SageTV Issues with Performance and Quality

[brandon]

Hi Guys,

I built a HTPC and I've tried virtually every available windows pvr/media center software. So far it looks like SageTV provides the best out-of-the-box performance and quality. However I still have a lot of issues and I'm not sure how to resolve them.

I'm trying to replace my Tivo Series 2 with a nice HTPC. I'm using the following:

AMD Athlon X2 5200+
Windows XP SP2
2 Gigs DDR RAM
nVidia GeForce 8500 GT
SATA harddrive (300 gb)
DVD player
AverMedia m780 capture card.

My SageTV recordings even on the best quality are a lot worse than my Tivo2 records. A lot of finer detail is blurred out, missing or sometimes very rough (but not like combing). For example a scene on a road with telephone poles showed the telephone lines all blurred just like when they blur a persons face out on tv. Other times finer things like telephone lines or even the contours of objects like cars and people look rough. These things look good on Tivo2.

The performance I experience isn't so hot either. Standard definition television, live or recorded often struggles with any fast scenes. It just isn't smooth when something scrolls across the screen. A scene with people running looks choppy. Another scene with people running is a combination of choppy and blurry. Another scene with a door opening slowly just doesn't look fluid. all of this looks fine on Tivo2.

I've tried all kinds of decoders and renders, and PureVideo. I've tried various nVidia drivers including the latest and I don't see any improvement (although I can make things worse with certain combinations)

DVD playback looks ok, but it's not always smooth playback and it hesitates now and then (both audio and video). As if it needs to read more data off the DVD player. DVD playback through Windows Media Player seems a lot better.

From what I know about Tivo2, my chosen hardware blows it away. So how can I make my HTPC rock like it should?

[mikesm]

What OS?

There is no question that getting a PC to display great video is a challenge, even for just dvd's. Sage adds another layer of complexity in certain situations.

thx
mike

[brandon]

Originally Posted by mikesm

What OS?

There is no question that getting a PC to display great video is a challenge, even for just dvd's. Sage adds another layer of complexity in certain situations.

thx
mike

Opps..sorry. I'll update my post. Windows Xp SP2

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by brandon

Opps..sorry. I'll update my post. Windows Xp SP2

And what video codec and what version driver are you using?

thx
mike

[brandon]

Originally Posted by mikesm

And what video codec and what version driver are you using?

thx
mike

Right now I am using VMR9 for rendering. The SageTV decoder and nvidia drivers are very recent (I'm actually not in front of the HTPC right now). I just dropped back from the latest version. I don't know what video codecs are installed. How can I check?

[brandon]

Originally Posted by mikesm

And what video codec and what version driver are you using?

thx
mike

I dug around a little. I found these buried in the hardware profiles. I'm not an expert with this stuff but I think all the video codes were installed with Windows. The only one I recognize is Indeo. I don't have DivX or any other codecs like that installed.

[toricred]

The video codec is probably your problem. Most people here like the NVidia Purevideo codecs on XP. You can download a trial version from www.nvidia.com.

[brandon]

Originally Posted by toricred

The video codec is probably your problem. Most people here like the NVidia Purevideo codecs on XP. You can download a trial version from www.nvidia.com.

I do have the PureVideo Deccoder. It doesn't show in the list under the XP's devices &and video properties, but can set it as a decoder within Sage. It doesn't seem to help.

[toricred]

Did you choose NVIDIA Video Decoder or NVIDIA Video Post Processor? The postprocessor is a software implementation.

[brandon]

Originally Posted by toricred

Did you choose NVIDIA Video Decoder or NVIDIA Video Post Processor? The postprocessor is a software implementation.

I tried both but I wasn't sure what the difference was. I'll ignore the post processor when I do any other kind of tweaking. Also I have Sage running in full screen mode too.

I wanted to give overlay mode a shot (not sure if that's the right thing) but SageTV gets an unexpected error when I try.

[brandon]

Ok this is really interesting. I fumbled around a bit more and I got good playback on a recording I made last night, but on through Windows Media Player.

I forgot that you could only make PureVideo adjustments when a supported file was being played. So I opened up the recording in WMP and I looked at PureVideos settings. I noticed it wasn't using VRM9. I set it to VRM9 and the difference was night and day. I got much better color and all the rough edges were gone (there are stuff some fuzzies and off colors but I think that might have to do more with the quality of the recording and blowing it up to 720p...it was only standard def broadcast).

When I go into SageTV and tell it to use VRM9 and PureVideo it looks really bad. I'm not an expert but it looks like there might be an interlace issue and the colors look off. Going back to default settings different but still disappointing results.

So I'm excited to see I can get good playback on the PC, but how to I make SageTV use these settings?

[toricred]

I'm not sure how to make Sage use the settings (for me it just does), but you might want to look at how the de-interlacing is configured. It usually works best with either auto or smart. By the way, what version of the nvidia video drivers are you using? Do you have hardware acceleration enabled?

[brandon]

Originally Posted by toricred

I'm not sure how to make Sage use the settings (for me it just does), but you might want to look at how the de-interlacing is configured. It usually works best with either auto or smart. By the way, what version of the nvidia video drivers are you using? Do you have hardware acceleration enabled?

nvidia drivers 162.18

STv is set for hardware acceleration

[Apap]

Try using Deccheck
to see if the Nvidia decoder is your default decoder. If not then set it as your default decoder.

Start Sage,go into detailed setup and set your video decoder to default,then play a recording. You should see an nvidia tray icon appear when you play the recording. Now you can adjust your decoder properties while sage is playing.

Hope this helps.
Apap

[brandon]

Originally Posted by Apap

Try using Deccheck
to see if the Nvidia decoder is your default decoder. If not then set it as your default decoder.

Start Sage,go into detailed setup and set your video decoder to default,then play a recording. You should see an nvidia tray icon appear when you play the recording. Now you can adjust your decoder properties while sage is playing.

Hope this helps.
Apap

Nice utility. Yes, nvidia decoders are the default. It looks like STV just doesn't want to use that decoder. I started playing a recording (mpeg), left full screen and the nvidia utility isn't running. It does work for ctpvr and beyond tv though.