Tube to LCD TV question

[gilded07]

My source is analog SD cable into one PVR-150 and one PVR-500. I know these tuners record in 4:3.

I use a wired hauppauge mediaMVP connected to the new LCD 52" HDTV via composite (analog) cables. The problem is the picture is worse than my 36" tube TV was. I've played with the settings on the new TV and the picture is still disappointing. I don't want to upgrade to high definition service. The service will cost more and I'll have to invest in more hardware to record in HD. I don't get HD signals over the air from where I live either.

Are there settings in SageTv that will help me get a better picture? The salesman said the bigger 16:9 TVs are "pixel hungry" and will take the SD feed and expand it to fill the screen. Great, why didn't you mention that when I told before I bought it that my source was analog SD cable?

Anyways, is there anything I can do to get a sharper image using an SD signal?

Thanx.

[Tiki]

You've got two problems that are not easy to overcome. First you went from a 36" TV to a 52" TV, so even if it was a tube (CRT) SDTV, the larger screen would show look a little bit more fuzzy unless you sit a long way away from the TV, just because it is blowing up the image and making the imperfections more noticeable.

The second problem is that LCD's have a native resolution. Basically, they have a fixed grid of pixels arranged in rows and columns. They will look very nice when the image they are trying to display has the exact same resolution (for example 720P = 1280 columns by 720 rows). If the image they are trying to display is anything other than the native resolution, an image processor must convert the image to make it fit. So to display SDTV (which is 640 or 720 columns by 480 rows) on a 720P, 1080i, or 1080p TV, the image processor has to either add in extra rows and columns as filler to expand the picture, or it must draw black bars around the edges (or some combination of the two).

Note that this is not just an issue with displaying SDTV on an HDTV. It also affects showing 720p images on a 1080i TV and vice versa. Personally I think scaling a low resolution image up is worse than scaling a high resolution image down.

All HDTV's have some sort of image processor built-in. The image processing required to scale video from one resolution to another is fairly complex and not all processors are created equally. Many video enthusiasts will go so far as to use an external stand alone image processor to get the best possible image.

Anyway, there are a few things you can do that may help. First, try adjusting the various picture parameters. Lowering the contrast, brightness, and backlight, and turing down the sharpness should make the jaggies a little less harsh.

Second, try to make sure your recordings are as clean and noise-free as possible. This means, try recording at the higher quality settings in Sage, make sure all of your cable connections are tight, use as few splitters in your cable runs as possible and make sure they are all high quality, possibly install a cable amplifier. Also, I'm not sure how your cable is connected, but if you have a mixture of digital and analog cable in your area, you will get superior recordings going from a cable box to the PVR-150 via component or S-Video cables versus using the PVR-150 to tune directly from coax. If you are tuning dierctly with the PVR-150 cards, there are some threads floating around the forums about using some software called frequency shifter to fine-tune the TV tuners on those cards to get a little clearer picture if some stations are coming in fuzzy.

Another option (though it costs money and isn't perfect) is to try the HDHomerun as a capture device. It will tune the unencrypted digital feeds from your cable company without a cable box. In most places you don't even have to subscribe to HDTV to get at least a few HD channels, and the digital SD channels are much clearer than the analog SD channels. In my area I get the major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CW, MyTV, PBS) in both HD and SD, plus several other basic channels in SD (Discovery, History, AMC, TNT, QVC, TVGuide, community access, several religious channels) all en un-encrypted Clear QAM.

[freedml]

I'm not sure but I think your picture problems would also go away if you replaced the MVP with a HD200 Media Extender. It would probably do a much better job of displaying the SD picture on your new LCD.

[gilded07]

All HDTV's have some sort of image processor built-in. The image processing required to scale video from one resolution to another is fairly complex and not all processors are created equally. Many video enthusiasts will go so far as to use an external stand alone image processor to get the best possible image.

I bought a Samsung 120hz LCD HDTV. It's rated #1 in Consumer's Report so I assume the image processor is at least above average.

First, try adjusting the various picture parameters. Lowering the contrast, brightness, and backlight, and turing down the sharpness should make the jaggies a little less harsh.

I've played around w/ some of the settings with little noticeable impact. There are dozens and dozens of detailed settings that I know little about. I wonder if a professional calibration would help? Having a calibrator come in and perform this service is expensive but the current PQ is failing the wife approval factor.

there are some threads floating around the forums about using some software called frequency shifter to fine-tune the TV tuners on those cards to get a little clearer picture if some stations are coming in fuzzy.

