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PVR-150 Poor Quality w/ link to screenshot
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Author:  b1gmoose [ Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:14 am ]
Post subject:  PVR-150 Poor Quality w/ link to screenshot
Greetings,

I have a Dell Optiplex GX-1 with a slocket adapter for a 1.4 Ghz Celeron
512mb ram, PCI GeForce MX420 w/ 64mb ram, monster s-video cable to my 27" geneirc TV, and a PVR150.

The live TV looks very pixelated. Like when you take a 200K web recording and enlarge it for a 17" monitor. Not clear at all.

I have a new s-video cable. When I did the install, I did it all with the box hooked up to the TV and not a monitor.

I checked the coaxial cable & replaced it with a different one. I even went straight to the wall jack with it. Still no difference. I set it to record a couple of shows last night. Both 1 hr shows, on high quality are about 2 gigs. For 2 gigs, I'd expect better quality, but they look identical to liveTV.

What do I need to do to correct this? I'm not new to linux, but I'm very very new to setting x-window settings, and have no idea what deinterlace, bob, weave, etc all do.

I also need to figure out how to get my remote working. I have the PVR-150 with the transmitter & receiver, and a silver remote. Which remote option? 16, and then d in the remote menu? I'll keep looking in the archives for that one.

TIA,

~ryan

*edit*
Including a screenshot of a program I recorded this afternoon. Downloaded it to my pc, played, and did a print screen to pbrush.

Image

Any ideas on how to fix this?

The cable tv is basic cable tv. The company is www.trans-video.net. I'm lucky to have cablemodem in this town.

Thanks,

~ryan

*edit*
This was recorded on high quality in the recording profiles.

~ryan
Author:  mschlott [ Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:42 am ]
Post subject: 
Picture quality.
I fought picture quality for a long time on my system, thinking it was a display issue. After installing a HD card, it is obvious, that the problem is on the capture side of my PVR-150, not on the display side. HD looks great!

I have a friend who bought a PVR-150 the same day I did. He is not using the tuner, but has an input connected to his DirecTV reciever. He is completely happy with the picture. The problem could be with the tuner in the 150, or the driver. My recordings from the 150 come in almost black and white. I used to crank up the color settings just to get the look marginal. I have not had time to look at this since installing the HD card, but I will get back to it.

Remote.
If you are using the PRV-150 non-MCE version with the integrated IR, you will want option 16 and C. Open your battery cover and you should see a part number like HPG-4??. This should match what you see after select 16.

I had a lot of problems getting my remote to work, untill I found that the my PCI cage was keeping the IR connector from snapping into the card all the way. Make sure the notch in the cable connector is lined up so that it clears the card cage. This is a crappy design if you ask me. I could never get it to work reliably when installed in a dell machine with thicker metal.

mike
Author:  EvilTwin [ Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:13 am ]
Post subject: 
A rat tail file or a dremel tool can fix that pretty quickly... ;-)
Author:  datobin1 [ Wed Mar 22, 2006 2:32 pm ]
Post subject: 
You should also set you display to 640X480 in your XF86Config-4.

Try bob for your deinterlacer.

Then check your recourding profiles in mythtv. You can locate them through the mythtv frontend as follows(or close not in front of a box at the moment) mythtv/setup/TVSettings/Recourding Profiles.

From there you can choose what resolution/bitrates to record at and setup new profiles.

Note that the Live TV profile is used when watching live TV.
Author:  cameraready [ Thu Mar 23, 2006 6:50 am ]
Post subject: 
To add to datobin1's post, it looks like your recording profiles are set to the defaults. On my PVR150, I use 720x480 at 8000 bps for my High Quality recording profile and I get files around 4GB per hour. I have my LiveTV set even higher, but I don't record with that profile.

Once you get your recording profiles set, you should see an improved picture quality. You will also need to check your transcoding profiles and make sure those are set in case you decided to transcode the shows. I forgot to set those once and couldn't figure out why the recordings looked so bad. The shows were being recorded at a good quality, but being transcoded to a lower quality since I hadn't set the transcode profiles.
Author:  b1gmoose [ Thu Mar 23, 2006 7:38 am ]
Post subject: 
cameraready wrote:
To add to datobin1's post, it looks like your recording profiles are set to the defaults. On my PVR150, I use 720x480 at 8000 bps for my High Quality recording profile and I get files around 4GB per hour. I have my LiveTV set even higher, but I don't record with that profile.

Once you get your recording profiles set, you should see an improved picture quality. You will also need to check your transcoding profiles and make sure those are set in case you decided to transcode the shows. I forgot to set those once and couldn't figure out why the recordings looked so bad. The shows were being recorded at a good quality, but being transcoded to a lower quality since I hadn't set the transcode profiles.


Where do I go to edit these? I have tried a couple of times. Just want to make sure I go to the correct menu/file via ssh for it.

Thanks,

~ryan
Author:  b1gmoose [ Thu Mar 23, 2006 7:45 am ]
Post subject: 
b1gmoose wrote:
cameraready wrote:
To add to datobin1's post, it looks like your recording profiles are set to the defaults. On my PVR150, I use 720x480 at 8000 bps for my High Quality recording profile and I get files around 4GB per hour. I have my LiveTV set even higher, but I don't record with that profile.

Once you get your recording profiles set, you should see an improved picture quality. You will also need to check your transcoding profiles and make sure those are set in case you decided to transcode the shows. I forgot to set those once and couldn't figure out why the recordings looked so bad. The shows were being recorded at a good quality, but being transcoded to a lower quality since I hadn't set the transcode profiles.


Where do I go to edit these? I have tried a couple of times. Just want to make sure I go to the correct menu/file via ssh for it.

Thanks,

~ryan


*/edit, just had to read what datobin1 wrote.
Thanks
edit/*
Author:  mschlott [ Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:58 pm ]
Post subject: 
This has been realy frustrating me since I determined that my video quality had nothing to to with my video settings.

I have read on other forums and email lists where poor color and grainy picture seems to be a fairly wide spread problem with the PVR-150. Some have pointed out that different versions of ivtv produce different results when it comes to color.

I'm planning on experimenting with this soon. For now I have given the PVR-150 to a friend to play with. It may just be me, but I think my color from the PVR-150 was better when I was running R5A30.2. The picture was still not as good as it looked under windows, but it was better.

You didn't say what version of knoppmyth you are running. You might try some different versions of ivtv if you can't get your picture the way you like it.

mike
Author:  b1gmoose [ Thu Aug 30, 2007 3:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Update at long last
So I finally have remembered this posting and decided to give you guys an update. I don't have a screen shot this time, but it is not needed.

The poor picture quality was a result of the building I was in. I live in an apartment building that is rather old and has crappy RG58 coaxial cable.

I went out and bought a PCT mini-amp http://www.pctinternational.com/_products/northamer/amplifiers/ultramini.html. I also got a ground-loop isolator and 60hz filter. Once all of that was installed, I re-did the coaxial wiring in my apartment with quadshielded coax and compression connectors.

I do have to say, wow, even my TV when tuning a channel is much sharper.

As far as the remote goes, my IR cable was bad. Bought a new one, and it fixed the problem.

Thanks for the info from the guys who posted above. Running R5F1 now with no problems.

~ryan
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