Decoder Quality / TIVO envy

[Funky D]

Hiya all,

I'm using Sage on my projector, and have been loving it. I switched to the intervideo decoder (from WinDVD) as it seemed to improve on the hauppage quality by a landslide.

All was well in my world till I visited a friend and watched some TIVO recorded shows.

WOW.

My quality is complete and utter junk. His was FLAWLESS. No jaggies, no slowdown in high speed (that I could tell) no banding...

Just so I can sleep at night, is it my decoder? I was thinking of switching to Elecard with Dscaler, but that could turn out to be a lot of work for possibly a very modest improvement. Is there a FAQ somewhere with instructions for configuring Sage with these tools to get the BEST output?

Looking for help... my HTPC has Soooo much going for it, but MAN, that TIVO looked beautiful.

Funky D

[mlbdude]

How do your recordings look on a PC monitor? What kind of TV are you using and he using? (standard or HD) What video card are you using to output to TV - 350 type or normal video card?

Can you provide some screen caps? Never seen jaggies. Also explain slowdown? Does that refer to deinterlacing artifacts?

[stanger89]

Couple of questions for you.

What did you watch the TIVO on?

What quality are you recording at?

Is your source the same as your friends?

[Funky D]

Mlb, they look ok on a monitor, but still not amazing. It's not the hardware.

Stanger, I was watching it on a TV, but still, let's take hardware outta the picture (literally).

I'm recording at 2gb/hr, and although my source is cable, and his is DTV, that's not the issue. My recordings are not nearly as good as the reception I get my just cooking the cable to a tuner.

Is the software a BIG deal, or a tiny deal?

D

[mlbdude]

Well 2GB per hour is not going to cut it. That is pretty low and you are compressing the analog signal quite a bit - of cource it won't look as good as the source signal. Once you can get your recordings to look good on the PC monitor then you can start to fix it on the TV.

Also, you say DTV. He has a normal Tivo and not a DirectTivo correct?

[mikejaner]

Funky D....
I have a Tivo, and I have Sage, and I compare them on a daily basis. I, like you found software decoders to be crap compared to Tivo. This is because of two things, but I will tell you what is better in an minute.

Number one: The software decoder does it's hardest to decode the video as accurately as it was encoded. They put up a good fight, but never as good as hardware decoders. Usually, the hardware encoder, like on the pvr 250/350 does an awsome job of encoding. If you wanna check that out, try using a software encoder, like in Snapstream, and you will see what you have turn in to even more crap.

Number Two: The video output of your video card, which I will assume you are using, to your tv, is crap, every card is, IMHO. I have not seen any video cards except the Matrox G400, able to reproduce interlacing on a tv screen to look good without blurring the picture they are displaying, and the Matrox cards still don't come out looking as nice as Tivo.

Tivo has a hardware decoder which does as good of a job as any decoder on a DVD player. This is why it looks so good, because it was made for only that purpose, as opposed to our video cards which are multipurpose, games, music, movies, internet, etc........ Oh and they are intended for output to a monitor. TV output on video cards is almost a last minute half a$$ed job.

The PVR 350 has a decoder chip which is designed for the same purpose as the Tivo, therefore, has excellent quality. I purchased a PVR 350 about two months ago, and have never looked back. SageTV 2.0 will have full support for this card, including the interface and overlay. This card, I can tell you has better output quality than my Tivo, although it's close. Look into this card, but understand it's limitations like, no DVD and Windows output.

mikejaner

[stanger89]

mikejaner,

Funky D is running Sage to a projector not a TV, so your comment about the video card may be incorrect. What you say may apply to standard TVs but doesn't apply to HDTVs/Projectors.

Funky D,
How do you have your htpc connected to your PJ? You should be using at least component if not VGA/DVI, if not you're doing yourself a great disservice. Second try recording at at least 3Gb/hr, especially for a screen as large as you're probably using. Third, try adjusting the brightness/contrast of your TV card, this may help.

Also, cable on a PJ will probably always look worse than DTV on a TV, so hardware is important.

