Method to set Hauppauge Brightness

[stanger89]

If your like me, trying to get the best picture quality you've probably noticed that it's next to impossible to set the brightness and contrast of the WinTV drivers, especially without crushing the white's or blacks, or not using the entire brightness range in the video signal.

Here's a method I came up with for setting the brightness and contrast in the Video Proc Amp panel (inspired by something I read for setting up dScaler with the histogram filter).

You'll need ffdshow, dscalers histogram filter, and graphedit.

/Edit
Just after I put this up here I tried playing the graph I attached and found that graphedit would crash every time I hit play. The solution was to take ffdshow out of the graph, play it, and the put ffdshow back in. For some reason the graph wouldn't initialize properly the first time with ffdshow connected.
/End


First build a graph:

[stanger89]

Then setup ffdshow:

Make sure Raw Video is selected in the codec list

[stanger89]

ffdshow cont.

Select the histogram filter in the Dscaler Filter section and make sure it's enabled:

[stanger89]

I suppose I could attach the graph as well:

You'll have to delete the ".txt" from the filename, I had to add it so I could attach it.

[stanger89]

One word of caution, you'll probably want to exit Sage while doing this or you'll probably get all kinds of error messages about two programs tying to access the drivers.

Once you get all that setup, hit the little play button and you should be blessed with a window showing you live TV, and there should be a little graph overlayed on the bottom half of the picture. Assuming you're this far, if you right click and select properties on "Hauppage...TvTuner" you can change the current channel. If you right click and select properties on "Hauppauge...Capture" you'll find the "Video Proc Amp" and you can tweak the controls to your heart's content - In Real Time even.

If you watch the histogram you'll see as you change the brightness control the whole graph shifts, and as you change the contrast control the graph gets wider or narrower, just play with the controls until you get the graph as wide as you can without cutting anything off.

Note: With my cable I felt like I needed to cut off a little of the left side (black) or blacks looked gray.

Hopefully this helps some of you out there who are having trouble tweaking your setup. It's not a foolproof system but it does help get a good starting point.

[salsbst]

This is very exciting stanger89! I can't wait to give it a shot with AVIA!

Thanks.

[salsbst]

Notes on setting this up (part 1) from a guy who has used Dscaler and ffdshow in the past but had to install them newly on my current htpc:

• stanger89's graph file didn't really load for me very well. This may have to do with the fact that I have two 250s in this machine. I rebuilt the graph from scratch
• set the ffdshow Raw mode before trying to connect pins
• the point at which you realize you forgot to shut down SageTV is when you cannot connect the Hauppauge Crossbar to the Hauppage Capture filter
• use the latest alpha of ffdshow, not the latest "stable" release

I can see live TV now in this graph. That's pretty f-in cool. I'm looking forward to testing w/AVIA but I think real life is going to get in the way tonight. More later.

stanger89, thanks again.

Regards,
Stuart

[salsbst]

beware: my SageTV playback is new screwed up having set up and played that graph. The picture is green and overscanned. I will post back when I've figured out what's happened and how to fix it.

[salsbst]

My first attempt at fixing this prob was to restart... no change.... I forgot to mention before that the Dscaler historgram plugin was active during SageTV playback (in green mode).

So, I took a shot and uninstalled ffdshow. The problem seems to be solved.

Jeff, how do you build your graph? I think there are a few of us who could benefit from being able to customize it. I'm not really talking about overcoming this glitch, although that would be nice, but in the broader sense, building graphs in the playback routine might enable the tweakers to have a field day.

Anyhoo, it seems like I'm ok now. I'll just install ffdshow again, do my thing and then uninstall it.

Does ffdshow have a high merit that is causing it to be used in the SageTV playback process?

[stanger89]

Yeah, ffdshow does have a tendency to insert intself into graphs, even if you don't want it to. You probably don't need to uninstall ffdshow, just uncheck Raw Video from the codec list and it shouldn't try to insert it into any graphs any more. I don't know why I haven't had problems with SageTV since. Just curious, with the histogram filter did you have it in Y mode, or were you using one of the color modes?

As far as customizing the graphs I remembered seeing these in the Sage.properties file, the names suggest they do what you want, I just haven't had the currage to try them.
videoframe/additional_audio_filters=
videoframe/additional_video_filters=

I wish I had more time to play with this.

[salsbst]

I think you're right about the properties file.... I had totally blanked on that when I wrote what I did last night.

[Narflex]

FYI - SageTV2 has fully integrated control for the capture color settings. (not that it helps you now, just letting you know its in there for later)

[justme]

Thanks, Jeff

Any plans to include some kind of utility(something like what stanger89 built) to help properly calibrate your capture settings to accomodate your local signal's characteristics.

[salsbst]

Jeff, will SageTV2 allow different settings for different 250s?

P.S. My girlfriend thinks she can tell the gender of your cat just by looking at its picture.... so..... which is it, if you don't mind?

[edmc]

salsbst> P.S. My girlfriend thinks she can tell the gender of your cat just
salsbst> by looking at its picture.... so..... which is it, if you don't mind?

Way to stick your neck out... Why not first posting what your girlfriend thinks? :-)

I'm voting female myself :-)

Narflex> FYI - SageTV2 has fully integrated control for the capture color settings.

Frickin' Hot! Thanks!

[salsbst]

edmc,

Well the reason that I didn't post *her* guess is that I don't want to upset anybody. Yes, I'm keeping my (girlfriend's) neck firmly in the shell, but I don't want to go calling a guy's cat girly or boyish out of line.

Yeah, I'm a wussy. Want to make something of it?



-Stuart

[RedCoat999]

From the cat's frown, I would say it was a boy! But then again, it could be a girl cat having a bad day and in need of some Pamprin...

[Narflex]

It's a girl cat. She's evil. That's why she looks that way.

And you'll be able to set the colors for each input on each capture device independently.

[salsbst]

Thanks, Jeff! SageTV 2 will not have any real competition from all I keep reading!

[salsbst]

I finally got around to calibrating my 250s last night. I was too lazy to put ffdshow back on my machine so I just took it out of the graph and attached directly to the renderer.

I was using AVIA from a standalone DVD player via S video and stereo miniplug. For some reason, I got some French stuff on the audio (it was not a French version of the AVIA disc though). I don't know where the french was coming from but I would guess that it was from the RF tuner (and hence comcast cable) that is plugged into this 250. Somehow the filters must have gotten stuck on that input.

Anyway, calibrating with this method is much easier than doing it in SageTV 1 (due to lack of delay), though still not a snap, since one has to move the Active Movie window and the filter properties window around in order to get from one to the other.

Looking forward to hopefully a really slick calibration feature in SageTV 2!

Regards,
Stuart