Which is the best video card?

[amarinkovic]

Hello,

I got my PVR-350 yesterday with plans to install Sage in the coming days. In playing around with it last night, I noticed that the composite out picture quality on the 350 is much better than I expected. It's just as good (almost) as a picture straight from the sat receiver to the tv. However, I was appauled to see the picture quality through the tv-out of my video card. I have a nvidia GeForce2 64MB. The max resolution that it allows for tv is 800x600, which doesn't fill the entire tv screen (Sony Wega 32'). And the blurry screen is just unexceptable.

So, with that in mind, should I:

1. Wait for Sage V2 to come out, so I can use the 350's outs for Sage and video?

2. Invest in a better card.

When is Sage V2 scheduled for release anyway?

I am leaning toward option 2, as I want to be able to surf and check email using the tv as well as use Sage. So, which card offers the best possible tv-out quality for the best value. I don't want to spend more than a couple hundred on it if possible.

Please let me know soon, as I would like to start shopping for one soon.

I hate waiting...



Thanks...Alex

[JasonJoel]

Since there is no update of any kind on the timing for v2.0, I would say just get a new video card. They are fairly cheap these days anyway.

I think you will be happier in the short term, even if you don't need it long term.

Better than the aggravation on waiting for something for unspecified period of time...

I would get a cheapo ATI Radeon 9xxx (certainly <$100).

Jason

[amarinkovic]

Thanks for the reply...

I just got back from CompUSA, where the prices are always high, and they had some ATI 9800XL? card that was $499!! But it appears to be the best card they have.

They also have some 9200's that are much less, around $150 or so. Also, they have the GeFource FX 5200's which I see a couple of postings saying they are OK.

Anyone have any experience with these that can comment on their tv-out picture quality?

Also, what do the DVI outputs connect to? Is that something I should look into?

[JasonJoel]

I personally like the tv out quality on the ATI cards. Can get them much cheaper online though (www.newegg.com is a reputable retailer).

DVI connector is for some HDTV's, and of course for LCN fat panel monitors.

Jason

Originally posted by amarinkovic
Thanks for the reply...

I just got back from CompUSA, where the prices are always high, and they had some ATI 9800XL? card that was $499!! But it appears to be the best card they have.

They also have some 9200's that are much less, around $150 or so. Also, they have the GeFource FX 5200's which I see a couple of postings saying they are OK.

Anyone have any experience with these that can comment on their tv-out picture quality?

Also, what do the DVI outputs connect to? Is that something I should look into?

[amarinkovic]

Should I expect the picture quality from the tv-out to be worse than the 350 out's no matter what video card I get?

[JasonJoel]

From my experience, yes. How much worse depends on how big a TV you are watching on (bigger TV = more noticeable flaws), and how you set everything up (dscaler plugin, etc).

Jason

Originally posted by amarinkovic
Should I expect the picture quality from the tv-out to be worse than the 350 out's no matter what video card I get?

[amarinkovic]

Thanks Jason for the quick responses.

That's disappointing that the tv-out's are not that great of quality. Which brings me to this:

How does everyone using Sage, or any tv capturing for that matter, deal with low quality video from their main source of tv? (I'm assuming that most people using Sage use it as there main method of watching tv) Doesn't it bother people that the end-resulting video quality is so bad? Or are people simply changing their input selector on their tv (switching from tv-out to 350 out). I found that very annoying while I was playing with it, that I had to keep changing inputs to see the desktop screen on one input, pick the channel (or whatever), and then change the input again to watch the 350 output.

And what about people without the 350 that HAVE to use their video card's outs (if I'm not mistaken). Does everyone simply have the latest greatest in video cards?

I just don't see the point in going through all of this if at the end of the day the picture is crap.

[stanger89]

How does everyone using Sage, or any tv capturing for that matter, deal with low quality video from their main source of tv?

I use Sage for 99% of my TV viewing, I almost never watch live TV, only a couple of minutes of local forcast from the Weather Channel. In my case, I actually get a superior picture out of my Radeon 9500 than I do strait from cable to the TV. The reason is simple, my TV displays cable interlaced and I can easily see the scanlines on my 36" TV. I have run Sage at 1280x1024i over VGA most of the time. On an HDTV, the picture deinterlaced and scaled through Sage and Sonic Cineplayer filters is very good (given good source), and DVDs are awesome.

