Picture Quality in Sage Menus

[samvonac]

I just received one of the new wireless MVPs. So far it has worked great. I do have a problem with PQ though not with watching recorded shows or live tv. It is the PQ of the Sage menus that is giving me problems. All the text on the menus has really bad ghosting of text. Anything that is highlight is virtually unreadable.

Has anyone else experienced similar issues? Is there any type of adjustments that can be made? My TV is an old Panasonic that is about 8 years old and I'm using the RCA connections.

Maybe this is a good excuse to get one of them flat panel tvs

[JUC]

are you using the stock STV? If not, I would try using that and see if the ghosting disapears. If it does-the problem would be that you installed one of the custom stv's in the wrong directory. If you are currently using the stock stv then this wouldn't apply I guess.
Juc

[samvonac]

I'm using the stock STV. I haven't changed anything.

[cmaffia]

I have a wired MVP installed to a new Tube HDTV and I notice ghosting and also warping on the menus and OSD as well. I just learned to live with it. Is there a way to improve?

Originally Posted by samvonac

I just received one of the new wireless MVPs. So far it has worked great. I do have a problem with PQ though not with watching recorded shows or live tv. It is the PQ of the Sage menus that is giving me problems. All the text on the menus has really bad ghosting of text. Anything that is highlight is virtually unreadable.

Has anyone else experienced similar issues? Is there any type of adjustments that can be made? My TV is an old Panasonic that is about 8 years old and I'm using the RCA connections.

Maybe this is a good excuse to get one of them flat panel tvs

[samvonac]

Originally Posted by jds23

I don't have an MVP (yet), but I have seen similar problems with using the composite for output to a tube-type TV. I know it may not be possible with your particular TV being 8-years old, but maybe you are lucky enough to have an Svideo connection on it? If so, I would HIGHLY reccommend using it as I bet you would see a noticable difference with ANY text displayed. Composite is the worse case scenario, and should only be used when that is all there is. If you have any TV in the house that has an Svideo connection, and you were able to connect your Sage box to it, I would bet you would fix your problems, at least there would be considerable improvement.

Of course, a digital connection is the best, so if you do decide to upgrade in the future, go HDMI/DVI and these problems will be gone for sure.

Oh yeah, on adjustments...you can make a few to help, but will not be 100%. Try your Contrast and Brightness settings on your TV, adjust them til you get the best possible picture. That is about all you can do. I also assume that you have tried a different composite cable just to ensure you have the best cable there possible. GL2u

Thanks for the great advice. I just took a look at the back of the TV and luckily I do have S-Video. I'll pick up a cable this weekend and test it out. I'll follow-up on this post to let you all know how it goes.

[cmaffia]

Just to let you know.. my MVP has always used S-Video and I experience the ghosting/OSD warping. In fact, the ghosting is more prominent with S-Video when compared to RCA connections.. just from my own experience.

Originally Posted by samvonac

Thanks for the great advice. I just took a look at the back of the TV and luckily I do have S-Video. I'll pick up a cable this weekend and test it out. I'll follow-up on this post to let you all know how it goes.

[JUC]

I'm surprised this is even an issue. What would be causing this? I'm running s-video to a HD 42" plasma and experience no ghosting or warping whatsoever. I've also temporarily hooked it up by comosite with the same results. Could it be the quality of the cable?

[cmaffia]

Monster Baby!!! Monster.... yes and still slight ghosting.
Just never thought to say anything about it untill this post

I have 2 MVP's... both have the same quality on menus on all TV sets using all combos of cabling and RCA/S-VIDEO combinations.

Originally Posted by JUC

I'm surprised this is even an issue. What would be causing this? I'm running s-video to a HD 42" plasma and experience no ghosting or warping whatsoever. I've also temporarily hooked it up by comosite with the same results. Could it be the quality of the cable?

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by cmaffia

Monster Baby!!! Monster.... yes and still slight ghosting.
Just never thought to say anything about it untill this post

I have 2 MVP's... both have the same quality on menus on all TV sets using all combos of cabling and RCA/S-VIDEO combinations.

I have a MVP going to a widescreen Sharp Aquos 15" LCD TV via s-video and no ghosting whatsoever.

Gerry

[cmaffia]

Did you guys who don't see ghosting use the original MediaMVP software tools?

I remember the one and only time I used it, it let you change the sharpness of the MVP video output.

Originally Posted by gplasky

I have a MVP going to a widescreen Sharp Aquos 15" LCD TV via s-video and no ghosting whatsoever.

Gerry

[JUC]

yes i did!! I remember setting something regarding the flicker amount or something like that. Not sure if it was sharpness though. It was back when I was using Matt's plugin but I do remember changing something during the initial setup...the info might be in Matt's old thread.

[cmaffia]

setting flicker control to HIGH helped somewhat...

[samvonac]

Well, I am happy to report that S-Video has solved the ghosting for the most part. There is only slight ghosting now in menu items that have been highlited. Everything else is fine now. The display still doe not compare to any of my PCs and they all have LCD screens.

[Stuntman]

I too am seeing terrible ghosting on my menus.. perhaps even in the video, but that is harder for me to notice... the menus ghost even during the initial SAGETV boot up screens. I've tried this on two 16:9 LCD Tv's.. I've tried it with both a Monster THX S-video cable and a standard RCA cable.. the issue remains no matter what I do!

I am using a wireless MVP with stock STV..

Any idea what might be causing this?

Very disappointing when the old MVP on a cheapie TV with standard RCA looks WAY better than my new LCD TV with S-Video...

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by cmaffia

Just to let you know.. my MVP has always used S-Video and I experience the ghosting/OSD warping. In fact, the ghosting is more prominent with S-Video when compared to RCA connections.. just from my own experience.

I see the same.. but ONLY on my LCD TV's.. the same hardware on an old TV looks perfectly sharp..

[Wally]

Part of the problem is caused by the font that Sage uses. On a computer monitor you can see that the font has a black outline below and to the right of each character and when highlited becomes a black letters with white. It looks fine on a hi-res monitor but really bad via s-video 480i. On my TV the fonts look oversharpened and too close together. Now if only there was an easy way to change the font...

Wally

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by Wally

Part of the problem is caused by the font that Sage uses. On a computer monitor you can see that the font has a black outline below and to the right of each character and when highlited becomes a black letters with white. It looks fine on a hi-res monitor but really bad via s-video 480i. On my TV the fonts look oversharpened and too close together. Now if only there was an easy way to change the font...

Wally

What I don't understand is why it looks perfectly sharp on my $99 TV and looks like crap on my $700 LCD HDTV...

[MrD]

Originally Posted by Wally

Part of the problem is caused by the font that Sage uses. On a computer monitor you can see that the font has a black outline below and to the right of each character and when highlited becomes a black letters with white. It looks fine on a hi-res monitor but really bad via s-video 480i. On my TV the fonts look oversharpened and too close together. Now if only there was an easy way to change the font...

Wally

I agree I think the font is too small (especially on the show descriptions), it is impossible to read from a distance on my 27" TV w/s-video connection.

-MrD