GeForce FX 5200 --It's Only VCR Quality TV Out?

[FreeBSD4me]

Hmm… Just setup my NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 with TV-Out, and have installed all software for the PVR-250. Have not attempted STV yet, as I’m not sure about the TV Output quality on the FX 5200. I’m running composite in, (from the satellite box, to the PVR-250), and have managed to get video. Despite 3-hours of messing around with it, the video looks like VCR quality –not DVD quality on my TV set.

I’m wading through all of the FX 5200’s settings, but they’re a little confusing. I guess my question is, is this the video quality I should expect from TV-OUT? Someone here highly recommended this card, but maybe I’m expecting too much? The picture is a little dull, and you can see a little noise in the background. Again… Very much like VCR EP mode quality.

I don’t expect an entire lesson on the FX 5200, but could someone point me in the right direction --at least on getting the same quality through the 5200 that I would if I fed the composite directly into the TV itself? I’m feeling the grim reaper of disappointment coming on, and really hoping it’s just something I’m doing wrong here.

Any help would be welcome,

Dave

[stanger89]

You'll never get DVD quality because TV is not that good, you may be expecting a little too much.

First, turn up the recording quality, somewhere 6-8Mbps. Then try setting your desktop to 640x480. Then try this. You may need want to calibrate your capture settings. And finally, you really need to calibrate your display to your HTPC, ie, get something like Digital Video Essential and run through the calibration so your TV is properly set for video playback.

[FreeBSD4me]

Muchly appreciated.

I’ll try those things. As for the recording quality, I didn’t see that anywhere on either card. The PVR-250 has some quality settings, but they read as (DVD Quality) ---good, extended play, and there’s some VCD quality settings, etc. I haven’t see a bit rate setting. Remember, I don’t have STV installed yet. All I’ve been trying thus far is running the satellite signal through the system, and out to the TV. So, most of the settings I’m playing with are the ones on the GeForce 5200. Well.. Off I go to try out your suggestions.

Thanks again,

Dave

[FreeBSD4me]

Well… I’m not making much progress. By the way, my question should have been “achieving TV quality”, and not DVD quality, since all I’m trying to do here is just get the TV quality to look decent. For comparison purposes, I have two identical small TV’s sitting side by side. I split the signal coming from the Satellite box, so TV 1 is receiving the feed from the GeForce 5200, and TV 2 is receiving the raw feed.

Ouch! The video on TV 1 is still pretty grainy, when compared against the TV 2 (the raw feed). It still looks pretty dull looking –even the channel guide looks washed out. I realize I can’t get DVD quality, but shouldn’t TV quality be comparable? I’ve tried most of the suggestions, but it seems to be more than that –something just seems wrong with the whole thing, or it’s something I’m missing.

One weird “good” thing did happen, but only once. I restarted my machine. When I started WinTV, the picture was awesome, but chunking along in slow motion. After about a minute or so, it returned to full motion, but again… With the crappy video quality. It looks like the PVR-250 buffers video (when you’re watching TV), but I can’t find a way to turn it off, which I’d like to for testing purposes. Also, I found the settings for the bit rates, however when I reconfigure them, they don’t hold. If I open up the box again, they’ve reverted back to where they were before.

At any rate, is this normal, or should I at very least be able to get TV quality video when going through the card? This is a bummer, as I drove several hours, and spent a whack of money in gathering up this gear --I hope it's going to look better than this. Sorry for the loooong verbose message.

Dave

[stanger89]

The only way to bypass the buffering (encoding) is via graphedit, see the link I posted above.

Anyway it sounds to me like these are your problems:
Grainy - Too low bitrate - Try DVD Standard Play, or for a new quality, go change the settings and then select "Save New Config" (I think).
Grainy - Could also be improper capture settings
Washed out - Improper capture settings
Washed out - TV not properly calibrated to your Video card

Anyway, the first thing I'd try is calibration like from the post above, that bypasses the encoding so bitrate should be no issue. Then try calibrating your TV to your HTPC.

[FreeBSD4me]

Hey, this just keeps getting more interesting.

I’ve learned of a couple of new things. First of all, I installed my hardware on one of my other systems –an Athalon 2200, with an ATI Pro 9600. Just for fun, I plugged in the S-Video >>> to composite adapter into my ATI 9600, and fired it up. WOW… Crystal clear video. I then tried the GeForce 5200, and found something rather interesting. If you unplug the monitor, and boot up with “only TV-Out” connected, it looks pretty dam good –not quite as good as my ATI 9600, but closer to what it should be, and that’s without even installing the 5200’s adjustment panel, which may allow for some additional adjustments.

