Poor video quality in GBPVR only

[FLAWLESSVW]

While viewing Live TV, Recorded TV, or My Videos in GBPVR, the picture is not very crisp...it's blurry/out of focus looking. It also gets choppy sometimes on panning scenes. If I play any videos in WMP they look fine. The menus and text in GBPVR are nice and crisp also.
I'm currently using VMR9, but as I recall Overlay didn't make it any better the last time I tried it.

I was thinking of trying the NVidia PureVideo decoder to see if this helps but don't want to try anything drastic until I asked.

I also have DirectX 9.0c, and wanted to try 9.0b after reading some things here, but the older threads that link to the 9.0b file are old links. If you suggest I still try 9.0b to fix this problem, please point me in the right direction for a good working link.

As always, I appreciate the help. This program is sweet...and my wife is already using it more than me!!!

[Braklet]

You description sounds exactly like a bad deinterlacing problem. That almost always has something to do with the video decoders you have on your system.

WMP playing fine means that DirectShow is using some sort of media filter graph that works with your system. This means you should be able to get the same performance in GB-PVR, you just have to tweak it.

I had problems like that which I finally got rid of by removing ALL decoders from my system and adding back only what I needed, verifying that performance was acceptable after each install.

I have an nVidia 6600-based video card and I found that using the PureVideo decoder with hardware acceleration enabled provided the best video quality for me.

While I was only using analog video from my Hauppauge PVR-500 card, I found that setting GB-PVR for VMR9 Custom renderer, nVidia PureVideo video and audio decoding worked best (PureVideo always set to same VMR level as GB-PVR).

Things got screwy if I added ANY codec packs or even well-respected packages to the system like FFDShow. They introduced enough variability to DirectShow that video didn't work the same as before.

Your own settings may not match mine, but you can't go wrong by methodically adding only the decoders you need.

[oddible]

Is there a way to specify GBPVR use the same decoders, etc that WMP is using without destroying the functionality of other programs by uninstalling all codec packs?

BTW, my video got significantly choppier when I upgraded from the ver of .97 I was using to .98. Only choppy when the motion on the screen is fast. Other issues, like faded video and some diagonal lines has existed in previous vers too - I'm trying to get the same pic quality in GBPVR as direct cable and WMP.

[sub]

If you set your video renderer to 'Overlay' and your decoders to 'System Default' then it'll usually use the same decoders as WMP.

[oddible]

Thanks, that got rid of my choppiness!! Vid quality is the same now as WMP.

[FLAWLESSVW]

Thanks for the replies.
I'll try the Nvidia PureVideo decoder and see if it makes a difference.

Braklet, you mentioned removing all decoders from your system and adding them back systematically. How exactly did you remove all of the decoders?

[Braklet]

Thanks for the replies.
I'll try the Nvidia PureVideo decoder and see if it makes a difference.

Braklet, you mentioned removing all decoders from your system and adding them back systematically. How exactly did you remove all of the decoders?

Well, when I started I just got into Windows Add/Remove Programs menu and uninstalled every media-related thing I thought had installed codecs. That did the trick for me, leaving all the install packages intact in case I wanted to add them back (e.g. XP Codec Pack).

I knew I wanted PureVideo so that was easy to add back. I also want to run Hauppauge Win2K so I had to go back and install the special Hauppauge version of the Intervideo codec. Right now those are the only two video codecs on my system. I care less about playing all types of online media than MPEG2 playback quality on my HTPC.

If you're crafty and know what you're doing, you can manually de-register codecs. See this Wiki page for info (scroll down to the "register" question).

There are also ways to manually specify codec priority within DirectShow but I don't know very much about that, you'd have to Google for advice.

Good luck! The tuning effort is worth it, IMO. My HTPC now displays both SD and HD video nearly as well as my TVs embedded receiver.

[Braklet]

There are also ways to manually specify codec priority within DirectShow but I don't know very much about that, you'd have to Google for advice.

I just figured out that GSpot (the video media analyzer) lets you modify the Merit field on each filter it finds in the system. Apparently, DirectShow uses the numeric Merit to help prioritize the set of filters it will use to play different kinds of media.

To test this out I installed FFDShow (which always screwed up my video quality) and opened a few video clips using GSpot. I noticed that the FFDShow developers registered their decoders with very high Merit fields. I manually bumped these down to one or two units below the corresponding nVidia decoders.

Different kinds of video clips (MPEG2, DivX-in-AVI, MPEG1) seemed to render correctly within GSpot. At least the FFDShow and nVidia decoder icons appeared in the status bar as expected. Previously, I couldn't play any DivX files because installing those decoders always screwed up my DirectShow graphs for MPEG2 and wouldn't use the nVidia decoders. I have no way to test video quality until I get home (connecting through HTPC via VNC).

If this works, it provides a whole new aspect for video tuning.

[FLAWLESSVW]

Well, I've been trying my hardest to get it working nicely.
I installed the nVidia PureVideo and tried all of the different settings (Overlay, all VMR's) and corresponded the settings in GBPVR. The best so far has been VMR7, but I still get choppy video 1. when the screen pans and 2. when the OSD is present (i.e. when changing channels).
Actual video quality looks quite a bit better since installing PureVideo.

I uninstalled all programs I thought would have codecs, except for Quicktime which I suppose I need for iTunes, but I don't know if that would matter...

Any further suggestions? I'll try whatever you guys think might help.

[csy]

I'm wondering if your using a too higher display resolution than your video card can support for video playback. I would recommend trying display resolution of 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL).

Also make sure the disply your using to watch the video is the "primary" display in the video driver config.

And make sure the refresh rate is an exact multiple of the video frame-rate (60Hz/NTSC, 50Hz/PAL).