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SageTV Software Discussion related to the SageTV application produced by SageTV. Questions, issues, problems, suggestions, etc. relating to the SageTV software application should be posted here. (Check the descriptions of the other forums; all hardware related questions go in the Hardware Support forum, etc. And, post in the customizations forum instead if any customizations are active.)

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  #21  
Old 09-18-2003, 06:54 PM
rotaryracer rotaryracer is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 134
SUCCESS!

First, I want to thank you all for advice, insight, and tips - my fancy new HTPC came pretty close to being an expensive Frisbee the other night!

Anyhoo, a few things I learned. First, the local college TV station (what was showing up in LiveTV because I hadn't remapped the Dish channels) is probably not the best standard to be using when trying to compare cable to HTPC LiveTV. I watched a few minutes of that channel on straight cable tonight and it's a pretty crappy picture in general. I went and remapped a couple of channels (Comedy Central, Discovery, etc.) to play around with - channels I knew had decent signals. This right off the bat made a HUGE difference. I'm such a 'tard.

Second, the Elecard decoder with dScaler plugins ROCKS! I did try the suggestion to use the Adaptive plugin, but found it to be grainy and "jaggy", although YMMV and this IS on a PC monitor, not a TV. Right now I'm using Elecard with dScaler on default. I did try playing with a few of the other selections besides Adaptive and quite honestly couldn't find any I liked as well as default. I may spend some time going through ALL of 'em, but so far life is good.

Finally, I switched to Default/VMR rather than Overlay. That seemed to smooth out the video quite a bit as well. I flipped back and forth and definitely prefer VMR, although it does "letterbox" my LiveTV window. Hopefully when I move the HTPC up to the 16x9 TV, this is something I can goof with Powerstrip.

Thanks again for the assistance - I'm back in the game now and EAGERLY awaiting Sage Studio and v2.0! Once I can call up the various Sage modules from myHTPC, that will be complete and total HTPC NIRVANA!

Now, back to playing with Sage......
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  #22  
Old 09-18-2003, 07:38 PM
StylinLP StylinLP is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 83
Awesome Rotaryracer. I'm going to to the same thing this weekend. Use Elecard and Dscaler. Im glad to hear that default works (what ever that means heh) I havnt read how to use either of those prgrams yet. I will try to read Dscaler tonight.

I assume you just "choose" Elecard as a codex in the SageTV video menu drop down list.
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  #23  
Old 09-19-2003, 04:56 AM
rotaryracer rotaryracer is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 134
Yep, Elecard as the video decoder, which lights up the ability to use dScaler to deinterlace. Click that. There's a bunch of various filters to use with dScaler - I'm using default now, but you can play around and see what works best for you. There are 2 other options under dScaler, something about double the refresh rate and odd frame first (I'm not in front of my HTPC, but I think that's right). When I checked those, the pic got worse, so they're unchecked now.

I also tried the Hauppauge and NVDVD decoders (can't use dScaler), and noticed more artifacts and generally poorer PQ than Elecard/dScaler.
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  #24  
Old 09-19-2003, 10:07 AM
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dkardatzke dkardatzke is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 1,220
Keep in mind that using Double Refresh Rate requires a lot more CPU power to handle the decoding. I originally tried it on my Celeron 1.4 Ghz machine and it wasn't powerful enough. Of course now I use the Hauppauge Intervideo decoder with the registry hacks and that works like a charm.
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  #25  
Old 09-19-2003, 10:38 AM
StylinLP StylinLP is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 83
President and CEO with only a Celeron cpu? hehe
Maybe I should send you my old AMD 1700 cpu and MB i have laying around *grin*

But what your saying is that if someone DOES have the horsepower then they would benefit from something like Elecard Dscaler rather than the Hauppauge Inervideo decoder?
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  #26  
Old 09-19-2003, 01:27 PM
rotaryracer rotaryracer is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 134
Hmmmm....I've got an AMD 2500 "Barton" with 1GB of RAM. It's not bleeding edge, but I'd hope I have enough juice to try some different things!

Does the double refresh rate supposed to improve PQ on a TV, monitor, or both? I wanted to try using the Hauppauge decoder with the registry hacks, but couldn't actually find the directories/entries where the hacks were supposed to go (and yes, I've worked in the registry before). I am using the drivers from www.shspvr.com rather than the CD that came with my PVR - is there other software I need to install to enable the registry hacks? I'd like to try the Hauppauge decoders as well and see how they work.

Thanks!
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  #27  
Old 09-19-2003, 01:28 PM
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mlbdude mlbdude is offline
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Join Date: May 2003
Location: Melbourne, Florida
Posts: 4,174
You need to install the Intervideo deocrders. If you are using newer drivers, then you can download them from the Hauppauge website.
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  #28  
Old 09-19-2003, 02:58 PM
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dkardatzke dkardatzke is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2003
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Why upgrade the Celeron when I never use more than 30% of the CPU while recording two channels at once and playing a third program back! That's the beauty of hardware encoding, all I need now is to use a PVR-350 to drop the CPU usage to nothing...
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