I have the fewest number of splitters possible to get the feed into the server. However, I have posted in other threads my problem with channel 5 - local CBS affiliate. FreqShifter has helped a little with this. I've spoken to the engineer at the local CBS affiliate and he told me the analog frequency they use. Honestly, I think I might need to fine tune this a little more because channel 5 is really, really bad. It was pretty good with the 36" CRT but as you noted, the larger screen is amplifying what I believe to be a analog tuning problem. Also, I don't have a cable box - I plug the coax directly into the tuner cards. If FreqShifter doesn't produce any better tuning, I guess I may have to get some boxes from the cable company. I just hate to pay for them. I was with Directv for 10 years (loved 'em) but left because I didn't want to pay their $5 / month fee for each receiver. How would the sage server tune the cable boxes? Would I need to invest in IR blasters or something like that? Sounds like a pain but this PQ is a pain too (I used serial tuning w/ Directv and it worked well).

Another option (though it costs money and isn't perfect) is to try the HDHomerun as a capture device. It will tune the unencrypted digital feeds from your cable company without a cable box. In most places you don't even have to subscribe to HDTV to get at least a few HD channels

A friend of mine who also uses SageTV, was getting unencrypted HD channels via the analog feed into his HDHR but recently the local cable provider - Cox Communications - apparently, began filtering this signal out. When he asked them about it, they keep playing stupid. He's filed a complaint with the FCC.

If I could get HD channels via an HDHR, would my P4 3.2ghz server with a Hauppauge MediaMVP be enough horsepower to record and play it back and watch it live? Just curious.

Thanks for the ideas. I think more fine tuning with FreqShifter might help channel 5 but overall, the PQ on each channel is worse than it was with the 36" CRT, before it went bad. You've given me some things to look at.

[Taddeusz]

I've seen this time and time again with people who switch from a tube SDTV to a larger HDTV. SD is always going to look worse on the HDTV just because the video has such a low resolution compared to the display device. While this may be unacceptable to your wife that is the price we pay for having an HDTV. Until everything is in HD you have to put up with the lower quality of an SD signal.

That being said, what is wrong with the picture exactly? Is the picture noisy or just fuzzy? How do you have your MVP connected to your TV? With composite or S-video? If you're not already hooked up that way I HIGHLY recommend S-video as that will give you the best picture quality from your MVP to your TV.

Unfortunately your server probably doesn't have enough processing power to transcode the HD video to something playable by the MVP. If you go the HD route replacing the MVP with an HD200 would be the most prudent move as this would offload all video processing to the extender and give you a full HD picture for those HD recordings. The HD200 would also give you higher quality SD video.

Edit: One other thing, the wife may have the impression that just because you now have an HDTV the picture should look HD. An HDTV doesn't and can't magically make a SD picture look as good as an HD picture. She may have the impression that it should. As stupid as that may sound I've heard people say just as much.

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by freedml

I'm not sure but I think your picture problems would also go away if you replaced the MVP with a HD200 Media Extender. It would probably do a much better job of displaying the SD picture on your new LCD.

That's a good idea. My friend has the 100; maybe I can convince him to let me try it out.

I don't yet understand the difference between the 100 and 200. I suppose I need to do some reading.

[rerooks]

The HD-100 isn't for sale anymore, so you would just get the 200.

I have both. For most purposes, there isn't any difference. The ones I have seen are:

1. The HD-100 is physically larger
2. The HD-200 has an interface independent of SageTV, so you can use it as a standalone media extender. Many of us don't use it. Some use it to get video feeds from websites.
3. The HD-200 has a bit different firmware, since new beta firmware now is adding the feature of subtitle support and later closed captioning. I think it will be added to the 100 later.

Originally Posted by gilded07

That's a good idea. My friend has the 100; maybe I can convince him to let me try it out.

I don't yet understand the difference between the 100 and 200. I suppose I need to do some reading.

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I've seen this time and time again with people who switch from a tube SDTV to a larger HDTV. SD is always going to look worse on the HDTV just because the video has such a low resolution compared to the display device. While this may be unacceptable to your wife that is the price we pay for having an HDTV. Until everything is in HD you have to put up with the lower quality of an SD signal.

Neither my wife or I were expecting HD PQ w/ an SD feed. We were, however, expecting to have as good a picture as we had with the 10 yr old 36" CRT. Based on what I'm reading from replies on this thread, that may be an unreasonable expectation unless the 200 will help.

That being said, what is wrong with the picture exactly? Is the picture noisy or just fuzzy? How do you have your MVP connected to your TV? With composite or S-video? If you're not already hooked up that way I HIGHLY recommend S-video as that will give you the best picture quality from your MVP to your TV.