[trevorst]

There must be something wrong in your setup.. I use SageTV connected with a Component dongle from a Radeon video card to a 32" Panasonic 4:3 TV. The picture quality is amazing, every bit as good, if not even better than the cable box connected direct to the TV with component cables. I run a 720x480 resolution and record in DVD long play quality. Everyone that has ever seen the picture is amazed that it is a digital recording. At the moment I am using a trial version of the Cinemaster codecs that come with their DVD player, I was using the Cyberlink decoders but I think the quality of the Cinemaster is better. My plan is to just buy their codec pack for $15 if I still feel the same in a week.

[shuban0]

Since you said DTV and there is no official Tivo for Digital Cable, I'm assuming you meant DirecTV which means he has a DirecTIVO.

DirecTIVO's don't take analog signals and convert them to digital like most DVR's. They actually record the actual digital MPEG bitstream right from the Dish. This allows your friend to have perfect quailty recordings and may be the reason why you think it is flawless.

[Funky D]

Well, as expected, many conflicting opinons (Something is wrong, something isn't, it's hardware, it's software, etc)

Let's go with some stats first.

PVR 250, with VGA out to the projector. That should take all the hardware thoughts outta the loop, with the possible exception of a hardware decoder. Let's leave that for a minute, and touch software a second...

DVD long play on a 32" TV? Forgive me, I'm not impressed. At that high of a bitrate, on that small a screen, I'd expect perfection, and possibly beyond. :P The issue, is that TIVO looks awesome (both regular and DTivo) at 2gb/hr. My output, is not awesome.

Mike, you make an interesting point about hardware decoders, but I have the 250, which is supposed to have hardware mpeg2 decoding. The only setting I've seen is the default hauppage decoder in Sage, and honestly, it's the worst of the bunch.

Am I missing a driver? Some magic setting? Reading the forums here, most people use intervideo, or elecard. On the issue of the 350, it's no issue. No windows = no slick gui = no myhtpc. I might as well have bought a TIVO.

Still looking for the magic answer.

Funky D

p.s. For those with the "mine rox" or "don't use s-video" comments, fear not, I'm a long time HTPC enthusiast. I know my way around the block, but just wanna see the TV quality really sing.

[mikejaner]

Your 250's do not have a hardware decoder, what they have is hardware accelleration support for their software decoder using the registry hack. There's a big difference there.
Since you were talking about Tivo, I assumed if you hooked it up to your projector, you would be comparing that to your puter. In most cases, the projectors support svideo and composite, so you could do this comparison. This is why I made the comparisons I did between the software and hardware decoders.

IMHO even if you had a vga projector with software decoders and the same projector with svideo hooked up to your Tivo or the PVR 350 hardware output, the hardware decoding will win every time in smoothness, and detail.


mikejaner

[falchulk]

I run a custom profile that results in 1.8 gig an hour(mmc/python2_encoding/Rob=videobitrate\=4000000|width\=720|height\=480|audiobitrate\=224). I first ran it on a 32" RCA an now a 55" Toshiba. The picture is fantastic. You do realize that you must adjust the Overlay/VMR contrast and brightness and the PVR 250's colors to get the best picture? My custom profile never shows any hint of tearing or stuttering during fast motion. it's indistinguisable from the 3gig an hour profile when you tune the above properly. Tivo suffer's from the same mpeg 2 artifacting that PC's do. I am betting your friend understands this and has made the proper picture adjustments.

Not to mention, the nature of the beast is that the video will look better on a tv then on a monitor. Viewing on a projector is really no diffrent then viewing on a monitor and scaling it way up. This magnifiy's the flaws you see on a monitor. I think if you viewed on a TV from your PC, you would not think the picture was so bad.

[mlbdude]

DTivos does not have 2 GB per hour. You can't change the quality on it and Sage or regular Tivo will never compare to that system.

BTW, I use 4 GB per hour 2 is way too low. If you are outputting to a regular TV then you should get a hardware decoder to match the regular Tivos. If you output to a high resolution display then a PC can surpass Tivo since a progressive display is preferred by those devices. A hardware decoders benefit has little to do wit hthe actual decoding which software can do just as well. It is more on the deinterlacing and output side. A hardware decoder is NOT deinterlacing the image at all and is ouputting an exactly what a standard def TV is expecting for input. A PC video card cannot do this so deinterlacing is needed which degrades the image on a standard TV.

