Poor HD Quality w/HVR 1600

[StanO]

I am running a PVR150 and a HvR1600 with an AMD dual core 5200 with built in ATI1200 video and 2g of ram. I have everything set up right with the hardware and the Guide (what a pain!). My problem is that the HD looks like analog, I've flipped around the settings quite a bit, without success. ONly the Pillar Box look right, Auto looks stretched out.

BTW, I am using the latest ATI AVIVO package for a MUX. I am not using the live preview/deinterlacing as it wreaks havoc with the picture. Also, the picture looks like HD should (except for a little mosaicing, due to the cheap integrated video) in WinTV32 2000.

Any ideas or success stories?

[whurlston]

Try the DVR-MS mux.

[sub]

If you press Ctrl-O, what resolution is the video?

[gazoo]

My specs are much lower than yours and I get very decent quality HD. It all depends on the source as well as your mux. I briefly used. ts type output but went back to dvr-ms due to better quality. ts seemed a little "foggier" or softer then the microsoft one.

[carpeVideo]

Your HD file quality is the same as the source since its not a capture its a file over the air or cable - playback is a different issue all together.

I get good results with FFDSHOW filters or the MPV filter with de-interlace off or auto.

Also are you sure your recording HD, not using the analog side of the 1600? or the 150? accidently.

[nitrogen_widget]

If you press Ctrl-O, what resolution is the video?

The reason Sub asks this is because a good portion of the digital OTA channels are SD (704x480) I know more than half of mine are.

So even though it's a digital channel it's SD being stretched to HD resolutions.

Also, some stations take SD broadcasts & apply their own version of FFDSHOW to them & scale them up to HD resolution.

They used to do this with This Old house. I went back to watching the analog signal & upconverting it myself. It looked better.

[StanO]

Well, I checked the connection, it's correct. The SD is coming from the STB via RCA so that's obvious and the cable is going directly to the lower coax connector.

Okay, so this is weird. The two files of New Amsterdam recorded, one with seemingly the HD side is only 720x480 and is 1.37gb (way too small), and the other is only 528x480 and is 1.7gb!

Keep in mind, that I'm clearly getting full 720p with WinTV. I tested recording in WinTV and playing back in PVRX2 and it looked good. So it is clearly a recording issue.

Maybe it's some kind of setup issue?

[sub]

Are you sure you recorded from the digital side of your HVR1600, not the analog side of it, or the PVR150 card?

Do a recording, then post the logs and I'll take a look.

[StanO]

Well I recorded one show that requires the STB and one that should be the PVR150. Then I recorded the local news that I know is HD (I checked it in WinTV) and recorded it too. All three recorded, all three were playable in VLC and PVRX2.

It is clear that the one that should be HD is coming up as the 528x480. I checked my Capture Sources and the Digital is set up as HVR1600(QAM), and I manually went in and mapped the stations.

So the resolution and the aspect ratio are off.

[sub]

Was it Eyewitness News you recorded? If so, that definitely recorded on the HVR1600 digital QAM tuner.

It is clear that the one that should be HD is coming up as the 528x480

One thing that is important to point out is that GB-PVR's recordings have no effect on the resolution. The original MPEG2 bitstream is just recorded to disk. GB-PVR cant change that resolution at recording time even if it wanted to. It would be a major job. ie, if your recording is really 528x480, then that is what was broacast.