GeForce FX 5200 --It's Only VCR Quality TV Out?

[FreeBSD4me]

That’s a little better. I suppose the question now is, what’s realistic for the raw video, to STV comparison test? If I were to quantify the results now, I’d say I’m getting 75% of the raw video quality on STV. So, is a 15 to 25% reduction in overall quality par?

[mlbdude]

I probably get 98-99%. I cannot tell a difference unless I look at them side by side.

What resolution are you running at?

EDIT: Also compare what you see on your TV to what you see on your PC monitor. If it looks no better to you on the monitor then you need to start to look into capture settings.

[kny3twalker]

Well Elecard would not be my personal favorite because the decoder does not support DXVA
to add a decoder just install a DVD program and restart SageTV and you will have have another entry in the list of decoders
if you pm me I can point you in the right direction to find nvDVD

[FreeBSD4me]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

I probably get 98-99%. I cannot tell a difference unless I look at them side by side.

What resolution are you running at?

EDIT: Also compare what you see on your TV to what you see on your PC monitor. If it looks no better to you on the monitor then you need to start to look into capture settings.

Just switched back to 640 X 480, from 800 X 600. Both exibit one problem: I just noticed at the bottom of the screen --the ticker on CNN is cut off. Tried aspect ratios, but don't think it did anything. Is that the right setting to solve this problem?

Capture settings? You mean 2.0 versus 3.5 and that sort of thing? I''ve set it to 2.5 for now.

Thanks,

Dave

[mlbdude]

Originally Posted by FreeBSD4me

Just switched back to 640 X 480, from 800 X 600. Both exibit one problem: I just noticed at the bottom of the screen --the ticker on CNN is cut off. Tried aspect ratios, but don't think it did anything. Is that the right setting to solve this problem?

Capture settings? You mean 2.0 versus 3.5 and that sort of thing? I''ve set it to 2.5 for now.

Thanks,

Dave

Capture settings are bitrate (the higher the better) and color calibration settings for the encoder.

Aspect Ratio settings are where you want to adjust for video running off the screen too much. You need to adjust the % values in there. Start at like 80% each and inch it up until you get what you want. You may need to modify the offset as well.

I assume for TV you are using the Fill AR.

At some point you will want to try another decoder. The Intervideo one is fine to get started but either Sonic or nvDVD are probably going to give you better results.

[FreeBSD4me]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

Capture settings are bitrate (the higher the better) and color calibration settings for the encoder.

Aspect Ratio settings are where you want to adjust for video running off the screen too much. You need to adjust the % values in there. Start at like 80% each and inch it up until you get what you want. You may need to modify the offset as well.

I assume for TV you are using the Fill AR.

At some point you will want to try another decoder. The Intervideo one is fine to get started but either Sonic or nvDVD are probably going to give you better results.

I think I sort of understand that.

Maybe just pointing me to the actual menu settings would help here. I’m becoming a little overwhelmed with the amount of configuration it’s taking to get this working correctly, so please forgive the confused expression in my voice.

[Opus4]

Most of what you want (aspect ratio, recording quality, overscan) will be in the Multimedia tab of Detailed Setup -- see page 118 of the manual (see sig lines for a download link).

- Andy

[mlbdude]

Check out page 118 of the SageTV 2.0 user manual for Aspect Ratio information.

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=7427

Andy is fast. But I guess he knows the manual better than I .

[FreeBSD4me]

Yep, got it. I set dropped the vertical stretch back to 100%, and that solved the problems with the bottom part of the screen being cut off. I should point out that I did read the manual several times, however the manual in this case is really an overview of the feature, and by no means an all encompassing explanation of what it does. When I read a feature in the manual, I realize I’ll need do 3-times that reading in the forums to fully understand its purpose. Nope.. It’s not a complaint, it just boggles my mind a bit when trying to absorb it all in a way, which doesn’t result in getting myself completely lost. I very much appreciate all the help.

Thanks again to all of you,

Dave

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by FreeBSD4me

the manual in this case is really an overview of the feature, and by no means an all encompassing explanation of what it does. When I read a feature in the manual, I realize I’ll need do 3-times that reading in the forums to fully understand its purpose.

Feedback on what isn't clear would be useful in the manual thread... while I doubt the thing will expand into an all-encompassing encyclopedia, if some things can be explained without writing another book, perhaps those parts will be updated.

- Andy

[stanger89]

Can you post a screenshot? If you use VMR9 all you have to do is hit printscreen.

-edit I started typing this before you got some better results, then left, then posted. If you're not sure what ot expect you could post a screenshot.

FWIW, I suppose I can be "screenshot man" again Here's a few caps off my 250:

[FreeBSD4me]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Can you post a screenshot? If you use VMR9 all you have to do is hit printscreen.

Ahh... Not sure how to do that. I can see VMR9 is STV, but where do you print it? Is there some other way of opening VMR9? Sorry, but I never installed this myself, so I'm not sure.

