Issues with fast motion - blurring... any ideas?

[GBZEUS]

Hi,

I have been using SageTV relatively sucessfully for the past few months. The LIVE TV quality is good and does not suffer from any issues.

My problems occur when making recordings. Whilst the quality is good for slow moving and still images, when fast movement takes place, there seems to be a slight blurring of the image and a loss of frame rate maybe?

For example, if someone runs across the screen, they have a slight blurring/choppiness in movement.

I have not really described the issue too well, but I hope you get the idea.

Any suggestions for resolving this issue?

Cheers,

G.

[stanger89]

Sounds like it's a recording quality issue, since everything in Sage (LiveTV too) is recorded.

Have you tried setting your recording quality to the same setting as your default recording quality?

[GBZEUS]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Sounds like it's a recording quality issue, since everything in Sage (LiveTV too) is recorded.

Have you tried setting your recording quality to the same setting as your default recording quality?

Errrr....

I have the recording quality set to 'BEST' (it was at 'great').

I have just changed the decoder to the new intervideo one (I was using the hauppauge intervideo one before - I have the PVR350) and the quality has improved some what.

Any suggestions on the best decoder to use?

My card is quite picky about which it will work with.

Cheers,

G

[stanger89]

Are you using the 350's TV out or a monitor/TV out on a video card?

[GBZEUS]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Are you using the 350's TV out or a monitor/TV out on a video card?

The tv out on a R9800Pro.

The 350 out seems to have issues (a kind of criss cross effect on the image)

Just to let you know, I was wrong, the livetv is the same and I have now tried several decoders (sonic and nvidia) which have not fixed the problem.

The TV out on the 350 does make it run very smooth (thus indicating a software/graphics card issue to me)....

Any ideas?

[jptaz]

I gave up on having good motion out of a software decoder. I prefer my MediaMVP and XCard. On the exact same file it looks smooth on both of those as opposed to blurry on any one of my 3 PCS using any decoder.

I had some problems with using Reclock, but when it did work it smoothed things out to almost as good as the hardware, but it just kept causing speed ups and slow downs in the playback and even jumpiness and general instability.

The reason hardware works better than software is that they have a dedicated clock that is very accurate. The clocks available in a PC are very bad in comparision.

John

[willemse]

The issues you describe are the same as I still experience and are documented in the post: http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=8949

I use a FX 5200 and wonder whether the capabilities of the FX 5200 are insufficient and are the root cause for the problems?

I use SDTV connected to PC via S-Video on FX 5200. Experience shows that using TV as primary output gives best results but still not meeting the quality level I want to have. I am considering going to 6600GT AGPP version.
Although I use a 350 card for capture and which gives good quality output is it not used for output since it lacks capabilities to give "normal" desktop output and DVD output


Hope this is informative although it does not give solution. It more sharing the same problem!! Hope above post may give you a solution! If so let us know

Goodluck

[mc2wheels]

and I used to have the fx5200. To tell you the truth, the s-video out on my 6600GT AGP is not that much different than what I had with the 5200. Unless you have component inputs, I wouldn't bother.

However, I get really excellent output with the component out. Luckily, my SDTV has component inputs. When I set my tv-out resolution to 480i (using the 67.3 drivers), which assumes component out, I no longer have the weird blurring in sports or the acid trip effect in peoples faces. When I do s-Video out (1024x768), I don't really have fast motion blurring but I do get the weird color morphing in peoples faces, especially black people's faces, but really with anything that is color rich. I only run this way when I am burning DVDs with Roxio because it needs this resolution.

[jphhughes]

I had been using my 350 with hardware decoding and was very happy with it. Recently I started to useing SageTV for DVD's so I reverted to sofware decoding. Initially the picture stunk.. Then I read severall posts her and thanks to Stanger89 was able to get an excellent picture on my Hitachi SD rear projection TV. I am using a Nvidia 5200 with the nvidia decoder with Stanger's setting of VMR9, Default, pixel something or other ( as you can see not very technical) and again have a great picture. By the way Stanger89 Thanks.

[jptaz]

I use the DVI on my FX5200 the motion blurr I am tlaking about may be more related to to my slower CPU so VMR9 is not an option and even with Overlay I experience the motion blurr ( stock tickers and thigs like that do not move at a smooth pace ). Nothing as extreme as what mc2wheels has, but definitely noticable in high motion.

That is the reason I watch Sports live via HDTV or via My projector using the Xcard ( Sports
projected 8 feet on a wall is way better than any tiny little 60" TV ) I am actually thinking of having one of my PVR 250s and running TVedia since it has full support of the XCard and can Play DVDs.

John

[mc2wheels]

but the main point I was trying to make is that through s-video, there isn't that much difference with the output of a good fx5200 and the 6600GT. Maybe less cpu usage, but picture quality differences do not justify the expense. You won't really notice the difference.

But if you have an HDTV, I don't see why you wouldn't. You will see a very big improvement with component out. And I would assume the the DVI out is better.

