Just in case- Alternatives to SageTV

[stanger89]

Probably 90% of broadcast HD is interlaced (1080i). That and quite a lot of my collection is on DVD and unlikely to be released on Blu-ray ever (a lot is TV that wasn't shot on film).

[Rob]

I wish I really understood what you guys are talking about....

Is the interlacing the reason why when I watch a ripped DVD Bones episode using a client (i5 sandybridge with HD3000 graphics, Microsoft DTV decoder and with or without recock) that the picture is not as settled as it is when I use an extender to watch the same material?

I have enough extenders for now, but since I have several client licenses that are not being used, I am tying to prove that there is life, for me, after extenders with SageTV.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Probably 90% of broadcast HD is interlaced (1080i). That and quite a lot of my collection is on DVD and unlikely to be released on Blu-ray ever (a lot is TV that wasn't shot on film).

Most DVDs are noninterlaced. The interlacing was done on the player to telecine it to NTSC standards. There is nothing your fancy processor does to this other than scaling.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Rob

Is the interlacing the reason why when I watch a ripped DVD Bones episode using a client (i5 sandybridge with HD3000 graphics, Microsoft DTV decoder and with or without recock) that the picture is not as settled as it is when I use an extender to watch the same material?

It's possible, though there could be other reasons as well, depends on what you mean by "unsettled".

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Most DVDs are noninterlaced. The interlacing was done on the player to telecine it to NTSC standards.

Actually no, it's not, DVDs do not support progressive coding, everything on DVD is stored as 480i60 with telecine. In order to get progressive video (480p24) off a DVD, the player, or a later video processor must perform Inverse Telecine to remove it. This is why deinterlacing and upconverting players, why the Realta HQV an other high end processors are/were such a big deal. Depending on how (well) the DVD was made, this process can be easy or very difficult (or impossible).

In the easy case (most Hollywood movies, which are generally available on Blu-ray anyway) the DVDs are created with correct flags and nice cadence and it's easy for a flag-reading IVTC system (like in the extenders) to recover the original 24p video.

In the harder cases, the flags are not present, or worse wrong, and easilly trip up basic IVTC algorithms, so you need more advanced algorithms.

And then there's the case of mixed film/video content and content with bad edits and other issues that need a combination of IVTC and motion-adaptive deinterlacing to be handled without interlace artfiacts.

DVD was a relative disaster when it came to deinterlacing. Fortunately Blu-ray supports direct progressive storage and playback and doesn't require the IVTC madness of DVD.

There is nothing your fancy processor does to this other than scaling.

Quite a lot (maybe most) of the content I have on DVD that hasn't been replaced by BD falls into the latter two categories, so actually yes, it does.

[Rob]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It's possible, though there could be other reasons as well, depends on what you mean by "unsettled".

A little jerky sometimes. Especially when panning is involved, where people in the picture will kind of jump several times as the pan happens. I do not know the difference between jitter, judder and stutter, so I am not sure which best describes it.

Blu Rays play awsome.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Rob

I wish I really understood what you guys are talking about....

Is the interlacing the reason why when I watch a ripped DVD Bones episode using a client (i5 sandybridge with HD3000 graphics, Microsoft DTV decoder and with or without recock) that the picture is not as settled as it is when I use an extender to watch the same material?

Isn't the main issue with interlacing the comb effect like in this example:

I see this on some imported videos and, very occasionally, on TV recordings.

[stanger89]

That's probably the most obvious one, you can also sometimes get a "shimmering" effect, especially on lines, where they sort of shimmer or jump up and down, depending on the algorithm.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by stanger89

That's probably the most obvious one, you can also sometimes get a "shimmering" effect, especially on lines, where they sort of shimmer or jump up and down, depending on the algorithm.

That's the one that drives me nuts. I have an interlaced display so I haven't been able to watch a decent picture in quite a while. I'm getting a PJ this month or the next so I'll finally be able to enjoy a decent picture again.

[Rob]

Maybe it's two things for me. Jerky pans and shimmering when it is not panning. I'm watching on a 1080P pany plasma, so does that mean the shimmering happens during the conversion from interlaced material to a progressive display. If so, Panteragsk's comment about having trouble on an interlaced display is confusing me (I know, it's not hard to confuse me )

I wish someone had a "best practice" settings for a current architecture client relative to software/decoder setup for sage, but maybe there are too many variables.

[emveepee]

Originally Posted by stanger89

That's probably the most obvious one, you can also sometimes get a "shimmering" effect, especially on lines, where they sort of shimmer or jump up and down, depending on the algorithm.

Does your device handle the blue shimmering door 1:10 into this sample http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PLUX2BN7 This is a BBC 1080i/p transmission which I am having a nightmare of a time dealing with on extenders and on the PC.

Martin

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by emveepee

Does your device handle the blue shimmering door 1:10 into this sample http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PLUX2BN7 This is a BBC 1080i/p transmission which I am having a nightmare of a time dealing with on extenders and on the PC.

Wierd... I downloaded your clip and I see the same issue on my extenders and desktop client. Can't say I've ever noticed anything like that before but I'll be keeping an eye out for it in the future not that I'd know how to fix it.

[amt]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Like a Genum VXP video processor

I have that in my Radiance XD, and honestly for TV viewing, I do not miss it. The nvidia does a good enough job for me, and I am watching on a 120" screen.

