Help w/ Standard Def playback on HDTV

[the.it.dude]

Hi all,

Been a user of gbpvr for a couple of years now. Just bought a Sony 55" HDTV and also just upgraded my gbpvr hardware with an HDMI video card. I'm using a Haupauge PVR-350 tuner. (Analog only) (I do plan on eventually getting a digital tuner to use for high def)

My goal is to improve the playback quality on the HDTV:

I've seen articles describing how dscaler can do a very good job upscaling a 480i signal. Which will be my best option?

Will installing ffdshow and enabling the post-processing option help any? Do I need to fiddle with the ffdshow settings?

Installing dscaler only and using that as the Video decoder?

Or a combination of ffdshow and dscaler? In this case, would I leave the video decoder as system default,turn on ffdshow post-processing, and enable dscaler within ffdshow?

Along these lines... I've set the aspect ratio in gbpvr to 16x9 to match my tv. Now the interface, as well as the recordings are displayed in 16x9. Some of the recordings may actually have been broadcast in widescreen, but I'm sure not all of them. Does gbpvr change the aspect ratio of the recordings? If so, I would probably also get better picture quality by leaving it at the original 4x3?

Thanks all, Any advise would be greatly appreciated!

[sub]

Along these lines... I've set the aspect ratio in gbpvr to 16x9 to match my tv. Now the interface, as well as the recordings are displayed in 16x9. Some of the recordings may actually have been broadcast in widescreen, but I'm sure not all of them. Does gbpvr change the aspect ratio of the recordings? If so, I would probably also get better picture quality by leaving it at the original 4x3?

The hardware encoder in analog devices (like your PVR350) always produce 4:3 video. Any broadcasts your receive that look like widescreen are typically just 4:3 video that happens to have a black bars at the top and bottom of each frame (ie, broadcaster had letterboxed a 16:9 movie to 4:3 prior to transmission).

Assuming you've set your video decoder to something other than 'system default', and have the aspect ratio set to 'auto' (press F7 a few times to check), then 4:3 video should be shown pillar boxed on your 16:9 screen (ie, black bars left and right).

If in future you add a digital tuner to your setup, then you'll start to get real widescreen recordings. GB-PVR will preserve the resolution and aspect ration that was used for the broadcast.

[the.it.dude]

Sub,

Wow, that's fast support

I did have the Video decoder set to system default. So I changed that to the Intervideo one that I had listed in there.

In the config, the Aspect ration is either 4:3 or 16:9 (No "Auto" option)

Never even new about the <F7> trick. I started playing a recording and hit <F7>. It was set at "Fill". I hit it a few times until it came around to 4:3 (Pillar Box I think?). Looked Much Better! Is there a way to make that the default? (Or is it mapped on the Hauppauge remote) I have the keyboard stuffed away and it would be a pain to pull it out everytime.

Thanks Sub! Also love the new interface and my wife loves that the Search is back in the menu (We also have an MVP that she uses almost exclusively)

[sub]

The default on a clean install is 'Auto', which performs best in the widest set of situations (and would have automatically used the pillarbox mode in your 4:3 on 16:9 tv situation), but you need to have the decoder set to something other than 'system default' for this to do its thing.

The app will remember whatever you last left it on and will return to that mode next time you start the app.

[the.it.dude]

OK,

Had to restart after changing the Video Decoder to get the <F7> thing to remember its' last setting.

However, "Auto" is stretching everything to fill the screen. Changing the setting to "Pillar Box" definitely improves the picture quality, so that's the way I left it. For now that is fine (especially since I didn't realize the PVR-350 only records in 4:3). But, I guess when I add an HD Tuner I'm not going to want that.

Thanks,

[the.it.dude]

Well, I just wanted to follow up on my experimentation results...

Installed ffdshow:

I enabled the MPEG-2 playback for it during the install. I was surprised to see a prompt pop up when I played back a recording even though I had not checked the enable ffdshow post-processing in the config. (Video Decoder was set at system default)

Didn't notice any improvement in playback.

Disabled the MPEG-2 playback in ffdshow and enabled the ffdshow post-processing in gbpvr.

Still didn't seem any better (The response of the system also felt a bit slower)

Uninstalled ffdshow.

Installed dscaler5. Set dscaler as the Video Decoder.

Playback quality is much better! System response seems to be back to normal also. (I'm happy with the quality now)

I'm guessing the Intervideo Decoder is not all that great. Probably any better decoder would have given me the quality I'm seeing now.

I'd still be interesting in hearing anyone else's opinions/suggestions on this.

Thanks

[stustunz]

try changing the resolution output on your video card you will find a sweet spot where the picture is the sharpest also chack what refresh rate you are using this can change the way the picture looks alot

edit if using hdmi this can be limited but you still worth a look

[the.it.dude]

stustunz,

thanks for the input.

After having no luck with ffdshow, I did go back and look more closely at the video card settings. I was able to tweak the resolution. However, I ended up going back to the original settings as it looked better. I am using HDMI and I could not change the refresh rate. (60 hz)

[Deusxmachina]

I was using a 4:3 TV and "Zoom mode" was great. (need to search for the posts about it.) I left it in zoom mode pretty much all the time. With a 16:9 TV, I tend to use 16:9 +x% modes if I don't want black bars. All of those are in the same thread.

I use FFdshow filters. Just using it by itself won't make anything look different. You have to turn certain filters on. Even though pretty much everything including HDTV can benefit from noise reduction, I generally just have it set to resize everything to 1920x1080 (it sharpens when it resizes) and then I think it's the Luminance filter cranked up, which is also listed under Resizing. You can get crazy with it and turn on the main sharpen filters and things, but it starts using a lot of cpu even on a fast computer.

The resizing and luminance settings turned 720p King Kong DVD, which already is considered one of the best-looking DVDs made, waaayyy more sharp. Blurry foliage in the jungle was then clean. I was impressed. You can find before and after shots of various movies with FFdshow if you search the internet a bit.

[stustunz]

what video card do you have?