I have a PVR-150 non-mce. I'm using the S-Video input on it.
I have a Geforce 4MX 440. I'm using the S-Video output on it.

When I play DVD on my Mythtv box, it looks fantastic on the tv.

When I try to watch LiveTV, it looks absolutely terrible.

I have the bitrates for MPEG2 recording and transcoding set to 8000 with 16000 Max.

Capture resolution set to 720x480.

I'm using the 'Bob' deinterlacing filter thingy

I'm using the XF86Config-4.nvidia-tvout.sample. Should I change anything in there?

I've changed my set_ivtv_params to read:
#!/bin/bash
/usr/local/bin/ivtvctl -d /dev/video0 -u 0 -f width=720,height=480 -p 6

I'm using the NVidia drivers you get with the 'install-nvidia-6629-debian.sh' command


I'm using IVTV version 0.3.7d.

The picture quality is still just bad

Is there anything else I can do to get better picture quality? I'm really out of ideas here.

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

Have you tuned up your display with the nvidia-settings utility and added the appropriate magic to /home/mythtv/.fluxbox/apps so that your saved settings get loaded?

BTW - If you're using xine to play DVDs it applies it's own settings to the display...

Have you double checked if that version of the 3.x ivtv drivers has a reputation for good quality, or if there is a newer and better one? Have you checked that you have the recommended versions of the firmware?

Have you checked your S-Video cables and the quality of the signal you're getting over them?

What tjc said, plus:

* what's your video source? You say you're using the S-video input of the PVR-150? What are you feeding it with? Cable box? Sat box? Other?

* 8000 average bitrate and 16000 max bitrate is massive overkill, and is way over the limit of 9800 for a DVD.

* Define "absolutely terrible." Color? Snow? Contrast? Noise? Detail? Other?

* Have you tried the "denoise3d" filter?

Thanks for the replies so far.

By terrible picture, I mean it's blurry and in some low contrast areas, i see blockiness (artifacts)

I'm feeding the PVR-150 with either my satalite box or my DVD player (both have S-Video output)

I'm using the firmware from ftp://ftp.shspvr.com/download/wintv-pvr ... .22037.exe which is the one that i've seen recomended everywhere.

All my S-Video cables seem to be of good quality

I will check the reputation of the ivtv drivers and look into the denoise3d filter. I'll also try playing more with nvidia-settings. Thanks for the recomendations!

Well, I tried out the denoise3d filter. It actually made it worse. The video was a tad jumpy and there was alot of motion blur.

I looked at the gossamer thread mailing list for ivtv and didn't see anyone having problems with the 0.3.7d drivers. What driver version do you guys use?

All I'm able to do with the nvidia settings is change the color settings, which doesn't really help with the problems i'm having

If i had to give an analogy of how it looks on my TV, I'd say it looks like a downloaded episode of futurama that was encoded with too low a bitrate.

A lot of times people say they're seeing "motion blur" when in fact they're seeing interlacing artifacts. You still have bob deinterlacing set? That will give you the best results as far as deinterlacing goes. Not sure why you're seeing more blur with denoise3d running; I definitely prefer the look but I'm not using s-video out from my computer.

First, definitely lower your recording settings: I'd say there's no need to go over 7000 average, 8500 max, and quite frankly I usually use 4000 average 6000 max (so I can get 2 hrs of recordings on a single-sided DVD-R). You're adjusting recording profiles, correct? Just double-checking.

You haven't set things to automatically transcode, have you? Actually, guess that wouldn't apply for LiveTV anyway.

Don't forget that when you're using it with a satellite box, you're MPEG2-compressing an MPEG2-compressed image. So you'll be adding artifacts TO the artifacts that the image from the satellite box adds. You should see some in some areas, but not so much that it's "terrible."

I don't think the nvidia-settings utility will let you adjust anything other than color with the 6629 drivers; you'll have to install the 7xxx drivers to get its flicker filter going.

I have the recording settings lowered to about what you suggested.

I'm not set to automatically transcode

I can change the flicker settings with the nvidia-settings. I haven't heard anything about nvidia drivers besides the latest ones that came out and people seem to be having problems with those. Is there a different driver version i can try? I'm really willing to try anything

So it looks like the only way to get a good quality S-Video output from my computer is to buy a PVR-350?

I have good quality s video output but I had to play a bit. In your xfree file try to change output to svideo or try composite and see if that helps.

If you own a PVR-150 you should not use the driver mentioned in this topic. Read http://ivtv.writeme.ch/tiki-index.php?page=PVR150-500Firmware and you will see you just need two files from the original driver. This is the driver any windhoos user uses to get their MCE to work.

Greetz,

Weepee

I've upgraded to the 7174 nvidia drivers and ivtv 3.8

I also added the line "alias char-major-81-0 ivtv" to my /etc/mythtv/modules/ivtv file (it seemed to help, but i might just be crazy)

I beleive that the picture is now as good as it will get. It's fairly close to what it is when i plug the cable box directly into the TV.

Thank you for the help everyone.