Bad video quality, fast computer: settings change?

[rsg]

I am running a pretty good computer (Intel Core2 4300 @ 1.8GHz, 3gb RAM, GeForce 7300 LE), but I am getting choppy video/audio. When I change settings to "Low Quality" it resolves the problem but the quality is is really poor. That is really the only option I know enough about to modify...what else can I change?
When I was using Vista with the Angel Dual TV tuner, I never got these problems (even with the hog resource OS) in Media Center. I downgraded to XP so I figured everything would be faster.
Any ideas?

[stustunz]

what are you changing to low quality ?

[rsg]

because high quality creates a lot of choppiness, garbling and freezing.
Low quality does not create choppiness or garbling, but every ~7 minutes the video freezes and i have to left click and click on Live TV again.
I am considering going back to Vista because of this problem...TV is essentially useless because of this problem. Any suggestions?

[stustunz]

im sorry but where is the setting in the video card or the tuner settings
need to know what tuner you are using
what mepeg decoder are you using
are you using hardware acceleration
i cant see your system so you have to paint a picture with words

[stefan]

In the config, you can choose which video decoder to use. You have probably not chosen the same one in gbpvr as you were using when you ran Vista. Try downloading MPV (and switch to that in the config app) and see if that works better. Most people seems to get decent results with MPV video decoder.

[supplier]

Hi, folks. Not to draw attention from RSG’s question but I have mine along the same line and do not want to start a new thread.

1. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding of signal flow is: Tv tuner (or AV input)> hardware encoder >MPEG-2 stream to: hard drive (optional) > software decoder> monitor (TV set, etc). I’m trying to visualize how can I improve the quality of Live TV and Recordings (which will be converted using Nero into DVDs).

2. Also if I’ll skip a TV tuner and use S-video input this should improve a quality a bit as low-quality tuner on my card might be a cause not so high quality of Live TV (did not try yet to import files to DVD and watch on stand alone player)

3. will GBPVR work without TV listings (last night I set up another PC, which have no internet connection), the GBPVR starts, but on live TV I have only black screen – is this because I did not setup listing or I have to look into something else?

Thanks, Vlad

[Deusxmachina]

Hi, folks. Not to draw attention from RSG’s question but I have mine along the same line and do not want to start a new thread.

1. That's pretty much it other than HDTV doesn't use a hardware encoder, except on the one line of TV cards, I think. I wouldn't worry much about what software decoder you use as far as picture quality goes. Find one that doesn't skip or stutter etc for you and then go with that until everything else is perfect. Even when decoders do have differences, one might have better colors while it's worse on sharpness, etc.


2. For non-HD, s-video should be an improvement assuming the source is a DVD player or the like, mainly just because a retail DVD looks better than nearly all non-HDTV. But if you're talking using s-video from an external TV tuner of some kind, then it mostly just depends if that tuner is better than the card's tuner. The card's tuner has nothing to do with the video quality of a file that wasn't recorded using the card's TV recording abilities, if that's what you mean.

3. Yes. You just need to get the channel listings. Should be able to just set GBPVR for your tuner card and then click the Map Channels button for it to do an autoscan. And then go into the channels tab of config and click the lines to add x channel to y channel number. I've got things mostly working right and haven't had to do that in awhile, but that's the gist of it.

If you have a bunch of weird frequencies and numbers next to each channel in Config under the Map Channels(?) button, you should be able to view them unless there is problem elsewhere such as with the software video decoder or maybe even the video card. My video card with some video decoders would give a black screen because the mpeg2 hardware acceleration was turned off on it. Stuff like that is weird but happens.

[supplier]

Deusxmachina,
thanks i was able to get channels working and will play with other settings as well.

One really newbie question, but well -- this is my reallity :o)
I hear here and there that people use hardware acceleration. Where do i set hardware acceleration on XFX GeFource 6200 card? it's not in Control panel, it's not in device manager and it's not in NVIDIA SETTINGS in system tray.... Is this for TV or for DVI-monitor (i have anly one DVI monitor connected -- i do not have second display or TV set ) . quick search did not brimg me an answer, sorry for such simple question

[Deusxmachina]

You generally don't have a choice if hardware acceleration is on or not. Two or three software video decoders have the option, (Bitcontrol, Nvidia Purevideo, some other one I can't remember), and some software like PowerDVD may have its own acceleration button to checkmark on or off.

My PVR video card, ATI 2400, comes with it turned off but people have figured out what Hkey windows setting to change to turn it on. I had problems with the card not being powerful enough to deinterlace 1080i, (it only has the problem with GBPVR, which is strange), so I left its Hkey setting off now. I think it's somehow still using hardware acceleration even though I don't want it to. I had little luck turning it on and off via the software video decoders. But, I was pretty much only testing it with GBPVR, which, as I said, is for some reason acting funky as a video player even though it shouldn't be.

So, pretty sure the 6200 should be on by default, and I've had less than steller results using decoders that supposedly can turn acceleration on and off. You might have to search actual computer/video card sites to find out more. I've never had a 6200. There's an outside chance the 6xxx series didn't have hardware acceleration until the 6600. Not sure.

And hardware acceleration is for any time you play a video. Any decent cpu doesn't even need it. With my deinterlacing problem, I tried turning it off for mpeg2 to not max out the video card since it stuttered the picture when maxed. It's nice that the newer cards have the dedicated chip to accelerate h264 video, though, since that's generally the heavy-hitting 1080p stuff. But, a fairly new cpu (Core2Duo) still doesn't NEED the acceleration.

In short, if your current video playing isn't stuttering or using huge amounts of cpu power, I wouldn't even worry about it.

[supplier]

[QUOTE=Deusxmachina, I wouldn't even worry about it.[/QUOTE]

Thanks. i spent today whole night, trying to make sence of all questions that come up. such detailed aswers help me to focus on important stuf and not to worry about noncense.

THANKS AGAIN.