Probably more relevant to your question, I ran the S-vid out of my 9500 to my parents 46" Mits (before I got the component dongle) and the picture was pretty acceptable. The one caveat is, that resulted in a poor interlaced(source)-> progressive(post-decoder)-> interlaced(svid)-> deinterlaced(Mits) chain that resulted in a wierd intermitent blurring of the background.

Moral of the whole story is, if you can, go for HD type resolutions to the TV, otherwise, newer (DX9 class) video cards have pretty good TV outs. Text will never look good over S-vid, but the Sage UI/Video should look pretty good with something like a Geforce FX 5200/5700 or a Radeon 9500/9600. Any of those cards will get you the latest/greatest video features without charging you (money/heat/noise) for gaming performance you don't need. FX 5200's are available for <$75.

BTW, I'm running a 250.

[mlbdude]

Most users that claim better image quality than the source will be users using HDTV's like stanger89 says. However, I still use a standard TV and like the output from my Radeon 9000 better than the source signal. During the encoding and decoding process the image is cleaned up quite a bit producing what appears to be a sharper image. In reality some image detail is lost since it is being compressed, but in actual use it is not noticeable and the gains make it worthwhile.

[JasonJoel]

Sure, I like my TV Out too.

All I was trying to say to amarinkovic was that I think the PVR-350's output is better than I was able to do with a vid card TV Out.

That is NOT to say that a regular card's TV Out can't look darn good too! I am VERY happy with the PQ coming off of all my cards (and I have a plethora of different kinds).

I should have been more clear in what I was trying to say!

Jason

[Mike Young]

When I first started using Sage I was satisfied with my 9200SE which is a 50 card, but once I got Sage Configured correctly and started going for Higher Record rates the 9200SE couldnt cut it, it was fine for 2gb hr and lower, it wasnt until I recently ran 2 systems side by side that I realized how much better the 9000 pro 128mb COULD be. I now run at the Max rate and I replaced the 9200SE in the Server with a 8500 128 (still only about $75) The quality is not as good as the 9000 pro in the client, but its decent.

Its interesting how many people complain about the video quality, It took me a long time to get things right, but I can second what mlbdude is saying...the 9000 pro produces what looks to me like a better picture than the original.
It is definitley posible to get a crappy picture with Sage....very easy indeed. But with proper setting you can get at least as good as Replay or Tivo for sure.

I also havent quite figured it out yet, but the picture seems better for some reason when viewing something allready recorded not "Live TV" which doesnt really make sense because none of it is "LIVE' .
Also I have noticed that some PROGRAMS mainly movies record in stunning quality while telivision shows can seem to be not quite as sharp as the original sometimes.


mike/

[ErsatzTom]

so you are saying you got better video out from a 9000 pro than a 9200SE? How do you think this would apply to a 9600?

t

[mlbdude]

9000 and 9600 seem to produce the same quality TV out. However, I can use the component adapter with the 9600.

It is probably true that a regular 9200 does a good job too, I think it is the SE part the buyers should be aware of. However, 9000's are available for the same price or lower so it is probably not worth the risk.

[amarinkovic]

OK, this is beginning to get a little annoying.

I went out and got an ATI Radeon 9600XT, which was $199 BTW (I know I could have gotten it cheaper online, but sometimes I just gotta have instant gratification). I figured that I would be good to go with all the talk about the Radeons, but when I installed it, I got more or less the same picture quality as the GeForce2 I swapped it with.

I have played with the Display Properties settings, and now I can get many different resolutions, but the only one that looks half way decent is 800x600. It won't fill the screen completely either, there is a black bar at the bottom about 2 inches thick that I can't seem to get rid of. All the other resolutions seem to be too large - falling off the edge of the screen and having it scroll over to the edge as I move the mouse over.

Sage looks to me to be worse with this card. There seems to be a sort of trailing effect when there is motion on the screen, and it just looks plain blurry.

I know those that read this are probably saying to themselves "This guy just doesn't know what he's doing" Well, this may be the case. I'm not aware of any other places to change display settings other than Display Properties. So if any of you would be so kind as to point me in the direction of some video tweaking instructions, that would be much appreciated. I do see that many posts state that they have to work to get a good picture, and I just want to know what they are doing to get it.

