Soft, blurry image.

[Sjbrown]

I find that, despite having digital satelight and using an S Video cable the image is very soft looking, to the point where some text on screen is hard to read.

I also found that in the recording source Edit menu, if I select "High quality" in the Quality Profile Settings, and hit OK. Going back into that menu, it has gone back to Medium. I don't know if this is related to my above problem, but assistance on either or both issues is greatly appreciated.

E D I T :

Tinkering with some of the configuration, I now get the message: Failed to locate configured capture device. Any idea on how to fix this?

[Jim_]

I find that, despite having digital satelight and using an S Video cable the image is very soft looking, to the point where some text on screen is hard to read.

Direct.ini in the gbpvr folder has several settings that can be configured, including sharpness.
These are the ones I use with my WinTV PVR USB2.

[SETUP-VideoProcAmp]
; valid values are 0 - 100 or AUTO
; AUTO tells GB-PVR to not set the property, but instead rely on driver defaults (AUTO is in upper case).
Brightness=52
Contrast=54
Hue=50
Saturation=43
Sharpness=65
Gamma=50
WhiteBalance=AUTO
Gain=AUTO

I also found that in the recording source Edit menu, if I select "High quality" in the Quality Profile Settings, and hit OK. Going back into that menu, it has gone back to Medium. I don't know if this is related to my above problem, but assistance on either or both issues is greatly appreciated.

Medium is the default selection, but you can change the medium settings to anything you want in the config utility.

E D I T :

Tinkering with some of the configuration, I now get the message: Failed to locate configured capture device. Any idea on how to fix this?

Don't know.

[csy]

I find that, despite having digital satelight and using an S Video cable the image is very soft looking, to the point where some text on screen is hard to read.

1) Use latest video drivers. ATI 6.3, Nvidia 84.21
2) Set screen resolution to same as source, ie for MPEG2 recordings then: 720x480 for NTSC, and 720x576 for PAL
3) Set screen refresh rate to same as source or close multiple, ie 60Hz for NTSC, 50Hz for PAL
4) Disable video card scaling and anti-flicker. For ATI, enable "video mode", and for Nvidia set anti-flicker to zero (far left on slider).
5) Use hardware deinterlacing. First ensure DXVA is enabled on the video card driver (ATI specific). Next configure GBPVR to VMR9. Finally configure video decoder for hardware acceleration (DXVA) enabled, and deinterlacing mode "auto". You may also need to configure the video card to "single display", ie disable clone or dual display modes because this can block DXVA from working in some instances. The key thing is VMR9 hands-off deinterlacing to hardware when DXVA is used, and hardware deinterlacing has advanced temporal and spatial deinterlacing capabilities.

Note if your using the Nvidia Purevideo decoder, then configure its deinterlacing mode to "VMR Default"

I expect most of your soft look is due to using the default "bob" deinterlacing.

[pBS]

first, it sounds like you changed the card# or such in config so now it can't find it..[doublecheck,all should be #1 if only 1 physical card and check name too]
after going over this stuff a billion times on several systems, for me all i need to do is 1.set the video resolution to 720x480, and even other resolutions looked same, just seemed to use more resources [60hz is Mandatory on tv-out, can't set anything else!]
dual/clone mode fine,don't need 'video mode' on ATI at all..[same as overscan really]
i use the tv flicker filter off..[but one notch up looks good too]
yes,turn anti-aliasing off on that monitor, S-Video sharpness on tv-out to max.
-Nvidia forums suggest 'smart' and 'pixel adaptive' for the decoder, but 'best available' usually selects that anyways, so either is fine..
['smart' examines the video stream itself and acts upon mpeg telecine flags for proper 3:2 pulldown info, same as cyberlink decoder...'auto' makes some assumptions]
[usually only a problem with some dvd's anyways]
and that's it...
after using test dvd's to check motion it looks as sharp as direct svideo from my sat. i still use overlay tho as it still looks sharper to me..
[actually, i can't tell the difference! that good]
[vmr 'overprocesses' the video and even at optimal settings it's still slightly fuzzier than overlay...overlay is practically direct]
also,what video card are you using?

seems maybe sub should make the profile settings a visible list you can select and hit 'edit'[not dropdown] cuz everybody seems to think it changes the default recording mode...lol
[or better yet a drop-down that is blank by default, and auto-ok's when any selection is made..so users don't assume it's set to anything unless they select something from the list,and could get rid of edit button]
just a thought

[Sjbrown]

I'm a little confused... are we talking about GBPVR's config settings? I am having trouble finding a lot of the stuff you are talking about... though I did get my card working again.