Interesting Display Issues/Observations

[kendryk]

Hello All,

I have been playing around with SageTV and have the following results. I have seen/have two issues:

the setup:

PVR-250

Recording quality at Best
I am using the onboard analog cable tuner
I have also setup the composite and svideo (input1 and input2)
I have Time-Warner Digital cable with box
tried with nvidia, ulead, and sonic filters with vmr9
audio nvidia soundstorm
everything else is on "default"

The Issues:

If I use the onboard tuner (and tune to any channel) and tune the same
with the cable box with the composite/and or svideo, I get very different picture quality.

Basically the analog tuner video is crapola, and the same feed comming from the cable box is much better.

The analog tuners' picture is pixelated, fuzzy, grainy etc.

The composite/svideo is near perfect, I can't even tell the difference between it and regular TV.

I can reproduce this on any cable channel.

Issue #2

During live TV playback all is fine, while watching a recorded favorite (while its recording) the playback is jerky all else is fine.

should I just use the cable box with the 250? line filter? or can it not be fixed? has anyone else experienced jerky playback while recording?

please help.. Thanks (I tried 2.1.0 and 2.2.4)

Jim

[Wheemer]

I find that the tuning accuracy of either sagetv or the hauppauge onboard tuner in general is very poor. If you're off frequency even slightly it will produce blockiness.

More system information would be good to help with your jerky plaback.

[kendryk]

What additional info do you need?

I have just done some more testing, and have found out that the jerky playback only happens when using the svideo input on the pvr250. I have the latest drivers for for:

5700le video card (66.93)
nvidia nforce chipset drivers 5.10
right now I am using sage 2.2.4 and nvidia 2.27
haugpauge drivers/util downloaded 2 weeks ago

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by kendryk

Issue #2

During live TV playback all is fine, while watching a recorded favorite (while its recording) the playback is jerky all else is fine.

The strange thing here is that live TV is really simply watching a recording in progress, just like watching the fav while it is recording. Live TV simply uses SageTV's default recording rate from Detailed Setup. Does the fav use a different recording quality setting? If so, is it a higher rate? Does it play OK once it is no longer recording? Is the video recording dir on a partition using 64K clisters?

- Andy

[Wheemer]

What decoder are you using? If not the nvidia dvd decoder you should give it a try.

[kendryk]

I had the same thought...

I have the same quality on everything "best"

just checked, and the playback isn't good on the file after its saved either. This seems to only happen on the svideo input on the card.

I have the default partition block size right now.. 32k I think?

I just want to use the svideo input as a generic VCR for the ocasional recording of movies/shows on HBO and Cinemax

[Opus4]

Unless there is some sort of problem with the svideo input, I would double check the cluster size:

Originally Posted by kendryk

I have the default partition block size right now.. 32k I think?

I thought the default cluster size was smaller, but you can easily check: open a command prompt, go to the drive you want to check, & simply type "chkdksk". See what it reports as the # of bytes in each allocation unit.

BTW: Anyone know an easier/quicker way for people to check the cluster size using Windows' built-in tools? Someone else suggested using the defragmenter to analyze the disk, but that seemed to take longer.

- Andy

[kendryk]

You are correct, the default cluster size is 4k... 32k was wishing thinking on my part.

I have a seperate drive for my recordings, so I can convert it. The only way I see on how to do that is with the "format /a:size command, would that be the best way to do it?

I read about a way to check the cluster with some mmc snap-in.. but thats basically a pain. I have found this other dos-command you can use though:

fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo c:

I know my problem is a bit strange, I would like to get the svideo working good on that card.. then I could at least consider an IR-Blaster for the cable box, and move foreward with being able to watch live-tv.

a quick recap:

the analog cable tuner does work, with a few color tweaks it looks good again. (for recording shows and watching "livetv")

the svideo/and or composite from the cable box has a very good picture
while watching liveTV. As soon as a favorite starts to record the picture
gets jerky playback while watching it (during recording and standalone playback)

currently using/specs

nvidia video codec from version 2.27, soundstorm audio codec, and sagetv 2.2.4.

I have tried the Ulead, Sonic, Intervideo, video codecs also..all resulted in the same issues.

Thanks for your help so far,
Jim

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by kendryk

You are correct, the default cluster size is 4k... 32k was wishing thinking on my part.

I have a seperate drive for my recordings, so I can convert it. The only way I see on how to do that is with the "format /a:size command, would that be the best way to do it?

You could also run Computer Management and use Disk Management to format the drive. If you have something like Partition Magic, you should be able to convert the cluster size w/o losing any data. I would change the cluster size first & see if that fixes any stuttering issues. If it doesn't, then at least you've ruled out something fairly simple.

- Andy

[Wheemer]

You can easily check the cluster size by using NTFSinfo, it's a freeware utility available here: http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/ntfsinfo.shtml

Takes 2 seconds.