Still using analog cable, need advice for quality image

[johnsonx42]

Are you really sure the quality is better on the 750 with all else being equal? I admit not having an ATI 750 myself, but I find the quality of my 2250 is just great (with the encoder settings I listed... of course feel free to bump the rates up higher). The KWorld is clearly inferior.

The on-chip HD6310 graphics core is pretty low powered, but probably could help with encoding IF the encoder used it. However I suspect the Main Concept MPEG-2 encoder provided by Hauppauge is strictly a software encoder, and there's no method available to use any other encoder with NextPVR.

Yes, MPEG-2 encoding is mandatory - NPVR deals only with MPEG-2 Transport Streams. Digital broadcasts are already in the right format, while Analog tuners first require the video to be encoded to MPEG-2 (whether via an on-board hardware encoder or via Hauppauge's SoftPVR), and then the resulting program stream has to be muxed into a transport stream. The latter bit is why all analog tuners require softpvr, even if they have hardware encoders.

[Flow]

@mvallevand Yes I am indeed late to the party! In fact the reason why I get in now is I wanted to get OTA going but quickly realized that children watch channels only avail on cable but would still like to pvr the whole thing, I actually got myself an HDhomerun last boxing day... been waiting for installing it as I need an antenna, other thing which I'm shopping for now, deciding on if I want to pay 250$ for a nice antenna and installation or get myself a Channel Master or some as good... would be willing to save and do it myself but never done it before...

@johnsonx42 I would think that the reason for the quality being viewed as lower on the 2250 is due to the encoder doing a good job and therefore allowing me to see the flaws... something like that!
In regard to the ATI, I read that users also experience a better image, would still love to see how a 650 with hw encoder looks like on analog... it's the only piece I cannot purchase at BB or FS since they don't carry it anymore. Even the 750 they only have the usb version which is far from a wise purchase, the thing barely works! Perhaps I could bring the backend in my main pc, in fact I will give this a try see if it helps.

[Flow]

(with the encoder settings I listed... of course feel free to bump the rates up higher).

What do you mean by rates higher? Which ones?

[Flow]

Oh nvm I never saw that message!!

Ok I will try this asap!

[Flow]

Wow ok this should be a sticky somewhere!

It works great, picture is MUCH better now using the 2250 and using the higher rates you posted!

Thanks a million johnsonx42!

[Flow]

Now I wonder is it the bitrate or just the deinterlace top method?

I will experiment a bit more on that!

[johnsonx42]

Actually the <FieldOrder> setting defaults to Top now, and it only applies to the software encoder in any case (sub said hardware-encoding devices figure it out for themselves). If I'd thought about it I would have removed that from my settings example, so as not to confuse matters.

original support post about this, almost exactly one year ago: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...g-settings (during pre-release testing on that next release, after I confirmed that Top was correct for NTSC, sub said he would change the default to Top)

[martint123]

The default analog quality settings in NPVR are very low; I get great quality from my 2250 using these settings in config.xml:

Code:

<Analog>
    <Bitrate>6000000</Bitrate>
    <BitratePeak>9000000</BitratePeak>
    <BitrateMode>VBR</BitrateMode>
    <FieldOrder>top</FieldOrder>
  </Analog>

Sorry to resurect an old post, but do you know or can you confirm that the <analog> settings would be applied to a PVR150? I use one as a fixed channel tuner for the output of an STB and the image both recorded and live is awful. The PVR150 was in my old GBPVR server and moving over to npvr on new hardware - and sadly disappointed with the picture (both PCH-A100 and Samsung TV app).

[sub]

Sorry to resurect an old post, but do you know or can you confirm that the <analog> settings would be applied to a PVR150? I use one as a fixed channel tuner for the output of an STB and the image both recorded and live is awful. The PVR150 was in my old GBPVR server and moving over to npvr on new hardware - and sadly disappointed with the picture (both PCH-A100 and Samsung TV app).

It should work on the PVR150. There should be messages in nrecord.log in the lines around "About to set BITRATE MODE" that confirms the bitrate etc, and whether the encoder has accepted it.

The <FieldOrder> setting only applies to soft encoding devices, so not the PVR150.

[martint123]

Thanks for the prompt response, I'll give it a try later on when it is quiet here.
It may well be just asking too much of an SD source on a big TV, but I can't remember it being that bad on teh old, slightly smaller TV.
I had thought of an HDMI grabber, but the server is remote from the STB/TV combo.

I'll see how the config tweaks go for now