If not, anyone wanna buy a Radeon 9600XT? :-)

[aglennon]

I have the same black bar on bottom of the screen using a 9000 Pro. I just deal with it since I have not been able to find a fix yet. There are screen adjustments in the advanced display properties for the TV out, but they don't work. I keep hoping a new release of the drivers will fix my problem, but no luck yet.

[mlbdude]

To get rid of the black bars you need to enable Overscan. This will produce better video quality as well and match what your DVD player or VCR outputs. It is best to run at 640x480 or 720x480 for standard TV's. The only problem with Overscan is that if this is not an HTPC, it will make normal windows operations unpleasant since they will run off the screen.

SageTV has parameters in the properties file to compensate for this.

Any motion issues will be associated with deinterlacing. Hardware deinterlacing will be different between cards. Like the old GeForce 2 probably does not do it at all.

Enable DXVA for your decoder and set everything else to default in Detailed Setup/Video.

[amarinkovic]

Thanks for the hints...however, I do not see anything mentioning DXVA in the detailed setup. What does this do?

Also, I noticed a few people talking about Dscaler deinterlacing. Would this help my kinda "cloudy" motion problems? Mine is greyed out, so I can't adjust anything. Is it greyed out because my video card is doing it?

[sixdoubleo]

Originally posted by Mike Young
Its interesting how many people complain about the video quality, It took me a long time to get things right, but I can second what mlbdude is saying...the 9000 pro produces what looks to me like a better picture than the original.
It is definitley posible to get a crappy picture with Sage....very easy indeed. But with proper setting you can get at least as good as Replay or Tivo for sure.

I absolutely agree. I have only been using Sage for a couple weeks (trial...finally bought it last night) but my video quality viewing through Sage is at LEAST as good as a native cable signal and in many cases better because with Sage I am recording closer to my initial cable split, and then streaming to all the rooms, whereas before my various rooms were getting very week signals from multiple split coax feeds.

I split my cable as soon as I can (right where it comes to the house) and I have a dedicated NON-amplified RG-6 run that goes straight to my server closet. The rest goes to a distribution block that feeds all my rooms (which is disconnected now because I really dont even need anymore now that I use Sage to stream everything) I split that RG-6 trunk in my server closet...one leg goes to the cable modem, the other leg goes to my Sage cable box(es).

I run a single 250 (with a second on order) on a Duron 1.3Ghz. I view using Sage Client on a Philips HDTV running an Athlon XP1800+ w/FX5200. I use NVDVD as my decoder. Looks awesome...possibly better than normal cable did due to a cleaner signal, all-digital connection and deinterlacing going on in the PC. I then have a MediaMVP in my master bedroom. This is hooked up to a crappy Sharp 27" TV via RCA connection. Still looks as good as it did before Sage.

I was recording at 3GB/hour. I knocked it down to 2GB/hour and can't really tell a huge difference. Very slight.

As with anything else, I think the key is to keep your setup clean...don't try to combine a game machine, development machine, web server, and file server all into one machine with Sage. Keep your HKLM/SW/MS/CV/Run *CLEAN*. Extra services and things will kill you. Turn off menu affects, background tasks and just general crap you don't need.

All in all it looks awesome...much better than the Tivo's I've seen.

I couldn't be happier with mine.

[stanger89]

Most of the people I see here complaining about PQ are people using composite/s-video at 480i. At that resolution the excess deinterlace->scale->scale->deinterlace chain probably degrades the image unnecessarily.

But for those of us running progressive/HD type TVs and resolutions 480p or higher the PQ after Sage is almost always as good as the original. Of course then there's SpikeTV that seems to broadcast it's field inverted or something that makes everything look like it's 720x240, unless it is 720x240.

[stanger89]

Originally posted by amarinkovic
Thanks for the hints...however, I do not see anything mentioning DXVA in the detailed setup. What does this do?

Also, I noticed a few people talking about Dscaler deinterlacing. Would this help my kinda "cloudy" motion problems? Mine is greyed out, so I can't adjust anything. Is it greyed out because my video card is doing it?

DXVA is DirectX Video Accelleration, it's part of DirectX that makes the MPEG acceleration, built into most new video cards, available to applications.

To use Dscaler deinterlacing you need to install and select the Elecard video decoders and make sure you disable deinterlacing in the elecard decoders (do a search).

As for your PQ, try going to Display Properties->Settings->Advanced->Adapter and click List all modes and try one of the 720x480 resolutions, maybe that will help.