[amt]

I am however, not sure if the nvidia chipsets can do inverse telecine de-interlacing, and that is useful for DVD's as has been stated.

1080i broadcasts are another story: Back when I used to send interlaced 1080i to my video processor in order to inverse telecine to 24p (for some prime time shows that are actually shot 24p), it always becomes a little problematic because the edits in the show and the commercial breaks tend to screw up the 3:2 cadence and the video processor can get confused.

FWIW, I would rather have a client which does not molest the signal at all. I am hoping something can be done with the Patriot Box Office for MythTV; I just have not gotten my hands on one yet. But for now, I live with any inconveniences I have with no interlaced signal, as they are minor, IMO.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by amt

I have that in my Radiance XD, and honestly for TV viewing, I do not miss it. The nvidia does a good enough job for me, and I am watching on a 120" screen.

It depends greatly on what you watch. For example film Blu-rays don't need any deinterlacing, most big movie Hollywood movie DVDs are "easy" and don't need much help either.

But if you break out of that into TV based stuff, especially animation, well, that's a different story.

Originally Posted by amt

I am however, not sure if the nvidia chipsets can do inverse telecine de-interlacing, and that is useful for DVD's as has been stated.

They can, the quality is perhaps debateable.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by emveepee

Does your device handle the blue shimmering door 1:10 into this sample http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PLUX2BN7 This is a BBC 1080i/p transmission which I am having a nightmare of a time dealing with on extenders and on the PC.

Martin

I don't know what that issue is, yes I see it, but it's a lot more subtle than on my PC (tried it there with LAVCUVID+madVR). To me that doesn't look like a deinterlacing issue, looks more likely like some weird encoding problem, maybe some really bad dithering or something.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I thought they all did, I thought it was just that the high end ones were the only ones that could actually play a disc (as opposed to just a rip).

The new Dune HD TV-101 doesn't seem to support blu ray rips. That's unfortunate, because its low price looked pretty attractive. I'm trying to figure out if the Dune HD Lite 53D model supports blu ray rips. Forum posts are mixed, not that it really matters since it doesn't look like its still for sale anyways.

The Dune Smart series (and presumably the uber-expensive Duo and Max series) seem to be the only safe choices. The Dune HD Smart D1 isn't priced too bad- about $250- but that's still more than I'd like to spend for something that lacks online video streaming support. It's certainly something worth considering.

After spending a bunch of time on WD websites, it sounds like the new WD TV Live models don't support blu-ray folder rips, although some people have pretty good luck with ISO rips.

I'll be curious to see what happens with Boxee, but I don't have a lot of confidence in them. Considering they really only have some support device, its really disappointing how buggy the Boxee Box still is. BDMV streaming still doesn't work for some/most people, and there are just a lot of other problems people seem to be having. Maybe that's just based on the people in the forum, but honestly even the people defending Boxee in their forums are usually pointing people to workarounds. I assume Boxee will be coming out with a new version of the Boxee Box soon, given Intel is no longer marketing the Atom platform for media devices like Boxee/GoogleTV. While that will give them a chance to start fresh, I suspect it will just cause a new round of problems (before the problems with the Box v1 are even resolved). Too bad though, since I think Boxee has a lot of promise.

[emveepee]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I don't know what that issue is, yes I see it, but it's a lot more subtle than on my PC (tried it there with LAVCUVID+madVR). To me that doesn't look like a deinterlacing issue, looks more likely like some weird encoding problem, maybe some really bad dithering or something.

Thanks for checking, I don't what it is either but this was the first sample I found that apparently has 1080i and 1080p in the same stream and I thought that this was what was causing problems decoding the file and if anything can play it correctly. It could be garbage in garbage out, but the fact is some things do show it better than others.

Martin

[eqwalker]

@Stanger89,
Fully agree with you comments on SageTV being the "package" deal. I had searched for a long time for an all-in-one solution to my distribution needs in my home that would take care of all media, be it pictures, music, video/movies, and recorded TV as well as live TV. I did not want a pc at each TV and I wanted everything to be stored on one machine. I happened across SageTV and decided that was it. I actually purchased a WHS w/20 terabytes of storage (since I seen that SageTV had a WHS plug-in) and three HD300 extenders along with HDHomerun tuners, luckily before SageTV was purchased by Google. Now I have exactly what I was looking for in a single package. The HD300's can present to me all of the media I have from one box and at any TV in the house with just one server box running that records all my shows as well. Also important is that the extenders be able to provide the audio in DD or DTS off of my DVD's, BR rips, and TV since the audio is fed into a surround sound system. The HD300's do that as well. I have a feeling it will be some time before anything comes close to offering what I already have in the setup like I have.

[stanger89]

I see Dish announced a whole-house solution at CES, though seemingly smaller-scale than DirecTV's HR34. I'm a bit unclear on what exactly it can do, they mention "6" shows at once, two satellite and another four "local" but they don't specify if that's local from Dish or OTA. Seems to do something fancy with primetime locals, recording all four main networks at the same time.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/09/d...-top-box-laun/

[amt]

Looks like it's going to get even more interesting regarding alternatives:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/09/u...-debut-at-ces/

The interface looks really nice. Hopefully they maintain a client/server architecture. My hope is this has all the power of MythTV (and I guess Sage) with great simplicity. And it's all open source