PVR IN PERIL! PVR-150 Picture Quality Disappoints

[CaptainVideo]

My PVR-150's picture quality is a problem! I'm sorry if this post is too long, but this problem could kill my PVR. The problem could be the AIW output, but I think the PVR-150 is the culprit.

Does anyone else notice these symptoms?

1) The dynamic range is insufficient. Highs and lows are clipped and details are lost. Bright areas are washed-out and dark areas are black voids.

2) subtle differences in cotrast are lost. People's faces end up looking cartoony in many instances, with their faces being reduced to a single washed-out color looking like they are wearing a ton of peach-colored makeup.

3) The card seems to have a real hard time making all channels look good at the same time. One channel will look overly-contrasty with extreme highs and lows, while another, with the same settings, lacks contrast and looks flat and muddy.

My expectation was that a PVR would be able to produce video nearly identical to the original. I know this is possible because my APEX DVD+RW produces EXCELLENT output even at the 1Gb/hr mode. Is this a reasonable expectation of a PVR?

Some more detail:
*I spent 4 hours tweaking the ATI output and PVR-150 settings (with the Hauppauge tweak tool). I could not find any settings that came even close to the quality of the APEX DVD+RW's. The tweak tool's "sharpness" setting didn't appear to have any effect.

*I can adjust the settings to see details in the highs or lows, but not both at the same time. This proves the detail IS there, which would indicate this is more of an AIW problem.

*However, when I adjust to see dark details, it looks HORRIBLE. I get MPEG2 artifacting, graininess, and horrible gradients. This would indicate it is more of a PVR-150 encoding problem.

*Computer images coming from the AIW look GREAT on the TV. Photos are sharp and have plenty of detail, indicating the AIW CAN do it.

*I've only been using "high" quality, but haven't significantly changed GB-PVR's settings for "High". Upping the bitrate didn't seem to make much of a difference.

*"LiveTV" produces these same contrast and detail problems as recorded TV, but since I notice some MPEG2 artifacting I'm guessing there IS MPEG2 encoding/decoding going on even in LiveTV that isn't being timeshifted.

*reducing the contrast in the Hauppauge Tweak tool helped the clipping of the highs and lows, but produced a horribly flat-looking non-contrasty image. There's no middle ground! Also, some channels might look fine in one contrast while others look horrible. But, somehow, the TV and APEX DVD+RW seem to make it work.

*The tweak-tool's static spatial filter (whatever that is) can't be changed to dynamic. It always changes back to static.

*I get the same picture quality problem with Hauppauge WinTV program

*Cartoons look EXCELLENT! PVR-150+AIW reproduces sharp changes in contrast and color very well.

*I *think* I've tried different MPEG2 codecs (Intervideo, Intervideo nonCCS, default which I assume is the Hauppauge installed one). But I don't know how to get GB-PVR to see additional ones.

*If a show's lighting is JUST right, it looks pretty good, but could be more sharp.

*I've tried 800x600, 720x480, and 640x480. Always 32-bit color, nothing looks any better than anything else.

*Trust me that the TV is set up right

*I tested composite video to see if there was an s-video problem. Composite looked worse.

I need help!
1) Can a hauppauge PVR-150 be expected to produce quality as good as an APEX DVD+RW? Should it look really close to live TV?
2) Are ATI AIW Radeon's notable for good or bad TV-Out quality? Are there better?
3) Should I be trying another MPEG2 decoder?
4) Do the symptoms I'm describing (with clipping, overly contrasty, washed-out colors) indicate a problem that can be solved with different Hauppauge settings that maybe aren't available in the tweak tool?
5) Can post processing help? How do you set up fdshow?
6) Or does everyone have these problems and I need to learn to get over it?

Thank you so much for your help!

[capone]

I have the same card. Someone told me once there was a reason you would not get the same rich/lumincecent contrasts, but that is all I find missing. I'm also analog cable/s-video, so I have less quality to work w/ and interface through.

I also played w/ both the ATI and nVidia when building. ATI was friendlier w/ the TV, but nVidia was superior for tuning the quality. The ATI was set as high as possible w/ saturation when I installed it, and it wasn't enough. The same level w/ nVidia was how it looked w/ saturadion off, so I was able to easily lift up the whole range of color/contrast. It solved all the problems I had w/ the color/contrast (except that luminecent look to dark/black colors...kind of "brightness" to shadows that makes the regular TV look just slighty more..."alive" or rich)

It also had the same problem w/ sharpness that nVidia handled much better. What ATI did better was fitting the image on the TV (4:3), but that was little comfort to inabilty to manipulate the image quality.

I briefly had really bad color and black/white artifacts, but I found out I was set to 16 and not 32bit color...almost tore my hair out for nothing trying to fix that. I know you said this was already checked out for you, but what you described was how it looked when I was too low.

I use nVidida DVD decoders. It's hard to tell if they are better than Invervideo's, because I somehow suspect nVidia's decoders would work best w/ their cards. It is better (to my eyes) than Intervideo's, but not dramatically so.

