X-NEWA Install observations

[BrettB]

For a nominal 720p TV should I use the 1260X720 resolution or the 1320X768? (These numbers might not be all correct.) Both work and I can't easily tell a difference. Mine are at least as good as jksmurf"s bottom one.

I've got a 1080p TV. I'm using the 1280x720 Screen Resolution setting, and do NOT have the Enable high quality screens option turned on.

[BrettB]

jksmurf: Thanks for posting some pictures. Here are a couple of thoughts/observations:

1. Obviously, you can't directly compare the screen capture image from the PC with the photos from the PCH/Pi images on the TV. One thought is that it might be helpful to actually capture the .jpg screen image file created by NextPVR on the server which the Pi is displaying. To do that, use WinSCP and go to the folder /storage/.kodi/temp/x-newa/ and download the emulate-*.jpg file. I believe that this file gets update every 10 seconds, so you have to be a little quick to select and download it. Use the F5 key to refresh the folder display in WinSCP.

2. In your pictures the last one looks to me to be at least as good as (if not better) than the 2nd (PCH) photo. And the text and graphics in your 3rd image do look a bit fuzzier. Would you concur?

3. It would be helpful (to me at least) if you could provide a little more explanation about exactly what part of the display seems bad to you. (i.e. Text is jagged, background image is bad, icons are jagged, etc.)

[jksmurf]

jksmurf: Thanks for posting some pictures. .

Welcome, it was a good suggestion; if I want folks to assist, I need to follow up. I will admit it can be quite subjective.

Here are a couple of thoughts/observations:

1. Obviously, you can't directly compare the screen capture image from the PC with the photos from the PCH/Pi images on the TV. One thought is that it might be helpful to actually capture the .jpg screen image file created by NextPVR on the server which the Pi is displaying. To do that, use WinSCP and go to the folder /storage/.kodi/temp/x-newa/ and download the emulate-*.jpg file. I believe that this file gets update every 10 seconds, so you have to be a little quick to select and download it. Use the F5 key to refresh the folder display in WinSCP.

Awesome Brett. Thanks for showing me how to do this, I did do a wee bit of reading to try and work that out but it was really late, and I couldn't immediately find a way, so I just took photos the next morning. I felt it must be possible, as the device sends "stuff" to the screen, so whilst I felt a bit embarrassed to post photos of a TV screen, that's all I could think of at the time :o. I'll go and try this with your suggested method tonight. I don't suppose you have a similar approach for the PCH so I can do the same for that picture?

2. In your pictures the last one looks to me to be at least as good as (if not better) than the 2nd (PCH) photo. And the text and graphics in your 3rd image do look a bit fuzzier. Would you concur?

Yes, agreed. Before I saw this post, I had amended the note in my post from yesterday, to say "maybe it's just my expectations of the last 2 (with the Pi) vs the first one (on the PC). When viewed first hand I found the graphic of 3 and 4 to be blurrier/fuzzier than the 2nd (PCH)". I will admit looking at it again below, there is not a massive difference.

3. It would be helpful (to me at least) if you could provide a little more explanation about exactly what part of the display seems bad to you. (i.e. Text is jagged, background image is bad, icons are jagged, etc.)

Sure. For now, from memory, I found the graphic to be a bit washed out, but mostly that the edges of the circles appeared softer (blurrier) than on the PCH. My comments were made on the 1280x720p RPi one, where text wise, the fonts were also "soft". The only reason there is a Desktop-Res version is because after unplugging QTPi from the TV at 1280x720p, when I plugged it back into my PC, it wouldn't work at all (flickered a lot then eventually came up with a snowed-out version of NextPVR), so I went back to the TV, changed the Resolution back to Desktop Res (which is Pic 4, but if I kept that the overscan would needed changing again so I didn't keep it, figuring 1280x720p "should be" just fine), then popped back upstairs to the PC where it worked. I did do a Trial at 1920x1080p but saw no difference whatsoever, so I thought in the interests of menu speed (as learnt on the PCH along time ago), 720p should be fine.

Cheers

k.

[mvallevand]

The PCH and MVP screens are written pixel by pixel directly to the screen coordinates. Web client is a compressed jpg thant needs to be uncompressed, converted to full screen and scaled by Kodi skin engine using h/w accelerated OpenGl with quality & speed which varies by device. All that to say I don't expect it to be quite as good. Given this is just python code on a Kodi skin, it's pretty successful all things considered.

Martin

[jksmurf]

The PCH and MVP screens are written pixel by pixel directly to the screen coordinates. Web client is a compressed jpg thant needs to be uncompressed, converted to full screen and scaled by Kodi skin engine using h/w accelerated OpenGl with quality & speed which varies by device. All that to say I don't expect it to be quite as good. Given this is just python code on a Kodi skin, it's pretty successful all things considered.

Martin

Yup, sounds like a lot of processing going on and it being optimized for speed come at a premium in terms of quality. Thanks for the clarification. I have a follow on question but will pose it in a separate thread.

k.

[sub]

I can bump the "high quality" version of the web UI up to highest possible quality for the next release. It should help some what.

[jksmurf]

Cool ! Ta.