For a HDTV using the component or DVI or VGA out will in essnce be using the PC as a progressive scan display and line double actually enhancing the image beyond its orrigional format - not to mention all the video scrubbing that can be done.

[Funky D]

Excellent. So , it's sounding like to take the next big step in quality, I have to go with a hardware decoder.

Since the 250 is by FAR the most popular pvr card (MCE, etc), which hardware decoder seems to be the one of choice?

(mikejaner, registry hack? Does it make that big of a difference for the quality of the native hauppage decoder?)

Thanks for all this help guys. It's hard to believe there isn't already a FAQ describing all these settings, and possibly even an easy to use utility to tweak everything for you. Sage is pretty lacking in this area ihmo...


Thanks!

Funky D

[mikejaner]

The hardware decoder of choice is the Hauppauge PVR 350, the one of second choice is the Xcard

The registry hack just gives smoother motion but still not as smooth as the hardware decoders.

mikejaner

[carlgar]

You should be aware that there is a known problem with having a Hauppauge PVR 350 and the newest PVR 250 in the same system. Frey is working on this issue but no telling when problem will be corrected. The PVR 350 works fine if not mixed with the newest PVR 250.

[Funky D]

Thanks Mike... never heard of the Xcard...

Windows interface? Who's it made by? Where to get it?

Thanks!

D

[stanger89]

Funky D,

Just curious, but do you watch DVD's on your HTPC? I do and they look way better through my HTPC (using Sonic filters) than they did through my stand alone DVD player, so I'm going to have to disagree about using a hardware decoder, it's less hardware vs software decoder and more that hardware decoders have much better TV outs than video cards.

Here's my setup so you can compare.

PVR 250 with tweaked input settings
Sonic 1.5
Radeon 9500 Catalyst 3.4
VGA out to 36" 4:3 HDTV running 1280x1024i (1080i timings)
I don't know my exact Video Proc Amp settings but Brighness is ~110 and Contrast ~50

Also my bad cable looks better through my 250 than it does straight to the TV. So don't give up yet.
One more thing, what res are you running your PJ at?

[White94Cobra]

Just a suggestion, but you might give the Elecard and Dscaler a try. I spent about 50 hours trying about 5 different decoders to my 35" TV via Svideo and the Elecard/Dscaler combo looks great. I did have to make some adjustments to the brightness/contrast/sharpness on the PVR-250. I use 3G/hr for most shows, and 2G/hr for talk shows.

I also have a DirecTivo, and while the quality of the cable recordings aren't quite as good, I have a Sat. input going to one of my PVR-250's and it looks darn close to the DirecTivo.

Even comparing a DirecTivo to a regular SA Tivo is like apples and oranges. My friends SA Tivo on Best looks much worse than my DirecTivo. You have to realize that the DirecTivo isn't compressing the data, it's just storing it directly from the Sat. It decodes it like a regular Sat. receiver when you play it back.

To be honest, we currently only use the DirecTivo for watching TV. Right now I use Sage when I want to record all of the football games on Sunday (three tuners) or when their is a conflict in recording something on the Tivo (rare since it has two tuners). I'm hoping once 2.0 comes out the WAF will be high enough so we can start using it more.

[Funky D]

No offence Stanger, but statements like that kinda sabotage your credibility.


"Also my bad cable looks better through my 250 than it does straight to the TV"

Um, yeah, your setup actually KNOWS what the hairs on people's eyebrows looks like, even if that information isn't in the signal, right? It forms a mental link with the cameraman who shot the scene originally? *grin* Yes, I jest, but think logically about what you're saying.

The issue, once again, is not hardware limited. My projector can play DVDs and DIVX on the 110" (800x600 or 1024x768) screen in breathtaking detail.

The MPEG2 just isn't being decoded well enough for some reason. It's ok, but could probably be much better. Yes, it's POSSIBLE that the encoding is at fault, but with so many people using the 2gb/hour standard (like tivo) it's best to rule that out and stick with the former.

Once again, for the people in the back.... NOT A HARDWARE OUTPUT PROBLEM. *smile*

Funky D