Lousy tv-out

[Smoker]

Greetings

Well I finally got my system together and was disappointed with the output to the tv.

I have a 37" standard tv and the system I just put together is here.

Now I am not sure what the problem is since I can think of many causes.

MB on-board tv-out
Splitter
bad pvr150
wrong driver/decoders

Then of course there are the causes I haven't thought about.

My first guess is that the tv-out from the mb is simply adequate enough for Foxconn to add it to their list of features.

So I am wondering what sticks out as the most likely cause ? How would one test that cause ?

BTW GBPVR is fantastic and I am going to be so happy once I get this working right

Smoker

[235301]

You'll need to post the contents of the link, the link is for your login only.

[Smoker]

My appologies.... I've corrected the original post. Thanks

[zaphod7501]

While most video card TV outputs are not exceptional, a few more details would be helpfull.
What sort of connection type are you using: Composite, Component, S-Video?
What distance are you running to the TV?
What kind of problem are you seeing: Snowy, blurry, tearing, rolling lines, color, brightness, grainy, interlacing, interference?
What kind of content: Live TV, recorded TV, DVDs, AVIs, PC desktop? (The last one will never work with a standard TV)

A good first test would be to play a clean video clip from another source to divide the troubleshooting path in half: Reception/encoding; playback/processing.

[Smoker]

I am running about a 4' S-Video cable to the tv.

As for the problem that I am seeing, I suppose the best would be to say it is blurry. I am not sure how to tell if it is interlacing.

i was testing the LiveTV.

hmmmmmmmmm maybe what I am doing it wrong. I have my system boot right into GBPVR. So it is the pc desktop being displayed on the tv-out and within GBPVR is the live tv.

Forgot to add that my resolution out is 800x600

[TonyXL]

Do you have your anti-flicker settings turned up? Try turning it down to see if your picture gets sharper. I've found I can turn it pretty far down and still get very little flicker, and a MUCH sharper picture. I run at 720x480, GeForce 6200, S-video, 27" tube tv, and I can read the text below the icons on the desktop.

[WerewolfTA]

I would also suggest hooking up your computer to a monitor and see how your picture looks. If playback or live TV looks good on that, then it's probably either your s-video out port or your cable.

Cables really do make a difference. I used to scoff at that. However, I started my gbpvr off with a cheap s-video cable, and the picture was horrible. Spent a couple of hours playing with settings and only managed to get a fair picture. Went and picked up a decent quality s-video cable from the Home Depot. Man, night and day! Picture's great now.

Good quality splitters and correct-length RG-6 cables make a difference, too. I found that I needed an RF booster, as well. If you need one, I'd suggest one with variable gain. You want the least amount of gain that gives you a good picture and will probably need to increase that as your number of splits grows. You know, when you add more tuners.

[Smoker]

I wish I was at home right now to try out these suggestions.

What I have is 3 tv's int he house and this one now has a 2-1 splitter (cause of 2 pvr150's). The 2 lengths of coax from splitter to the pvr150's is about 15".

[pastro]

Play a DVD on your computer and see if the picture quality is what you expect out of a DVD. If it is, then the TV out is working well enough to create a decent picture with a DVD source.
It's also useful to burn a show to DVD and play it on a standalone DVD player. You can eliminate the PVR150s drivers, splitters, etc if this looks good.

[Smoker]

Do you have your anti-flicker settings turned up? Try turning it down to see if your picture gets sharper. I've found I can turn it pretty far down and still get very little flicker, and a MUCH sharper picture. I run at 720x480, GeForce 6200, S-video, 27" tube tv, and I can read the text below the icons on the desktop.

Oh boy that flicker control (in the advanced display) is extremely touchy and I couldn't really get it to do anything but to the extremes

I did change my resolution to 720x480 and things started looking a whole lot better but not quite there yet.

Does GBPVR have a full screen mode ? So that I do not see the window border and stuff ? In 720x480 move of the window border is gone but not all and it's definately catches the eye while trying to watch tv.