Best non-pvr250 encoder card

[mcbain]

I have 2 pvr250s and I have tried and tried to get acceptable picture quality out of them. I have verified that it is an encoder issue (by playing it on a hardware decoder, and trying mpeg2 video encoded from a tivo on the box). Basically I get "smearing" around objects that move.

I am looking for a good encoder card to try. It looks like there is a short list of cards supported on the website, but it says that other ones may work.

Basically I need a coax in for cable, and svideo/audio inputs for sat (don't have yet but might get). a dolby digital input would be nice but not a necessity.

Please don't post suggestions for decoding/output, I am certain that is not the issue in this case. Also please don't post anything about adjusting the pvr250 levels, as I have done that for hours and hours. I have started a few threads to explore these options, and I am really just looking for suggestions for other cards.

Ideas?

BTW I am running the 2.0.15 beta.

[stanger89]

Go to http://www.shspvr.com and in the tools section look for Prefilter Tweak and/or hcwpp2ut. These utilities allow you to adjust the prefiltering on the 250, specifically you can change the Temporal Noise Reduction which, if set too high, can cause smearing.

Play with it a little cause, almost all (if not all) HW encoders available use the same Conexant encoder.

FWIW this page pretty much sums up the state of HW encoders:
http://www.htpcnews.com/main.php?id=pvr_card_id_guide

[mcbain]

I cannot get either of those utilities to work.

I can run them, and change values, but as soon as I open them up again they are back to the way they were before I made changes.

it does not look like either of these utilities support multiple cards. is there any other way (maybe manually in the registry) to modify these values?

[stanger89]

You should be able to add them to the properties file:
http://www.freytechnologies.com/2_papers/HPquality.txt

It looks like the pertinent settings would be:
dnrmode=1 (set to Static temporal/Dynamic Spacial)
dnrtemporalfltlevel - 0 to 15 (default 0)

so you'd end up with a line something like (should all be one line):
mmc/python2_encoding/MyDVD\ -\ 2\ hour=videobitrate=4500000|width=720|height=480|audiobitrate=224|vbr=1|peakvideobitrate=6000000|dnrmode=1|dnrtemporalfltlevel=2

[kny3twalker]

I personally would buy a black bird card
they will work with sage when v2 is released and in the future sage has said that the realtime preview will work

[TunaBoo]

Originally posted by kny3twalker
I personally would buy a black bird card
they will work with sage when v2 is released and in the future sage has said that the realtime preview will work

I wouldn't spend cash on something until it works for sure. Call me silly....

[kny3twalker]

I know but thats what I meant
I am still waiting to see if hauppauge can fix the compatibility issue even before that
But thats what I got my eye on
realtime preview will be sweet once these issues are worked out