'Grainy' is probably the best word I can think of to describe it. The outlines of the people on sitcoms and the news / sportscenter is fuzzy and just not clearly defined. I haven't tried S-video but that's a good idea. I will and report back. I have an extra s-vid cable around here someplace.

The HD200 would also give you higher quality SD video.

I'm gonna see if I can borrow my friend's 100. The results should be the same as the 200, correct?

Edit: One other thing, the wife may have the impression that just because you now have an HDTV the picture should look HD. An HDTV doesn't and can't magically make a SD picture look as good as an HD picture. She may have the impression that it should. As stupid as that may sound I've heard people say just as much.

Understood - my reference point is the PQ on the old tube; not the PQ at the retail store - I know all the display models have HD clips running on them. I didn't expect that level of detail.

[Taddeusz]

Unfortunately you're not going to be able to get as sharp of a picture as you did with your old tube TV. The reason for this is that your old TV was designed specifically do display a low resolution interlaced image. An LCD cannot display an interlaced SD image without it first being deinterlaced and scaled. This is going to naturally produce a blurry image. The effect can be mitigated by using higher quality components. Your Samsung TV should be able to do the deinterlacing and scaling quite well.

As for the graininess. You may need a cable TV amplifier if you don't already have one. But I would need to see an example photo to be able to really give a recommendation of what may be wrong, if anything, with your cable TV signal.

[rerooks]

This reminds me of the really old games that people use to write for the TRS-80 Color computer. From what I understand, there was a limited number of colors, so they counted on the bleed from one pixel to the next to create new colors. They called it artifacting (http://www.lomont.org/Software/Misc/...CoHardware.pdf, Page 8).

When you run an emulator on your PC, with a high resolution monitor, it doesn't look any good.

An CRT bleeds things together, so they look smoother and less grainy. A high resolution TV shows all of the limitations of a tube. You could wear a pair of glasses that has a grease on the lens.

Originally Posted by gilded07

'Grainy' is probably the best word I can think of to describe it. The outlines of the people on sitcoms and the news / sportscenter is fuzzy and just not clearly defined. I haven't tried S-video but that's a good idea. I will and report back. I have an extra s-vid cable around here someplace.

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Unfortunately you're not going to be able to get as sharp of a picture as you did with your old tube TV.

This really stinks - I really don't want to pay for HD or pay for more hardware to record and play back. A $200 inventstment in a 200 to better display the SD signal on the new HDTV is fine but I loathe paying for HD service and the boxes and new tuning (IR?) and all that crap. I've been very, very happy w/ my analog feed and SageTV.

As for the graininess. You may need a cable TV amplifier if you don't already have one. But I would need to see an example photo to be able to really give a recommendation of what may be wrong, if anything, with your cable TV signal.

I have an inexpensive cable amp (single in - single out, 12dB, 50-900MHZ) that I got from the local electronics store and tried before I discovered FreqShifter. I can plug it back in and give it another try. I'm also using high quality RG6 coax in the house and into the server.

I know how to get a screen shot of from the PS via my PC. How do I get a picture of the TV? Just use a digicam and post the .jpg? I'm game if you think you can see from the pic how bad the PQ is.

Again, thanx much for your suggestions.

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by rerooks

This reminds me of the really old games that people use to write for the TRS-80 Color computer. From what I understand, there was a limited number of colors, so they counted on the bleed from one pixel to the next to create new colors. They called it artifacting (http://www.lomont.org/Software/Misc/...CoHardware.pdf, Page 8).

When you run an emulator on your PC, with a high resolution monitor, it doesn't look any good.

An CRT bleeds things together, so they look smoother and less grainy. A high resolution TV shows all of the limitations of a tube. You could wear a pair of glasses that has a grease on the lens.

I'm desperate! What kind of grease do you recommend?

[QueOnda]

Originally Posted by gilded07

I'm desperate! What kind of grease do you recommend?

Vasoline is multipurpose. You don't really need the glasses, just smear over your eyes.

You mentioned you had a friend who also has sage and a HDHR. Could you ask him to record a SD on the HDHR and see how it looks on your tv?
This could tell you (possibly) not your signal problem.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by gilded07

I know how to get a screen shot of from the PS via my PC. How do I get a picture of the TV? Just use a digicam and post the .jpg? I'm game if you think you can see from the pic how bad the PQ is.

Yea, if you can take a good picture with a digital camera that shows what you're talking about that would be the only way to do it.

[gilded07]

Well, my friend w/ the HD100 came over and we did some testing.