Anyway…

Just installed Sage, and GOTCHA! The channels are all coming up as no data. I know about that XML thing for Canada, but shouldn’t it grab the channels from my Starchoice satellite box at least? I’m a little confused –I did select the ‘Serial Connection’, but how do I know this connection is even working or actually doing anything? Will Sage display an error if it can’t establish a communication with the receiver?

It downloaded a whack of channels, ( I obviously messed up here), however all of them are appearing with a green dot beside them. If I click to view any of them, all that’s displayed is CNN, which is the channel the receiver is currently tuned to. Before I install the XML thing, can anyone tell me if this is what it’s supposed to be doing thus far? I tried going back to the channel guide setup again, but I cannot get it to repeat the “complete” setup process again –it just displays all the channels it’s downloaded onto the system, with options to remap them. Very confusing indeed.. I guess the problem is, without error messages or warnings, I now have no way of knowing if I’m headed in the right direction or not. As far as STV is concerned, everything is setup correctly. Sorry for sounding like a dink

Dave

PS I'll get back to the video setup/ calibration later --right now it works fairly well, so I'm going to attempt STV.

[stanger89]

Originally posted by FreeBSD4me
Hey, this just keeps getting more interesting.

I’ve learned of a couple of new things. First of all, I installed my hardware on one of my other systems –an Athalon 2200, with an ATI Pro 9600. Just for fun, I plugged in the S-Video >>> to composite adapter into my ATI 9600, and fired it up. WOW… Crystal clear video. I then tried the GeForce 5200, and found something rather interesting. If you unplug the monitor, and boot up with “only TV-Out” connected, it looks pretty dam good –not quite as good as my ATI 9600, but closer to what it should be, and that’s without even installing the 5200’s adjustment panel, which may allow for some additional adjustments.

I was hoping kny3twalker or mlbude would chime in here seeing as I think they both use the TV out of their FX cards.

Anyway…

Just installed Sage, and GOTCHA! The channels are all coming up as no data. I know about that XML thing for Canada, but shouldn’t it grab the channels from my Starchoice satellite box at least? I’m a little confused –I did select the ‘Serial Connection’, but how do I know this connection is even working or actually doing anything? Will Sage display an error if it can’t establish a communication with the receiver?

No, Sage get's it EPG info from the Sage servers, based on your zip code. For Canada, see here:
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...&threadid=3916

The serial connection is a 1-way connection, Sage sends commands to the box. You'll know it's working if it can change the channels.

It downloaded a whack of channels, ( I obviously messed up here), however all of them are appearing with a green dot beside them.

Green dot means that channel is enabled (you get it).

If I click to view any of them, all that’s displayed is CNN, which is the channel the receiver is currently tuned to. Before I install the XML thing, can anyone tell me if this is what it’s supposed to be doing thus far?

It should be chaning the channel, although probably not to the correct one since you don't have the correct lineup

I don't know if you have yet or not, but look through the Setup/configuration PDF, it gets installed into your SageTV directory. It goes through the source setup where you seem to be getting stuck. Also take a look at the thread I linked, I don't think you need to use XMLTV for Canada.

[FreeBSD4me]

Thanks Stanger89, just completed that. All looks good; all channels are loaded, and the SageTV layout is beyond words. So much better looking, faster, and comprehensive. One small problem though: I can’t change channels. I can view the guide, but when I select a program, it keeps switching to CNN, which is the channel the box is currently tuned to.

As I mentioned in my first posting, I was afraid this was going to happen…. I have 4 different serial cables here, but it’s not so much a question of whether they’ll work –it’s a question of “how do you know when a successful connection has been established” to the satellite receiver? There’s no error, or successful connection messages, so you can keep fiddling to no end I suppose.

In the setup, I did notice that STV is displaying “DirectTV with com 1 selected”, however I never selected DirectTV –does this matter? I hate to ask again, but is there anything else I’m supposed to do in order to get the serial connection to the satellite box to work? I’m not really sure of what it is I’m supposed to do next. Maybe it’s not compatible with Starchoice receivers? It sure looks easy enough, but due to the lack of information, and or necessary hardware supplied (for this feature) with most boxes, I suspect many other will be running into this dead end

[stanger89]

Originally posted by FreeBSD4me
As I mentioned in my first posting, I was afraid this was going to happen…. I have 4 different serial cables here, but it’s not so much a question of whether they’ll work –it’s a question of “how do you know when a successful connection has been established” to the satellite receiver? There’s no error, or successful connection messages, so you can keep fiddling to no end I suppose.

Yeah, like I said, AFIAK it's a 1-way communication so there's no way for Sage to know if it's working, however if it were, you should see channels changing.

