TV quality

[schwooba]

Can someone give me some ideas about improving the quality of Live TV on GBPVR? Here's the basics of what I have.

HP 3.0 Ghz CPU
2gig memory
ATI 2600 Pro video card 512mb

I've tried all the settings under CONFIG,PLAYBACK, VIDEO RENDERER and different codec types ATI, FFDSHOW, MPG to no avail. The display looks very pixely (if that's a word) and there's a lot of ghosting or trailing. If I play back some of the recorded shows they look similar.

Anyone have any other ideas for me? I'm at a loss of what else to try. Thanks so much!

[johnsonx42]

capture device? signal source?

[pBS]

sounds like you need the ati tweak script..
i think the latest is ATI_HD_Reg_Tweaks_0.15.vbs
http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/ati-hd2x00/
it gets rid of the ghosting at least...

and also, what Catalyst driver ver? try 8.11 if you haven't already..
it enabled full accell for me on all my ati cards..

if after that it's still grainy, try lowering sharpness in direct.ini for analog sources...
[no effect on bda sources]

[schwooba]

Oops...sorry.

Haupgauge 1600
Cable TV
ATI v7

I had some problems installing v8.11, but I'll try it again...thanks for the speedy responses! I'll let you know how it goes.

[johnsonx42]

argh! pBS, you've killed me! I've never been able to get perfect tear-free 1080i video on my HD4550, and many of the decoders stuttered badly... so I tried that script, thinking it might finally bring relief. It didn't help anything, and it made my video stutter with the Cyberlink PDVD codec as well, which was the only decent codec I had that worked!. Re-running the script and removing the entries didn't help, nor did doing a system restore.

Now I'm down to ffdshow, which sucks. It pixelates badly on channel changes, and hangs when seeking in a recording. If I had people coming over for superbowl today, I'd hunt you down...

It's not your fault I know, but ARGH!

EDIT:
ok, I fixed it by turing off hardware acceleration for the cyberlink decoder in the registry. apparently hardware acceleration is simply broken on the HD4550, at least for 1080i mpeg-2 (720p mpeg-2 is flawless). the cyberlink decoder worked before because it didn't use acceleration (even though it was enabled - the setting made no difference); the script did something that allowed cyberlink to use acceleration, but didn't actually FIX anything... so then cyberlink stuttered the same as the ATI Mpeg decoder, the hauppauge decoder, etc. telling cyberlink not to use acceleration got me working again.
I guess I'll have to let you off with a warning... this time.

[pBS]

ooops, sorry about that, didn't know you had a 4550...haven't been able to get one of those working yet...
you'll probably have better luck with that card w/8.12 but when i tried i got same results as you...i gave my 4550 back and stuck with the 3450 cuz at least it worked..as expected..

i'm not sure why they keep breaking everything...and still releasing it..
[keeping gamers happy w/patches, no doubt]

i'm just glad 3xxx cards and lesser all work with 8.11..
i have a feeling it'll be a couple of releases before they get 4xxx cards right, i had to wait quite a while for working 3xxx drivers...and they rewrote the 'core' for 4xxx so i suspect that's why they broke it...
probably 8.13/14 will be a sweet spot...and actually have transcode accell do something...[instead of the LIES they keep spreading about it]

the script only changes some reg entries, a driver reload should clear it out...
i should have mentioned that the only entry that really eliminates 'ghosting' is turning off TRdenoise..
[and possibly noise reduction if it's turned on]

sorry if i steered you wrong, but didn't know what card you had...

[pBS]

hey, i see you're not the original poster!
he mentioned having a hd2600...which does need that script because of ghosting issues... i never would have said anything if i'd known it was a 4550...i couldn't get those working either..[same exact results as you]

i have an idea about how to get 4xxx working, but it would require manual editing, not for the squeamish...[basically fooling driver into thinking it's a lesser card]

so sorry but that was only meant for HD24/2600s...3xxx don't need any tweaking...
4xxx need something but i don't know what...

[johnsonx42]

I knew you were talking about the 2600, and that you weren't tell ME to use the script, but I followed the link out of curiousity, and it claims to do wonderful things for the 3000 and 4000 series as well. I wasn't actually mad at you of course, just frustrated by the results. You shouldn't take any threat to hunt you down seriously

I'm on the edge of throwing out my 4550 as well. I've used every driver since 8.10 hotfix, checking ATI's almost daily for the very late 9.1 that didn't help either. It *mostly* works with the Cyberlink codec (apparently it's able to decode 1080i on the cpu, though it still doesn't de-interlace perfectly), so that and hope that a driver update will finally fix it is the only thing keeping it in my box.

I suppose I'd be willing to try your thought on getting the 4550 working... I'm certainly not squeamish

[pBS]

ahh, good...don't wanna lead anyone astray as i know how deep a rabbit hole that can be...
i would have kept my 4550 but i needed something that worked now, and only because i had kept the 3450 from about a year ago and tried it with the new drivers that i knew it worked..

it's amazing how they get away with this, i mean if you bought a car and it wouldn't go past 10 MPH, you could get a full refund and possibly sue the car maker for selling something they knew wouldn't work... [my car maker got successfully sued for cheating on the horsepower ratings, same thing really] they had a perfectly viable car that just wouldn't do exactly what they said it would, even tho it was fine in every other respect...

but a video card sold on claims it can accellerate bluray or mpeg2 video and doesn't, should be a slam dunk, right? weak minded prosecutors..scared to take on a cut and dried case cuz they don't know the subject matter completely...
i would have sued them a year ago if i had proof that it wasn't something in my system, or a bad 3rd party maker board...well now it works fine and it shows their drivers were the culprit all along! i can replicate easily with any 3xxx or earlier card...

i mean when none of the cards work right, then a driver change and they all do, plus going back to old driver produces same broken results on same card, you'd think it'd be hard to dispute it..

adn the funny thing is, now i see more and more oems putting out new MBoards w/ 3450 now that it finally works...from the new EEE 'pc' to mini-itx boards...
i have to believe they were waiting on something that worked as well...
plus i didn't see any benefit to having the 4xxx cards as feature set is same pretty much..
[at least as far as video is concerned]

[imilne]

I suppose I'd be willing to try your thought on getting the 4550 working... I'm certainly not squeamish

Nor me, so you can count me in too if you feel like posting details.