I was able to do the same improvements w/ ffdShow (and even fix that black/black issue I mentioned) when using the ATI & Intervideo, but in the end, it just got it to look as good as the nVidia does. I also found the filter could throw off the sync of the audio (recorded), so I was happier to have the card handle it. That may not be a problem at all for you, so it's worth trying. I couldn't say what all those settings were, but the best results came w/ the picture properties, and playing w/ lum gain and saturation.

Using the tweak tool, I think I did contrast at 118 and satuartion (or whatever it was) to around 133. Those values will probably be meaningless, since the color/bright/contrast of my TV is facotred into that. My adivce is to a) get you TV how you want it (meaning I didn't want to play w/ TV, so image of regular TV still looked normal), b) get your vid card how you want it (so GB screens, recorded video, desktop, et al, all look normal), and then c) play w/ tweak tool. Once all that is good as it gets, play w/ post processors such as ffdShow or dScaler.

As for the the other tweak filters, I think I ended up back at the defaults after trying a lot, or just off from default (I think 7-9 on motion blur, and either 0 or 1 on the other one).

In the end, aside from that one aspect of dark/black luminecence, the pix is great. I played w/ it a *lot* to get it that way, but at the same time, I when I look at the defaults and what I ended up w/, I didn't do much at all. I think I ended up overdoing many things so everything else was impossible to balence. It wasn't until I put everything back to default, and started in the order I decribed, that I was able to make the minor adjustments it took to make it look right.

All in all, no exact numbers will do you any good w/o the same hardware, over the same signal, on the same set w/ the same settings. Even then, you may like darker pix that I do, or always watch in a darkened room. But, I hope some of this experience will give you avenues to try in your pursuit.

[CaptainVideo]

Thanks for the advice!

I know what you mean about tinkering with so many variables only to realize the default settings are pretty close to what you want. I went through that yesterday. You end up fixing one problem and creating two. Before you know it you have a real mess on your hands.

I'm nervous about the audio sync problem you describe. My wife and I are really sensitive to that!

>I have the same card. Someone told me once there was a reason you would not get
>the same rich/lumincecent contrasts, but that is all I find missing.

It can't be the MPEG2 standard. My APEX recorder creates standard DVD's at lower bitrates than GB-PVR's "high" setting and I'm extremely satisfied (except for a strange slow strobe in brightness. About once every 5 seconds it gets brighter and slowly darkens)

Re: ATI, I noticed that I have two screen size settings, "overscan" and "video mode". "Video mode" produces a better picture, but both overscan and video mode go WAY too far in overscan. You can't read GB-PVR text at the bottom and on most plugins the buttons on the left are cut off. Maybe I should try GB-PVR windowed?

>As for the the other tweak filters, I think I ended up back at the defaults after trying
>a lot, or just off from default (I think 7-9 on motion blur, and either 0 or 1 on the
>other one).

I couldn't see a difference when I changed any of those settings.

Here's my plan of action, so far:
-Try making the PVR the ONLY "TV" hooked up to cable to eliminate the possibility that my splitter is degrading the signal too much. I may possibly try rabbit ears and a good strong TV channel to further test this.

-Download a color bar, convert it to an MPEG2 file I can play in GB-PVR to adjust to.
-Find a known-good MPEG2 and verify my settings above look good (I may try the DVD Ripper function)
-Tweak the hauppauge to best match the new settings
-Try FFDSHOW
-Play around with Graphedit, if I can figure it out
-Maybe try DScaler
-If that doesn't work, buy an NVIDIA card

It has been fun up to this point! I guess I see why more people pay Time Warner Cable $5 a month to rent their DVR.

Thanks for your help! I'll post tonight, if I'm able to get anything significant done.

[capone]

I'm nervous about the audio sync problem you describe. My wife and I are really sensitive to that!

Then you'll know it when you see it. To test, I just recorded just anything for 2-10min, and watched somethign previously recorded. It was instantly obvious.

It can't be the MPEG2 standard. My APEX recorder creates standard DVD's at lower bitrates than GB-PVR's "high" setting and I'm extremely satisfied (except for a strange slow strobe in brightness. About once every 5 seconds it gets brighter and slowly darkens)

It isn't that. Again, someone explained it. It had to do w/ the card itself I believe, and the nature of TV card/Vid card (maybe not all cards, though), and the connection (using s-vid and not dvi). He said I could make an interface cable/device of some kind that could restore it, but I wasn't *that* unhappy.

Re: ATI, I noticed that I have two screen size settings, "overscan" and "video mode". "Video mode" produces a better picture, but both overscan and video mode go WAY too far in overscan. You can't read GB-PVR text at the bottom and on most plugins the buttons on the left are cut off. Maybe I should try GB-PVR windowed?

Overscan was more like regular 4:3 TV (trimming off the extra...really notice watching CNN HN, w/ position of logo and distance of crawl from bottom of screen), but I hated how you couldn't use the edges of Windows anymore, and how it cut off the edges of the GB screens. I found just zooming the video a couple of steps was fine.

I couldn't see a difference when I changed any of those settings.

You've got to be a real nerd on this one, and watch multiple shows over time. I noticed too little compensation for motion or too soft/pixelated an image when I changed w/ stills, sports, etc. It generally made one thing better, but another thing weaker when I played.

