HTPC freeview image not as good as tv built in tuner?

tommytinkle · 22 Dec 2010 at 12:40

Hey,

Have made myself a htpc, but am finding that the image displayed in MC is nowhere near as good as that of the tv's built in freeview tuner. Is there anyway I can improve this?

Thanks

Lanz · 22 Dec 2010 at 13:37

Mostly depends on that graphics card you're using, what res, refresh rate, are you using hdmi or vga.... lots of things can effect image quality.

alex24 · 22 Dec 2010 at 13:38

I usually find the problem is the Microsoft codec used in windows media center, assuming you're using that software. It looks pants compared to a built in tuner, and although you can change it, there's no reliable way to do so without breaking other things, like live tv.

tommytinkle · 22 Dec 2010 at 13:40

Hey,

Thanks for the replies

Gutted about that, am using a radeon 4850, via hdmi to a 40" samsung 1080p tv. It just doesn't look as good and unfortunately the boss ( :mad:

) is unimpressed by it!

No real way to fix this problem then?

alex24 · 22 Dec 2010 at 13:44

You can always play with the TV settings to get a better calibration for the image, sometimes that can work wonders, otherwise you can use different software to watch TV, maybe MythTV or mediaportal (probably the more user-friendly of the two).

You're definitely at 1080p @ 60Hz?

Lanz · 22 Dec 2010 at 13:47

It should be 1080p 50hz for live tv, otherwise it'll be all jerky.

lurkio · 22 Dec 2010 at 13:49

Just a guess , I take it you are using windows 7/vista and not Xp ?

tommytinkle · 22 Dec 2010 at 14:09

Hey,

Windows 7 and I had it set to 60 hz. My tv reports its capable of 75hz but I left it at 60hz?

lurkio · 22 Dec 2010 at 15:01

Yeah my media PC in the living room has both Xp and windows 7 on it

I will let you guess as to which one has a far nicer quality picture

Kinda weird , same hardware but different OS makes a difference

Boff_in · 26 Dec 2010 at 16:48

Dont make me guess, the festive food and drink has made my brain slow! So, is it better with xp or 7?
I want to get a tv card but i am concerned reading this. I have loved XBMC but was going to switch to win7MC and get a tv card, but if the tv card picture will suffer further i may not.
I have a 32" 720p (1366x720) tv with htpc onboard ATi via hdmi.
Will i find the same as OP?

Pho · 26 Dec 2010 at 18:10

Try using something such as ffdshow-tryouts, it makes my picture a lot better especially when you make it upscale to your native resolution, sharpen the image, deinterlace etc.

This might help in getting it working: http://www.hack7mc.com/2009/02/ffdshow-video-in-media-center.html but you'll probably have to find settings for upscaling etc elsewhere.

Rozzy85 · 26 Dec 2010 at 18:53

TV card quality has always looked better even on poor hardware (Intel chipset and generic LCD screen) for me. This is only SD though and I haven't bothered with HD yet but it's all same apart from the resolution.

The TV card only decodes the UHF signal so the quality of the image will be dependent on the codec, display and to a lesser degree the graphics card. Windows Media Center re-encodes the video to it's own format and losses quality in the process (lower bitrate) and doesn't seem to use any AA filters to clear the image up. It looks worse than the WinTV software for my card. If you want to use it I'd try the ffdshow as mentioned by Pho if quality is paramount or use the cards provided software.

Bomag · 27 Dec 2010 at 15:30

Boff_in said:
Dont make me guess, the festive food and drink has made my brain slow! So, is it better with xp or 7?
I have a 32" 720p (1366x720) tv with htpc onboard ATi via hdmi.

Will i find the same as OP?

I would guess that lurkio means XP. I have XP running with the nVidia purevideo codec and the picture quality is much better than the same HTPC running W7MC.

With Freeview there is no encoding the signal, the TV card just modulates the MPEG steam from the signal. Therefore in W7 I tend to use PowerDVD to play back archived TV rather than MC.

In any case the quality issue of using the W7 codec to upscale video is much less of an issue with a 720p screen

Meatball · 27 Dec 2010 at 15:53

It could be a number of things. I would bet your TV has a better deinterlacing system and superior upscaling capabilities. If there's to pass the raw footage (ie. your computer does no processing to it such as upscaling or deinterlacing) in theory the quality should then be the same as it will be up to your TV to upscale and deinterlace the video.

tommytinkle · 29 Dec 2010 at 21:16

Hey,

ok guys, spec me a freeview HD pvr? I'm giving up on the media pc idea completely, plus the pvr's seem to have far lower power consumption = happy boss

Thanks