Video Quality

[SageGk]

I have an HD100 and the video quality is not impressive with analog programming from my cable box. I keep comparing it with a cable box I have directly hooked up to the TV, and the Sage quality looks like an old VHS tape. I am trying to improve picture quality, and I made it somewhat better by playing with the settings in the color calibration menu and my TV settings, but it is still not satisfactory....any suggestions?
Does it matter which codec I have installed on the server?

[RobertRathbone]

Codecs on the server are irrelevant to the HD100 since the server streams the file to the HD100 and it uses it's own version of a codec to decode the video stream.

I'm certainly no expert, but one thing I found that improved my picture quality was to turn on native resolution output switching (if I'm remembering the name correctly) on the extender. As I understand it, that has the extender to dynamically change the output resolution to the one most closely matching the video you are playing. So an SD recording would be output at 480i, allowing the TV to do the upscaling of the picture. I found that my HDTV does a better job of upscaling the picture than the extender. I found the same to be true of an upscaling DVD player I recently bought. I liked the picture better when the DVD player was outputing SD than when it was upscaling to "HD."

Of course, your mileage may vary, so it may not help in your situation...

Edit: All this assumes that your TV is HD. If it's an SD set, then you might look at the recording quality you are using. In fact, you should consider it anyway, since the quality of the recording may be the most important factor in getting a playback picture. The extender can't play back a better picture that what it's given. Also, flaws due to a lower quality recording that aren't too noticable on an SD TV will be much more noticable on a larger HD TV.

Hope that helps...
Robert

[dadof4]

Originally Posted by SageGk

I have an HD100 and the video quality is not impressive with analog programming from my cable box. I keep comparing it with a cable box I have directly hooked up to the TV, and the Sage quality looks like an old VHS tape. I am trying to improve picture quality, and I made it somewhat better by playing with the settings in the color calibration menu and my TV settings, but it is still not satisfactory....any suggestions?
Does it matter which codec I have installed on the server?

Same here. I picked up a new cable box about a month ago and the quality on SD on our 52" Sony broadcasts is super. I don't know what is different but at times it almost looks like HD. The quality from the HD100, althought I can't say it is terrible, certainly does not compare to the quality from the cable box. On the other hand on our old 27" SD sets I can see almost no difference between straight cable and the feed from the MVP's.

Can anyone pipe in as to the quality on SD broadcasts originating from the HDPVR?

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by SageGk

I have an HD100 and the video quality is not impressive with analog programming from my cable box. I keep comparing it with a cable box I have directly hooked up to the TV, and the Sage quality looks like an old VHS tape. I am trying to improve picture quality, and I made it somewhat better by playing with the settings in the color calibration menu and my TV settings, but it is still not satisfactory....any suggestions?
Does it matter which codec I have installed on the server?

How are you connecting your cable box to Sage?

[SageGk]

S-Video

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by dadof4

Same here. I picked up a new cable box about a month ago and the quality on SD on our 52" Sony broadcasts is super. I don't know what is different but at times it almost looks like HD. The quality from the HD100, althought I can't say it is terrible, certainly does not compare to the quality from the cable box. On the other hand on our old 27" SD sets I can see almost no difference between straight cable and the feed from the MVP's.

Can anyone pipe in as to the quality on SD broadcasts originating from the HDPVR?

Do you have 480i selected as an ouptut from the HD100 to your Sony? Your Sony may have a better scaler than the HD100.

[photon]

Originally Posted by RobertRathbone

I'm certainly no expert, but one thing I found that improved my picture quality was to turn on native resolution output switching (if I'm remembering the name correctly) on the extender. As I understand it, that has the extender to dynamically change the output resolution to the one most closely matching the video you are playing. So an SD recording would be output at 480i, allowing the TV to do the upscaling of the picture. I found that my HDTV does a better job of upscaling the picture than the extender.
Robert

I'm looking for this setting can you help me find it? I don't see anything besides the ability to place check marks for each supported resolution then use the Video Out button on the remote to switch manually.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by photon

I'm looking for this setting can you help me find it? I don't see anything besides the ability to place check marks for each supported resolution then use the Video Out button on the remote to switch manually.

If you select 480i, 720P and 1080i as video out options on the HD100, it will automatically switch to the "native" resolution of the video captured (when the HD100 plays a 480i recording, the HD100 switches its output to 480i, same for 720P and 1080i). The only annoyance is that you will lose video for a second while it switches its resolution when you switch between formats. The scaler in the HD100 is not the greatest (not horrible, but many newer tv's have better internal scalers).

[dadof4]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Do you have 480i selected as an ouptut from the HD100 to your Sony? Your Sony may have a better scaler than the HD100.

I tried it both ways. Can't see much of a difference. Perhaps letting the set do the scaling is a bit better. It's not that bad. It's just that with the cable box it was better. I guess some degradation should be expected given the analog to digital conversion. I found playing with the sets sharpness, mpg noise, and DCR mode setting I was able to get it pretty good. Would'nt it be cool if the cable company went the way of OTA? Then everything would be digital and the HDHR's could handle all the channels.

Thanks

[RobertRathbone]

Originally Posted by photon

I'm looking for this setting can you help me find it? I don't see anything besides the ability to place check marks for each supported resolution then use the Video Out button on the remote to switch manually.

Once the extender has booted into SageTV, go to the "Setup" menu and then "Detailed Setup." I'm at work now and I don't remember which sub-menu the option is under. It may be "General" or "Advanced" but I don't recall. You may be able to do a search for it in the Sage's PDF manual and be able to zero in on where to find the option and find a better description of what it does than I'm providing.

Robert

[autoboy]

Up the recording quality of the analog tuners until you don't notice a difference.

[unkyjoe]

Make sure your connection from you cable box is coming into the sage tuners via s-video and not the RF cable.

So it should be cable box - svideo out - to sage tuner svideo in.

Then set your quality settings capture at the better or best quality, and this should help.

I get a fantastic picture with DirecTV using this method with s-video.

Hope this helps.

[Fuzzy]

On my set (61" Samsung RPTV), I had unsatisfactory quality even at great, and it really didn't get much better until i got up to best or DVD Standard. This of course takes up more space, but the shows that I keep a lot of (mostly kids programs to pacify the kiddies) are all auto-compressed anyways, so I'd rather have the higher quality near-artifact-free recordings to begin with before the compression.

[SageGk]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

On my set (61" Samsung RPTV), I had unsatisfactory quality even at great, and it really didn't get much better until i got up to best or DVD Standard. This of course takes up more space, but the shows that I keep a lot of (mostly kids programs to pacify the kiddies) are all auto-compressed anyways, so I'd rather have the higher quality near-artifact-free recordings to begin with before the compression.

Interesting...I wonder if we can set custom VBR qualities?

[dadof4]

Striving to better oft we mar that which is well.....

My SD broadcasts/recordings are now almost indistinguishable from those straight from the cable box.

Prior setting up my HDTV with Sage, while viewing Sage via one of my MVP's attached to an SD TV I adjusted the sharpness way up on my PVR-150 and HVR-1600 tuners. As it did not seem to have much of an affect I left the settings high (200!). I was experiencing a lot of "grain" on SD on my SXRD4 and 32" Vizio with the HD100. I found by setting the sharpness down to zero on the tuners and increasing the sharpness on the HDTV sets the "grain" was almost eliminated while the sharpness remained satisfactory. That coupled with some mild noise adjustments on the sets has left me with what I belieive to be as good of an SD picture as can be expected.

BTW, I'm recording at max video quality.