Video Quality

[gilded07]

I just added an AMD Radeon HD 5450 to my SageTV Client but I don't believe I have the settings in the AMD Catalyst Control Center set correctly, or optimally.

90% of what I watch is SD programming from the NTSC tuners, HD local programming from the HDHR3 tuners; and ripped DVDs in mkv or mp4 using handbrake.

I don't know the correct adjectives to describe what I'm seeing but dropped frames or slow motion from time to time and also occasional jagged edges. The jagged edges makes me think of a deinterlacing problem but don't all LCD TVs made today do the D-I themselves? This TV is a JVC LED/LCD 48" made in 2014.

in SageTV I have these settings:

• Video Renderer - EVR
• MPEG2 decoder - SageTV MPEG video decoder (should this be MS DTV DVD?)
• Yes on DXVA
• H.264 decoder - MS DTV-DVD
• VC-1 decoder - WMVideo Decoder DMO
• Non MPEG decoder - SageTV Player
• Deinterlacing - Blended Clipping (?don't know why)

In Catalyst Control center I have these:

• Edge Enhancement - box checked (slider 50 out of 100 on bar)
• De-noise - box checked (slider 50 out of 100 on bar)
• Enable Dynamic Contrast - box checked
• Deinterlacing 'use automatic setting' - box unchecked. Marker on sliding bar for Vector Adaptive all the way to the right.
• Pull Down Detection - box checked

Any suggestions for these settings to make video quality better? install a different renderer?

[trk2]

Disclaimer - While I consider myself knowledgeable in general about audio/video questions, I only use extenders so I have limited practical knowledge to answer your question.

That being said, most of the Catalyst Control Center "features" sound awful to me. I would uncheck all of them except maybe pull down detection (I would test if my TV handled it first). Edge enhancement could be causing the issues you describe because the results look terrible to me. Denoise has been known to wash out details and Dynamic Contrast crushes blacks and blows out whites.

[KryptoNyte]

As I recall, it was the edge enhancement that created a jittery Sage playback for me.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by gilded07

I just added an AMD Radeon HD 5450 to my SageTV Client but I don't believe I have the settings in the AMD Catalyst Control Center set correctly, or optimally.

90% of what I watch is SD programming from the NTSC tuners, HD local programming from the HDHR3 tuners; and ripped DVDs in mkv or mp4 using handbrake.

I don't know the correct adjectives to describe what I'm seeing but dropped frames or slow motion from time to time and also occasional jagged edges. The jagged edges makes me think of a deinterlacing problem but don't all LCD TVs made today do the D-I themselves? This TV is a JVC LED/LCD 48" made in 2014.

They do, but only if they are fed an interlaced signal. If you have SageTV (or more accurately your PC) set to 1080p60, then the PC is doing all the deinterlacing, and as far as your TV is concerned, it's getting a progressive signal.

in SageTV I have these settings:

• Video Renderer - EVR
• MPEG2 decoder - SageTV MPEG video decoder (should this be MS DTV DVD?)
• Yes on DXVA
• H.264 decoder - MS DTV-DVD
• VC-1 decoder - WMVideo Decoder DMO
• Non MPEG decoder - SageTV Player
• Deinterlacing - Blended Clipping (?don't know why)

I would try MS DTV for MPEG2 as well, and change Non-MPEG decoder to DirectShow (hopefully I've got the terms close enough, I gave up on PC playback long ago).

In Catalyst Control center I have these:

• Edge Enhancement - box checked (slider 50 out of 100 on bar)
• De-noise - box checked (slider 50 out of 100 on bar)
• Enable Dynamic Contrast - box checked
• Deinterlacing 'use automatic setting' - box unchecked. Marker on sliding bar for Vector Adaptive all the way to the right.
• Pull Down Detection - box checked

Any suggestions for these settings to make video quality better? install a different renderer?

I think that part is OK, but for best quality you probably want Edge Enhancement and De-noise disabled (or turned down) and definitely Dynamic Contrast disabled. Though that shouldn't affect the issues you're seeing.

[gilded07]

I saw some improvement by changing the mpeg2 decoder from sagetv to MS.

I ripped a dvd using makemkv and then used handbrake to compress it. I tried to watch it with my client and although it was watchable, the apparent occasional slomo (not sure how to define the image problem) & stutter, I ended up switching over to the hd300 and of course, playback was perfect.

This got me wondering, would I get better pq with a different renderer like madvr or haali?

[cncb]

Were you ever able to resolve this? I get the same behavior on a new W7 install with an A4 APU and 1080i MPEG2 recordings. The MS decoders are the only ones that give me smooth playback but only for a while and then it gets all smeared/slo-mo-like for no apparent reason. Playback in WMC on the same PC is perfect. It almost seems like deinterlacing suddenly goes awry in Sage but there are no settings for this when using the MS decoders.

[Fuzzy]

for something as simple to decode as MPEG2, I stick to ffdshow, where I can fully control the deinterlacing and scaling involved. On that A4, you have plenty of CPU power to deal with the decoding, deinterlacing, and any other processing you would like to take care of.

[Eternal]

you can try installing the lav video decoder
it has the best hardware decoding support that ive found so far

[cncb]

I did try the LAV video decoder with different deinterlacing settings as well as the MS decoders, but I can't get consistent quality playback. This is an A4-5000 APU which is very low-power (1.5 GHz, quad-core), but WMC gives me flawless playback so I know it's possible.

[stanger89]

You using EVR as the renderer? And Fullscreen Exclusive mode?

[cncb]

Yes to both.