Questions regarding quality of PVR150

[ksm2552]

I recently purchased a Hauppauge PVR150 Card and I've been having some issues regarding the recording quality. I've had a DirecTV Tivo unit for the past couple of years and it looks great, picture is sharp. Now when I use the SageTV and this PVR150, the picture looks ok, but the details are just kinda blurry. This is annoying the heck out of me. Any ideas??

System:
AMD XP2400
Asus A7N8X-X
Geforce2 MX400
WD 80GB Hard Drive
256MB DDR
Windows XP Pro
Hauppauge PVR150

[zz5]

The DirecTV Tivo is capturing the digital signal so the quality is just as good as the live signal. The PVR-150 has to compress the video so it won't look quite as good.

[mdmint]

What recording quality are you using? What output to TV method? Have you tried different decoders? (can make a big difference) VMR9 or Overlay? With my setup recording at Std DVD Q component output picture is as good and sometimes I think better with less artifacting than Comcast Digital Cable direct to TV. (Some of their On Demand stuff doesn't appear recorded high enough quality IMO)

I have a friend who currently has DirectTV Tivo setup, he's impressed by my Sage setup results and waiting for his comittment to expire then building his own Sage system.

[kny3twalker]

yeah if SageTV's playback was rock solid, I could easily say that its recordings look as good being outputted over DVI as the DirecTV box does outputting over svideo directly to my TV

how are you outputting to the TV from the PC?

[g808]

Also, have you tried calibrating your PVR150? You can adjust the sharpness, color, saturation, hue, etc.

I think you can find it here:
Settings > Setup Wizard > select the PVR150 > Color Calibration

You also may want to upgrade your video card to at least a nVidia 5200 for an SDTV or a ATI 9600/nVidia 6xxx or better for a HDTV.

[laurenglenn]

Originally Posted by g808

Also, have you tried calibrating your PVR150? You can adjust the sharpness, color, saturation, hue, etc.

I think you can find it here:
Settings > Setup Wizard > select the PVR150 > Color Calibration

You also may want to upgrade your video card to at least a nVidia 5200 for an SDTV or a ATI 9600/nVidia 6xxx or better for a HDTV.

Actually, someone at Hauppauge added motion blur to the drivers and forgot to give people a way of turning it off.....

http://www.cask-of-amontillado.com/pvr_tweak.html

This program will allow you to reduce motion blur to zero! It works great.

Also, the forums at www.shspvr.com have newer drivers which may help too....

Lauren