Soft Picture, Sharp Solution

walter scott · #1 03-01-2005, 05:51 PM

I have been running Sage with 3 PVR-250 cards now for about 4 days. I have read several threads concerning soft pictures from Sage, and when I first installed it I had this problem. Currently, however, the picture from Sage is slightly better than the picture with the cable TV connected directly to my Toshiba TV.

I have Cox analog extended basic cable, distributed to my TV and the 3 tuner cards thru a 4 port Radio Shack Cable TV distribution amp.

I have gone into the Sage detailed setup menu and set the sharpness of all three tuner cards to the max value of 255. I am using the Hauppauge mpeg decoders with Overlay. (VMR9 and/or the Nvida mpeg decoders caused various playback issues.) My default record quality is DVD Standard Play, 2.4 GB per hour.

I have an Nvidia G Force video card with S-video out. I could not get a color picture from the S-video out thru my Pioneer receiver. I purchased a scan converter (VGA to S-video) from Radio Shack. I have my screen resolution set to 800 x 600. I have the scan converter brightness set a bit above default. The S-video out of the converter is connected to an old Sima video color corrector which in turn is connected to my Pioneer receiver, which up converts the S-video signal to component video to feed the Toshiba TV.

The Toshiba is calibrated with the Video Essentials DVD. I have turned the sharpness and contrast up on the Sima, and after adjustment of brightness and color saturation, the picture from Sage live TV is as sharp, but a bit less noisy, than the picture directly off the cable input to the TV!

Whoo Hooo, I'm a happy Sage user!

stanger89 · #2 03-01-2005, 05:53 PM

You'll probably get an even better picture if you bypass the S-Video crap and go direct Component to the TV.

walter scott · #3 03-02-2005, 09:40 AM

probably so, but then Id lose the ability to use the color corrector as it only has s-video I/O. Increasing the shaprness on the corrector really helps.

valnar · #4 03-02-2005, 10:32 AM

I agree with Stanger89. It doesn't sound like the most elegant solution to achieve the best quality.

-Robert

walter scott · #5 03-04-2005, 08:47 AM

Elegant, no. What would you suggest? I've tried the Nvidia decoder and have playback issues. I can't get a color pic out of the s-video of my video card unless I bypass my receiver. Im definitly open to any suggestions!

InsertHere · #6 03-24-2005, 09:04 PM

I am also experiencing the soft picture I hear so much about, still haven't found a solution. DScaler codecs helped, but still looks soft to me. Maybe I haven't searched the forums enough for the answer....

I would love to hear some suggestions as well!

mikejaner · #7 03-24-2005, 09:49 PM

Have you guys turned up the sharpness on the capture settings all the way? Also look at turning off, or down the Temporal settings on the card using the Hauppauge tweak tool. Those make a big difference on my TV

walter scott · #8 03-25-2005, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by InsertHere

I am also experiencing the soft picture I hear so much about, still haven't found a solution. DScaler codecs helped, but still looks soft to me. Maybe I haven't searched the forums enough for the answer....

I would love to hear some suggestions as well!

Have you turned your sharpness of your tuner cards all the way up? And I misstated, DVD SP is around 3.2 GB/hr, but it definitely looks better than DVD LP. Finally, I was able to get an even better picture by also adjusting the brightness and contrast for each tuner card away from the defaults. This was non-trivial, took a lot of fiddling to get the best pic. when the brightness is properly set, the apparent sharpness of the picture increases.

and if you are interested in a video processor like the Sima I use do a Google search for SIMA SCC Video Color Corrector, or SIMA SCC-2 Video Color Corrector

Good Luck!

walter scott · #9 03-25-2005, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikejaner

......Also look at turning off, or down the Temporal settings on the card using the Hauppauge tweak tool.

Could you elaborate on this, or post a link? Thanks!

InsertHere · #10 03-25-2005, 10:23 AM

I found the Tweak Tool here:
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...oto=nextnewest

Looks like the Temporal settings are only for the 150/500 cards. Us 250 users are out I guess.

bhageman · #11 03-25-2005, 10:32 AM

Note the four different tabs for the different Hauppage cards...

Quote:

Originally Posted by InsertHere

I found the Tweak Tool here:
Looks like the Temporal settings are only for the 150/500 cards. Us 250 users are out I guess.

m0ng00se30 · #12 03-25-2005, 11:04 AM

I'm sure I'll get a few sneers from this comment, but I seem to get a better / sharper picture when I connect my dish and direct sources through the internal tuner (Ch 3.) and NOT comp or S-Video. SVideo seems a little too washed out compared to the Tuner (maybe its my settings?? I'm not sure), but if you have gone through everything else... might want to give the tuner a try. Ya never know.

--Mike

abasu2003 · #13 03-25-2005, 01:29 PM

for the Hauppauge Tweak Tool, there still doesnt seem like there is much in the way of tweaking 250's (just sharpness).

I did find this one thing. When you open the Capture Dialog->
System Properties, it lists being able to change the output. Right now, mine is set to DVD Stream at 720x480.

Right now I have the computer hooked up to a projector via a VGA cable and it is displaying at 1024x768. So, should I change my resolution to 640x480 (so it keeps the dimensions) as there is no higher resolution than 720x480 or should I leave it? Also, is DVD STream the highest possible output? There are also DVD Special Stream1 and Stream2. Anybody know what the special streams are?

falchulk · #14 03-25-2005, 02:47 PM

The biggest home theater mistake is over using the contrast, brightness and sharpness. They should actually be turned down from stock on your tv and htpc. By jacking them up like that you are decreasing the life of your TV (or at least the life time period where you will have a good picture). You also increase the appearance of noise and compresssion artifacts.

stanger89 · #15 03-25-2005, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abasu2003

for the Hauppauge Tweak Tool, there still doesnt seem like there is much in the way of tweaking 250's (just sharpness).

You're obviously not looking at the right too. We were tweaking the 250's filter settings long before there was a 150.

http://www.shspvr.com/tools.html

The tools of interest are Prefilter Tweak and hcwPP2Util.

You should also look here:
http://www.freytechnologies.com/2_papers/HPquality.txt

walter scott · #16 01-15-2007, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by walter scott

probably so, but then Id lose the ability to use the color corrector as it only has s-video I/O. Increasing the shaprness on the corrector really helps.

Finally rewired everything for component video. definitely an improvement over s-video and my old color corrector.

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