You may be right though, your box may not work. If that's the case, then you'll have to go with a USB-UIRT, which will work since it can learn the codes from your sat box remote.

I usually try to recommend serial first, since it's cheaper than a UIRT, faster and more reliable, assuming it works. Before you give up on serial, you might want to do a little searching here, I know there are a few threads on serial, including ways to control a box Sage doesn't natively support (look for exetunerplug).

[FreeBSD4me]

Thanks man, I’ll look into that one. As it so happens, I have a UIRT on order, which should ship on the 24th. Bummer though, as the UIRT is really slow from what I can see here. I thought I’d use it with my other remotes, but it looks like it may be controlling the receiver now as well.

Once again, all your help is appreciated,

Dave

[kny3twalker]

Well I love the Picture Quality from my 5200 using svideo
I use VMR9 using nvDVD 3.0 beta video decoder with default wave out audio rendering and sonic audio decoder

the picture quality is a tiny bit sharper with overlay
but the skip foward and backward are perfect using VMR9
with overlay I get a little stutter when the video first starts to play again

I fine that the nvDVD video decoder is really the best option
for the colors actually come out looking right

every other decoder washes the color out too much

I know it can make the colors on a HDTV look fake but looks great on a SDTV

I was getting a lot of stuttering during the initial setup using VMR9
then I changed the audio render to default wave out (and it stopped)

and since nvDVD's audio decoder crashes SageTV
I use sonic audio decoder
for it behaves well with nvDVD video decoder

I hope this is what you wanted stanger?

[stanger89]

I'm not sure what I wanted, I just knew you were using a 5200 in about the same way FreeB was.

[FreeBSD4me]

I think he wanted you to give me some insight on the 5200, which I appreciate. As I mentioned above, (for experimental purposes), I installed everything on my Athalon 2200, which has an ATI 9600 Pro installed in it. Upon firing it up, the video was awesome, so I’ve pretty much continued on my STV learning expedition on this machine.

I’m going to get back to the 5200 at some point soon. I’m going to try your above configuration and see if that solves the issues. Ha… That was pretty dumb, huh? My 9600 pro had S-Video out all along, and I totally forgot about it. That’s what happens when you have too many machines running I suppose. No problem… I can use the 5200 on a STV client, and run the AMD as a server, since it has considerably more resources. The Dell 850 should make for a good client machine.

Thanks again to you both,

Dave

[FreeBSD4me]

Hoping kny3twalker, or someone else wouldn’t mind going through this post. I know it’s a little verbose, but that’s the nature of attempting to accurately describe PVR problems I suppose.

Ok, I’ve got to a point where I can now make another attempt to setup the 5200 correctly. I’ve set everything up to the best possible quality and have tweaked the 5200 settings to no end. I even set the video quality to 3.5 Mbps for testing purpose, just to make sure. I’ve setup the SageTV color settings, etc, etc, etc. I’ve invested hours into this, but still… The quality is more like VCR EP (maybe SP) quality, but not anywhere near the original satellite feed.

How am I comparing?

Using an A/B switch, I have SageTV on A: channel, and Raw Video on B: channel. No matter what, when I switch to SageTV, the video looks dull. For example, on CNN last night, the guest had these glasses on. You can see the studio lighting shimmering from his frames, and the text on the screen is a crisp vibrant white. Switch from the raw video feed to SageTV, and his you no longer see the lights reflecting from his frames. The vibrant white text on the screen is now a very dull looking white text. Blues, reds, and greens are all dull –looks like I went from 32 millions colors, to 16-colors. Actually, it looks like someone dropped attenuation, or filtered out all dynamic range from my satellite feed.

Motion/ FPS from SageTV/ PVR 250 is disorienting me:

How can I explain this. Hmm… It’s really weird. When I’m watching video from SageTV, it doesn’t look like 30 FPS –it looks like someone trying to ‘simulate’ 30-fps to somehow trick my eye. I can’t put my finger on it, but it doesn’t look like live video. Again, if I setup a test TV with raw video, and SageTV (side by side), the motion from Raw Video is natural, but on STV, it looks like it’s been altered from it’s original state somehow, and quite significantly at times. I know.. I must sound like I’m on an acid trip, but it’s just hard to articulate in meaningful terms. I guess the video just looks heavily compressed, thus altering more of its original attributes. Actually, it looks similar to what it would in DVD Shrink if you started nearing “maximum” shrink setting.

Here are my obvious questions:

- Shouldn’t Raw Video and STV (side by side) look identical, or is this much loss to be expected?

