Playback Settings for an ATI Theatre 550

[Undeadlord]

I seem to be hoplessly lost here guys and I was hoping someone could help me. I seem to have messed up my filters and codecs and am having no luck getting a decent picture out of LiveTV.

First, in the Playback section what should I be using here? under Hardware decoder and under Software Playback? In the Video Decoder section I have three options, System Default, Intervideo Decoder and Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder. However none of those with any combination of the VMR/Overlay options gives me anywhere near a decent picture. Very grainy and lots of artifacts all over the screen.

The audio seems to be working alright if I just leave both options on System defult.

Any ideas???

Thanks

Undeadlord

[csy]

A grainy picture is typically caused by too low RF signal level. TV capture cards require a strong RF-input signal level (stronger than required for normal TV). An RF amplifier may solve the problem if this is the cause of the grainy picture.

Alternatively, the TV channels may not be 'tuned' correctly (not centred on the video carrier frequency).

If you have a HDTV and you are connected by the video card TV-out, then the TV scaling can be very poor and look grainy.

If you are using Nvidia card with 90 series driver, then incorrectly adjusted video settings in the the driver config is prone to causing grainy picture (can also apply to ATI driver config if video settings are adjusted to extreme limits).

[Undeadlord]

Thanks for the help Csy, however I don't have HDTV, just normal TV.

I will check my ATI drivers, but the problem is yesterday I had things workings pretty well, the picture was clear and the sound was in sync. However, when I hit LiveTV from in GB, there was quite a long delay, maybe 30+ seconds before I got a picture. So I was messing around with my codecs and filters and now have seemingly screwed things up.

Anyway to clear out all the codecs and filters form a system and start fresh?

Undeadlord

[csy]

The delayed start of LiveTV is probably becuase it is starting in timeshift mode. Live preview mode will bypass the timeshift buffer and start almost immediately. Live preview mode is enabled via a tick-box in GBPVR config misc tab (also tick associated 'encoder pass-through' deinterlacing).

If you already have live preview mode enabled, then the delay is caused by the video decoder failing to initialise and directshow is timing-out and falling-back to the default directshow decoder.

There is no simple way of removing all the filters that you have added. the easist way is to unintall the application that added the filters. If you are an advanced user, you can use a filter manager (eg Radlight Filter Manager) to look at the installed filters and you can change their 'merit' (priority).

[sub]

Nah, 30+ seconds is way too long for this. It is probably related to directshow trying pick which decoders to use and finding some decoder that takes a long time to decide whether or not it can be used - I've seen this a few times.

It might help to explicitly specify the audio/video decoders and renderers, rather than relying on system default.