1. I replaced my composite video cable with a s-vid cable the day before my friend came by. My wife and I thought there might have been a little improvement in the PQ.
2. I replaced my MediaMVP with his HD100 and watched live TV. No improvement noticed.
3. We downloaded a free 1080p movie trailer for Wild Hogs, imported it into Sage and watched it via the HD100. Very, very nice PQ. The best picture quality I've seen on an HDTV (full disclosure: not much exposure to HD).

I did scan the analog cable source with the TV's built in tuner and found locals in HD. I knew this was possible but hadn't considered even trying to find the HD locals, given all the time I've been spending on getting a better PQ through SageTV.

The tuners on my 500 are the 'A' type Phillips tuners. I used the PVR150 with BeyondTV for three years before switching to SageTV in 2007 and the 150 has always had a good picture. The Hauppauge driver I'm using for both the 150 and the 500 is 2.0.48.24227 released in Aug 2006, I believe.

What I believe is happening is exactly what several of you have already described (no surprise ). The PQ is suffering from trying to stretch a native 480 source to a native 1080 display. As I've stated, local CBS affiliate Channel 5 is visibly worse than any of the others but I think it is a tuning issue. Making micro changes to FreqShifter and rebooting over and over is a pain. I messed with it 6 or 8 mos back and got the channel 5 PQ relatively acceptable but it is still worse than the other channels.

Anyway, I believe my options are:

1. Do nothing and watch it as it
2. Buy a couple of hybrid tuners (1600 or 1800?) and use Sage to record locals in HD and all others in SD (my server only has PCI slots; not PCIe).
3. Get an HDHR and use it for the same as #2. Perhaps get two HDHRs.

Questions for you guys:

1. Can I buy good PQ, hybrid tuners that work in PCI slots?
2. Can I record in SD and HD on a hybrid tuner at the same time like I currently can with the two tuners on the 500? Ideally, I'd like the dual hybrid tuner set up to allow me four simultaneous tuners - 2 HD and 2 SD and I'd like for SageTV to automatically record my favorite in HD if its showing on an HD channel (locals only)
3. If you recommend option #2 (hybrid cards), are the Hauppauge hybrids the recommended brand/models? ATI, Nvidia?
4. Similar question as #2 except this question relates to the HDHR - that is, can I hook two of 'em to my wired network and have 4 tuners that can be used at the same time? I know that based on previous replies to me on this thread my P4 3.2ghz isn't powerful enough to transcode HD to a MediaMVP so I'd have to buy a HD front end.

With option #2 or #4, my analog tuner PQ problem with channel 5 would go away because, hopefully, SageTV would record all of my CBS favs (e.g. two and a half men) with the HD tuner.

Note: my friend offered to return with his HDHR to give it a try.

Also, I haven't taken a picture of the screen yet but I can and post it here if anyone reading this still thinks the PQ problem might be related to the quality of the signal. I also plan to hook up my booster at the onQ box, where the signal comes into the house and see if that does anything.

Thanks again for all the help. You guys are great!

[gilded07]

bump, again.

any feedback would be appreciated!

[doncote0]

Just a thought, but if you got HD video you may see want better sound.

Many high quality receivers or home theatre audio systems will "up-convert" your analog video to 480P/720P/1080i and even 1080P. Up-converted analog Sage will look amazing on your set. (Nice choice of TV's by the way.)

Another thing you can try is make sure Sage is set for 16x9 vs 4x3. I noticed a visual improvement when I did that.

Go to radioshack and buy a $10 HDTV amplifier. Your signal needs power pass so the older amp could actually make the picture worse.

Take an old amp and put it upstream of a digital HD box and the box may stop seeing the cable signal (because digital tuners needs the power pass feature to the upstream source). Also, many older amps have a RG59 rating, but you want one rated for RG6.

Any splitters in your house should be high quality (gold does not mean high quality). HD Splitters should be "all ports power pass". If they have a wide frequency range (5-2300MHz), all the better.

[doncote0]

Just to clarify, it sounds like you are showing an analog recording on a digital set. The extenders you mentioned do not up-convert--they show in the recorded format. The image should be the same regardless of which extender is showing it. You can test that with the MediaMVP. Before doing anything, test the MediaMVP on the old set if you can to verify that nothing has changed.

The Yamaha RX-V665 and RX-663 Receivers are both excellent and will upconvert the signal (when Video Conv is turned on). Both will set you back about $500 at BestBuy.

Your picture will look better when first processed by either of these devices.

If you do not notice an improved picture through the receiver, read the instructions and if not successful take the receiver back.

[doncote0]

The picture format specified on the TV will may also affect how pleasing the image is. Select Auto if available in the TV menu. If not, you may want to use the selector button on the remote and find the best viewing format for Sage on your TV.