On another note, I've decided to take the advice of many here, and attempt the video calabration test. I've installed all components, however the instructions are a little lacking in what it is I'm supposed to do with this. They look great for experienced users, but I'm not experienced yet ):

So far, I've tried selecting this decoder in STV. All I get is a "There was an MPEG2 video error in playback -- Unable to connect demultiplexor to MPEG2 video decoder input pin".

That probably because I have yet to configure it, right? Um.. I looked at the screen shots Stanger posted, but I'm not even sure, which FFDSHOW option he's reffering to here --there's configuration and VFW configuration, which one?

I notice the top of his screen says FFDSHOW MPEG4 Video Decoder Properties. Mine reads: FFDSHOW properties. I'm really lost here. I haven't the slighest clue of what I'm supposed to do next, or what is is I'm supposed to configure to begin the calabration. Sorry for sounding lost again, but I'm trying my best to understand this.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by FreeBSD4me

Ahh... Not sure how to do that. I can see VMR9 is STV, but where do you print it? Is there some other way of opening VMR9? Sorry, but I never installed this myself, so I'm not sure.

Just select VMR9 as the video renderer in SageTV, play a video (or liveTV) and hit the Printscreen key. Then open up Paint or something, paste it, and save it.

On another note, I've decided to take the advice of many here, and attempt the video calabration test. I've installed all components, however the instructions are a little lacking in what it is I'm supposed to do with this. They look great for experienced users, but I'm not experienced yet ):

Have you looked at this guide yet:
http://www.sage-community.org/index....ki/Calibration
I know I linked the old one earlier.

So far, I've tried selecting this decoder in STV. All I get is a "There was an MPEG2 video error in playback -- Unable to connect demultiplexor to MPEG2 video decoder input pin".

That probably because I have yet to configure it, right? Um.. I looked at the screen shots Stanger posted, but I'm not even sure, which FFDSHOW option he's reffering to here --there's configuration and VFW configuration, which one?

Go to the ffdshow program group in the start menu and select "Configuration'
Select "Codecs" on the left side, and then at the bottom change "Raw Video" to "All supported"


I notice the top of his screen says FFDSHOW MPEG4 Video Decoder Properties. Mine reads: FFDSHOW properties. I'm really lost here. I haven't the slighest clue of what I'm supposed to do next, or what is is I'm supposed to configure to begin the calabration. Sorry for sounding lost again, but I'm trying my best to understand this.[/QUOTE]

Then go download Dscaler, and install it, you'll need it for the histogram filter.

Then in ffdshow config, select Dscaler filter on the left, and on the right, hit the "..." button and navigate to the Dscaler install directory (probably C:\Program Files\Dscaler\Plugins or something similar), select flt_histogram.dll


Hopefully that's all you'll need to do.

[FreeBSD4me]

Thanks Stanger.

Got most of the above completed. I read the new document just to make sure though.

Remember this message:

"There was an MPEG2 video error in playback -- Unable to connect demultiplexor to MPEG2 video decoder input pin".

Well.. That one vanished, but now I'm getting a similar one. When I try to view live TV, I now get:

"There was an MPEG2 video error in playback- Failed connecting video stream to overlay mixer." Yes, it's set to ffdshow as the decoder.

Did I mess something up here?

Dave

[stanger89]

Have you ever had that overlay error before? That indicates to me that some other app is using the Overlay renderer. The quick and dirty way to fix that it to try a different renderer (VMR9 or Default). Other than that make sure no other video apps are running.

Oh, and you need to enable 3D Accelleration in Detailed Setup->Advanced to use VMR9.

[FreeBSD4me]

Ok, I found the prob. You can't use overlay with fddshow. So, we have a little progress. I can now get STV to display video, but it totally eats up all the machines CPU resources. Even trying to shut it down can take 30 seoconds before it responds. Am I still on the right track here? Is this what it should be doing at this point? I can see a little plot graph on the image, but not sure what I should do with that. Somehow, I've managed to mess something up, as it should not be killing the CPU.

[salsbst]

There's a checkbox somewhere in ffdshow to enable overlay output. Can't remember where but it might be on the output page. Do try to get overlay working because VMR9 definitely chews up CPU, as does ffdshow. Combined, they really pack a punch.

[mlbdude]

I have never successfully gotten the Intervideo Hauppauge decoder to work with ffdshow at all.

[FreeBSD4me]

Getting a little lost again. The overlay feature is a part of the Hauppauge decoder? I’m asking, as I’m not using that one –I now have ffdshow selected, so I guess the overlay feature must be a part of the Hauppauge encoder? As for getting it to work, I’m not even close to figuring that one out.

I found the overlay feature in fddshow, and have enabled it. Ok, so now it works with overlay, but it plays about 5 frames of video, and then freezes. The video looks good though. What else could I be missing here?

Thanks-o-many,

Dave

[mlbdude]

One thing to try, ffdshow does NOT work with DXVA. You probbably enabled DXVA in the registry before.