Btw, two great tests for motion. The obvious one is sports. I'm not a sports guy, but it's a great test. When a basketball player is in motion, watch the crowd behind them to see if it looks right. The other, oddly enough, is the news channel crawls (text running along bottom). Look to see that it is smooth and clear. When I had bad settings, it was either jagged/interlaced looking, or jerky. The jerky can happen once in a while, but shouldn't be constant (oddly, picture itself will be smooth).

-Find a known-good MPEG2 and verify my settings above look good (I may try the DVD Ripper function)

I did that w/ shows I knew to be good quality. That helped. What *really* helped was just using recall button on TV to go from TV on say channel 29 to PVR channel 29. Make sure to use catch-up so delay is only 1-3 sec, and test using many channels (don't rely on just one). One more thing, use mute for TV on....makes you crazy after a while.

-Tweak the hauppauge to best match the new settings
-Try FFDSHOW
-Play around with Graphedit, if I can figure it out
-Maybe try DScaler
-If that doesn't work, buy an NVIDIA card

If you or your wife is sick of you doing the above, skip to last option, and get at a store like CC or BB. It will at least show you if you should invest your time tweaking the hell out of the right or wrong card. You can then return nVidia that day, or eBay ATI. If you are enjoying this as a hobby/enthusiast and want to hold your cash as last result, then you are on the right track.

It has been fun up to this point! I guess I see why more people pay Time Warner Cable $5 a month to rent their DVR.

I agree, and I would have just tivo'ed if I didn't have a lot of video stored. I was just building a box to watch video over the network w/ (as well as home movies, pix, music, et al), and tv part was just a residual (but I have come to really embrace).

Thanks for your help! I'll post tonight, if I'm able to get anything significant done.

Good luck, and stick w/ it. I was where you are, and I'm happy now. I'm interested in hearing how it goes.

[onestar]

Just my current observations. With a 150 (capture) in the box, with a 350 (capture/playing_ playing out. I haven't noticed any problems with the quality to be honest. I can't say for sure, but subjectively I have been comparing the recording quality from this new setup to my old setup with a Pinnacle Deluxe capture card in full AVI (16G per hour version) and say there isnt much difference. The colours were slightly more "vivid" but I turned down saturation at that was better. It is slightly darker too, but I think the brightnes reg will adjust that.

I will pay some closer attention now, and if I see anything let you know.

[CaptainVideo]

Thank you! That's all very encouraging. I would much rather believe there's some setting or misconfiguration (maybe the cable being split in to too many branches) than some inherent deficiency in the PVR-150.

But, you would think the out-of-box performance would be better than what I'm seeing.

[capone]

Look at shared experiences in the boards. Many people have that card, but you may find fewer have ATI than nVidia. Most people are happy w/ their setup.

I'm not going to say you can't get a satisfatory result from an ATI, but you'll need to make that happen.

[jsteele]

Anecdotally I was told over on the MediaPortal board that the Hauppauge cards tend not be be as sensitive as most TV sets. Thus it takes a stronger signal for the cards to produce a comparable quality video image. I was advised that an amp would probably help.

In my test/build setup I do am running the house cable connection into two cards through a splitter. This is on top of all the other splitters and taps in the house. The image is VERY grainy and in the case of some channels there is no image to speak of.

My current actual TV setup has had a 10dB RF amp in it since day one because it currently feeds multiple inputs for TV, VCR, etc. So when I do put GB in to actual use it will go behind the 10dB amp and hopefully this will eliminate the problem.

Bottom line is you may want to try a RF amp and see if it helps --- they are pretty cheap so even as an experiment it won't hurt much :-)

[CaptainVideo]

I think an amp may be a good idea. Tonight I tried
-removing one of the two splitters (this definitely improved the picture quality, but I'm still seeing the problem of some channels appearing all over-exposed and some underexposed)
-Created an MPEG2 with various color bars and used it to set the ATI AIW output. Turns out my attempts to avoid over and under exposing had my ATI settings way under-contrasted. So I set it according to the color bars and then
-Ran live TV and Hauppauge Tweak (WHY oh WHY does that stupid message box pop up saying "Settings Saved"? And WHY require a stupid check mark to save the settings?) and set it to match the ATI.

Overall it isn't too bad. Some channels are overexposed (TLC) and some are underexposed (ABC Family), but it isn't as annoying as it had been.

I'm concerned that even installing FFDSHOW won't help. If the problem is some channels overexposed and some underexposed, how do you fix THAT?

I think if I can boost the signal I'll be in better shape. Time to hit ebay!

Finally, my PVR-150 is right next to my All-In-Wonder. Maybe it should be further apart?

[capone]

The settings saved means they have been written to the registry. Some say it takes effect asap, but I've maxed out things and there is no visable change...restart required.

If you install ffdshow and it doesn't help, you can just tell it not to handle the mpeg2 codec anymore...no issue. That you can see in real time, so you can see what changes really help.

If you're gettign channels that look like that individually, it is your signal, as the card isn't going, "ABC Family sucks...let's spare this guy...."