[kny3twalker]

the problem is the intervideo decoders
they do very well with properly flagged material but not with recordedTV
I suggest either powerDVD 6 or nvidia decoder
they do much better even in overlay mode
but the FX 5200 is enough to do VMR9 over svideo output
I do this on my client all the time

[willemse]

JPTAZ

It is I think NOT CPU performance issue. My CPU =AMD 2000+ runs typically at 15 -20 %

Is the blur with life TV AND recorderded TV? In my case it is.
I use NDVD decoder v 100.67 with all settings recommend on this forum!), Video renderer Overlay, NVidia display driver 67.22 and tried 67.03 (which does not make difference).

MC2Wheels

Thanks for your experience with FX 5200 and 6600GT. Reason that I do not use component right now is that in Europe mostly Scart (Which has RGB at component level) is used. I may switch to DVI and HDTV but need to sort out quality problems first. My SDTV has Scart input but I have not been able to come up with good solution to convert VGA to SCART.

Also believe that we are talking about two different issues being:

One the quality of picture with "fast Moving Scenes" and
Two quality of general picture using S-Video, or Component.

I experience same behavior as described by JPTAZ in this tread and I described in thread on picture quality

In addition to issue one is issue two a concern for me, but first I need to get issue one resolved. I cannot put the system in my living room due to this picture quality issue. (WAF, which I agree with)

So any suggestion is welcome as I am getting to an end as to what the options are. I do not mind switching to another silent display card, since it will be placed in the living, but want to be surte it is a real cure.

Even start to believe that Frey needs to put energy into this as I see all over the same issue on picture quality keeps coming up. Firmly believe this is an important issue for Frey and will affect market share if picture quality issues are ignored!! they need to step up to this!!

Despite the wonderful STV of MLBDude and features of Sage I am starting to think ..MCE??? But I just do not like to go that route for the obvious reasons!

[nielm]

choppyness:

it could be a problem in the recording... Try playing the mpeg file in a media player that allows slowing down the speed to 1/4 or 1/8th, (most dvd app can do this, as if not videolan client player can...) This should show you whether the choppyness is in the mpeg file or in the Sage playback path... I have seen mpeg files where every so often, it jumps back a few frames.. (eg frame 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,1)... This may be a sage recording problem or a hauppauge driver problem

it could also be a de-interlacing problem:
if the choppyness is like a very fine stutter, this is a known VMR9 problem in DirectX9.0c / WXP SP2 that comes and goes when you fast-forward: the 2 fields of each frame are displayed in the wrong order: (eg field 1.2, 1.1, 2.2, 2.1)... Switch to overlay or default video renderer in Sage to see if it helps. There are a a few posts discussing it in the forums.

If it is blurring or banding/combing of the image when there is horizontal movement, switch deinterlacing modes in your mpeg2 decoder from 'Weave/combine' to 'Bob' or 'auto/smart' (do this via the dvd player app that comes with it). If using NVDVD, try using the decoder not the VPP... (for me the VPP uses horrible deinterlacing)

See the links in these 2 posts for more deinterlacing help...

willemse: vga->RGB/SCART cablelooks like it will give the required scanline matching, but I have not yet tried it (my sage system does not support powerstrip)

[GBZEUS]

Guys, thanks for all the replies.

I have managed to fix the issue by taking three steps:

1. switching back to the hauppauge Intervideo decoder.

2. Selecting 'Bob' for the deinterlacing setting

3. Selecting my primary sata harddisk as the recording drive. I was previously using my second sata disk.

I now have no motion blur and the iq is rock solid.

Many thanks for all your help guys!

G

[GBZEUS]

Ok,

The video is fine in SageTV, but when I use the recorded files in other applications (WinDVD, PowerDVD, Windows Media player etc....) the above problem I reported earlier occurs again.

Any ideas?

[nielm]

so it sounds like a de-interlacing problem... Change the de-interlacing settings in powerdvd/windvd.

For WMP, check which decoder is being used, and change the de-interlacing settings in that...

[GBZEUS]

Originally Posted by nielm

so it sounds like a de-interlacing problem... Change the de-interlacing settings in powerdvd/windvd.

For WMP, check which decoder is being used, and change the de-interlacing settings in that...

I have been looking through the wmp options... cant see how to do this for the life of me.

[kny3twalker]

I am telling you intervideo decoders stink for recorded TV
I believe WMP uses VMR7 as default
and using Bob deinterlacing is not going to fix that decoder

try out the nvidia decoders
there is a free trial
and use VMR9 rendering

if you are going to get anywhere with the intervideo decoders
you are going to be registry editing

[willemse]

Nielm,

Thanks for your as usual fast and helpfull response

FYI and future reference: Couple of other sites dealing with VGA -. SCART connections

http://www.idiots.org.uk/vga_rgb_scart/

http://www.hut.fi/Misc/Electronics/c...v/circuit.html

http://world.altavista.com/babelfish...t.htm&lp=ru_en

http://forum.matrox.com/mga/viewtopic.php?t=4389

Thanks again but I do hope my issue one problem gets resolved as this drives me nuts!! spend over 3 weeks on this without progress, but... who knows

Tried the by GBZEUS suggested steps, as my TV capture directory was on another HD tried folder on same disk as Sage program is on. No luck!