- Without getting into advanced video calibration, (something I’m not quite ready for yet, as I fear it would just further confuse things at this point), what are the most likely causes of this? I’m thinking the Video Decoder is likely at the heart of these issues. I’m using the default PVR-250 Intervideo, or whatever it’s called.

- Assuming the decoder is most of the problem here, how easy is it to add new ones? If I install the elecard decoder for example, will it simply show up in the STV options menu, or is it more involved than that? Yes.. I know it’s probably be discussed, so just post a link to the instructions if takes too long to explain. I’d like to give kny3tealker’s nvDVD video decoder a try, but I don’t know where to download it, how to install it.

I really like STV and want to purchase it, but my trial is running out, and I’m still not able to achieve decent quality video. Hey… I’m not asking for “flawless video” –that will come at a later time. Right now, I’d be happy if I could achieve comparable quality to the Raw Feed.


Again… Very sorry for the long drawn out message, but there’s no point in wasting someone’s time with ambiguities, or poor descriptions of what I’m seeing here. Hopefully, someone can point me in the right basic direction here. Again, I will do the video calibration test at some time, but I’m not confident that this is at the root of the present problems.

An extended thanks once again to everyone,

Dave H

PS... Looks like someone upgraded the forum to the latest version of VB --very nice

[mlbdude]

Hvae not read the entire post, but have you at least enabled DXVA in the Intervideo decoder you are using? Also, make sure you are using Overlay with that decoder. VMR will wash it out.

Since you ARE compressing the video it will never look 100% what it was. However noise reduction and AA may be going on as well with could make it look even better to some.

[salsbst]

I'm not convinced that playback is the problem here... in my experience, 90% of image quality loss is happening in the 250 prior to calibrating it. It really doesn't make sense to worry about the TV-out until you've gotten the 250's capture settings to reasonable levels.

[FreeBSD4me]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

Hvae not read the entire post, but have you at least enabled DXVA in the Intervideo decoder you are using? Also, make sure you are using Overlay with that decoder. VMR will wash it out.

Since you ARE compressing the video it will never look 100% what it was. However noise reduction and AA may be going on as well with could make it look even better to some.

Not sure what you mean. There are two settings:

- DXVA Mpeg mode with settings from A to D

- DXVA Deinterlacing with Bob and Weave

I can access the Intervideo decoder, but it only offers default and the installed PVR-250 decoder. Could you tell me which one you mean?

Video rendering is set to DirectX9 video mixing renderer.

Dave

Thanks,
Dave

[mlbdude]

Originally Posted by FreeBSD4me

Not sure what you mean. There are two settings:

- DXVA Mpeg mode with settings from A to D

- DXVA Deinterlacing with Bob and Weave

I can access the Intervideo decoder, but it only offers default and the installed PVR-250 decoder. Could you tell me which one you mean?

Video rendering is set to DirectX9 video mixing renderer.

Dave

Thanks,
Dave

DXVA settings in Sage should be kept at Default. DXVA is actually enabled in the docoder itself. For the Intervide decoder you do it in the registry.

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...=&threadid=284

For Renderer keep in mind that VMR9 (especially with that decoder) is going to wash out the colors and make everything look smoother.

I would recommend applying the above registry settings (while Sage is shut down completely) and trying the Overlay Renderer.

[FreeBSD4me]

Originally Posted by salsbst

I'm not convinced that playback is the problem here... in my experience, 90% of image quality loss is happening in the 250 prior to calibrating it. It really doesn't make sense to worry about the TV-out until you've gotten the 250's capture settings to reasonable levels.

Fair enough, but from all the reading I’ve done on the calibration test discussion, a number of people ended up temporarily messing up their entire configuration. I’m not saying I’m necessarily afraid of that, but at this point, I’m already bewildered at the amount of settings and work it will take to just get the basic system working correctly.

I’m not confident I’m even as far as achieving the most rudimentary configuration settings as of yet. If I attempt the calibration test and alterations at this point, I may very well plunge myself into a sea of utter disorientation, and beyond no return. That’s what’s holding me off a bit. I’ll yell ya, I’ve configured numerous Unix machines, and hacked my way through most of the Unix world, but THIS… This is beginning, or possibly could supercede my most difficult hurdles in the Unix realm

[FreeBSD4me]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

DXVA settings in Sage should be kept at Default. DXVA is actually enabled in the docoder itself. For the Intervide decoder you do it in the registry.

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...=&threadid=284

For Renderer keep in mind that VMR9 (especially with that decoder) is going to wash out the colors and make everything look smoother.

I would recommend applying the above registry settings (while Sage is shut down completely) and trying the Overlay Renderer.

We'll do. I'll give that a shot and let you know what happens.

Many thanks,

Dave