Clear but choppy playback with HD antenna

[snoopy]

My wife and I are considering letting go of our cable company for both high speed internet and cable TV. We found we can get the high speed internet down to $19.00. If we go with an antenna over cable TV, we reduce this monthly expense by $100. For us, most of the best TV can be found on CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, and the WB anyway. It seems to make sense.

We live in the US and use a Hauppauge Dual Tuner PVR 500 that we purchased years ago. We have recently acquired a Hauppauge HVR 1600 that we are using to test the HD antenna signal.

I loaded the drivers for this and first used WinTV to pick up the channels. We are missing NBC but I understand a stronger antenna (as opposed to the one that came with the HVR 1600) might do the trick.

The channels come in clear as a bell and this was a pleasant surprise. We are experiencing some choppiness though on all but CBS which might make day-to-day use of it annoying. What is the best bet on getting rid of the choppiness without buying all new equipment?

We have a 64bit processor and 64bit OS running on a Pavillion a6113w with 2GB of RAM, a NVidia GeForce 7300GS video card (memory unclear), and reporting a Windows Experience Index of 3. From what I can tell, I am on a PCI bus as opposed to PCI-E.

How feasible is it that we could get the choppiness to smooth out a little?

[freedml]

With digital, you either get a good signal or you don't. With a large antenna, I only got two digital stations at first. I replaced the large antenna with one with a built-in amplifier, and then another amplifier in the house gives me enough signal to get a lot of stations. All of my station transmitters are in one direction, so I'm using a directional antenna.

The bottom line is, if your signals are weak (the video source setup in SageTV has a signal strength meter) then amplify the heck out of it until you get the channels you want.

[snoopy]

Originally Posted by freedml

With digital, you either get a good signal or you don't. With a large antenna, I only got two digital stations at first. I replaced the large antenna with one with a built-in amplifier, and then another amplifier in the house gives me enough signal to get a lot of stations. All of my station transmitters are in one direction, so I'm using a directional antenna.

The bottom line is, if your signals are weak (the video source setup in SageTV has a signal strength meter) then amplify the heck out of it until you get the channels you want.

Wow! Thanks for sharing your set-up with me. I did not know about amplification. Got any pictures? So you think that the signal to the antenna and not the video card, is the culprit with regard to choppiness, correct?

[freedml]

If the picture is clear, then SageTV's player is the likely source of the choppiness. If there's any visual degradation of the picture, then added signal strength might help it.

[SWKerr]

There are two potential issues that you might have. One is signal strength the other is multi-path. A decent antenna will help with both. If you get anything with the antenna that came with it than you must be close to the towers and will not need a big external antenna. What you need is a good UHF antenna.

I use this one when I go vacation to the beach. It is small and it works well.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1118844608800

You can go to your local Bestbuy and return it if it does not solve your problem. It comes with an built-in amplifier. A local home improvement store would also carry something similar.

You can see the signal strength when you go into the channel setup and view the station there. There will be a meter there and anything less than 80% is not real good. If you see it go from 90% to 0 a lot you might have a multi-path problem that may or may not be difficult to correct.

Also: If you get your internet from cable you might have access via clear QAM to your local stations and would not need an antenna.

[Thomas Wischgol]

I use a channelmaster antenna that I got from Lowes for around $50. It is big (8 feet) but I live behind some trees and now I have a signal strength of 98%. I had one of these indoor "HD" antennas before and it just did not work (probably a multipath issue due to the trees). But the big antenna resolved it and since it is in my attic nobody sees it anyway.

You can also pick up one of these cheap converter boxes to test out the signal. This way you can find out whether it is a reception issue or related to your computer. Your graphics card is a little on the low end but I use a system with a NVidia 7200 in my bedroom. It stutters with Nvidia's decoder but works fine with the Intervideo decoder (with VMR9 and FSE enabled).

Thomas

[freedml]

This is the one I use. I'm in a fringe area, so this plus an indoor amplifier are necessary to get most channels. http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=2348191

[gjvrieze]

Originally Posted by freedml

If the picture is clear, then SageTV's player is the likely source of the choppiness. If there's any visual degradation of the picture, then added signal strength might help it.

Ya, great point; have you played any other HD content on this machine? I would assume with cable, the OP have been using analog, so the 480i decoding would not have been so cpu hungry...

[ractar28]

Originally Posted by snoopy

We have a 64bit processor and 64bit OS running on a Pavillion a6113w with 2GB of RAM, a NVidia GeForce 7300GS video card (memory unclear), and reporting a Windows Experience Index of 3. From what I can tell, I am on a PCI bus as opposed to PCI-E.

How feasible is it that we could get the choppiness to smooth out a little?

I'll share my experiences, similar, but not identical.

I have a Geforce 5200. I run it with dual 22" monitors and haven't had an issue until I started playing with tv tuners and recording. I'm currently using VMC 64-bit and my proc and ram are well above any requirements. Watching live tv or recordings will give the choppiness you are reporting. However, I can put one monitor on the on-board video and it works fine. In my case, the video card is the problem (and I'm working to rectify that). However, I've gotten better results in the dual-monitor setup by setting one monitor to really crappy resolution and using it for TV playback. It's still choppy, but not anywhere near as bad as it was. Once my new video card comes in, I expect this to all go away.

[Tiki]

I'm guessing it is a video card / decoder issue.
Depending on the video card, you may not have enough power to play back HD video without stuttering. And depending on the decoder you use, it may not take full advantage of your video card's capabilities.

Personally, I am using an NVidia 6200 with the Nvidia Purevideo decoder. I get great playback of 480i, 480p, and 720p. But, 1080i looks like it is dropping half the frames so it is stuttery. In my area Fox, ABC, and MyTV use 720p, but NBC, CBS, CW, and PBS use 1080i, so I disabled those channels. I'm using cable rather than OTA, so I can still get those channels in SD. I'm probably stuck with this solution until I can upgrade my PC.

[Malfunction]

Try recording at 720P. If you encode at 1080p, it might be more of a task to play back.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by Malfunction

Try recording at 720P. If you encode at 1080p, it might be more of a task to play back.

Is there any reason why you reply to 8 years old post Malfunction beside with ATSC Tuner you can't do that.

[Malfunction]

Originally Posted by SHS

Is there any reason why you reply to 8 years old post Malfunction beside with ATSC Tuner you can't do that.

I'm currently having trouble getting 1080i to transcode. I've been digging through old posts for solutions. Apparently the deinterlacing is what crashes transcode. I'm currently trying a bigger pagefile.

[Malfunction]

Originally Posted by Malfunction

I'm currently having trouble getting 1080i to transcode. I've been digging through old posts for solutions. Apparently the deinterlacing is what crashes transcode. I'm currently trying a bigger pagefile.

And it still crashes.