a 9600 pro/xt?

does sage allow you to play back tv at 1080i using vmr9 and still get no tearing?

right now i play everything back at 960x540p (tv sees that as 1080i) and i'm trying to decide if it's really worth the effort to get working output at 1080i since the 540p looks pretty good?

[mlbdude]

Originally Posted by GbrNole

is it just a basic 9600 or a 9600 pro/xt?

does sage allow you to play back tv at 1080i using vmr9 and still get no tearing?

right now i play everything back at 960x540p (tv sees that as 1080i) and i'm trying to decide if it's really worth the effort to get working output at 1080i since the 540p looks pretty good?

DVD's are played back from ZoomPlayer scaled to 2x using ffdshow. I have not tried Sage on this box. However, without DXVA I never got tearing in Sage either so I would guess it would be fine as long as you were not using hardware acceleration in the decoder.

MCE works just like that meediator DVD player I hear about.

[Hector]

This is an ignorant question but I'd sure like to ask it before I spend the simoleons.

I just got my first HD set, a 47' Panasonic RPTV. In addition to a slew of s-vids it has 2 component inputs and 1 HDMI.

As expected my SD s-vid out either from the pvr-350 or directly from the sat box doesn't look that great.

How much better will my SD stuff look if I pick up a good card/adapter and hook into my tv via component?

I realize this is a very subjective question but the issues surrounding HD et al are all new to me I have no frame of reference.

peace . . .

[mlbdude]

Well the reason the 350 looked good on your old SDTV was because it output nicely interlaced video to a TV desiring interlaced video. Your HDTV now really wants progressive video.

At this point you can start to take advantage of the superior decoders out there now. Even ffdshow could start to give you better results.

Either way, just upscaling the video will help to smooth out the rough edges.

Just remember that with the HDTV you will see more crap that was probably always there so the cleaner the signal the better.

[GbrNole]

standard tv MIGHT look anywhere from a tad better to a lot better depending on the power of your pc.