Mr Latte said:
However im curious to what settings you guys recommend for Theatretek and VLC etc as ive yet to fully tweak my display/HTPC. You mention the 1080i-540p so whats the alternatives? Also i need to be sure on the Nvida Codecs recommended.
For 1080i should i:
1) Keep custom res setting
2) Set PC to 1920x1080i and rely on Tvs scaler
For 720p should i:
1) Keep custom res setting
2) Set PC to 1280x720 and rely on Tvs scaler
I know already what i prefer, but just to help explain to others id appreciate some thoughts.
ok for de-interlacing, really only one choice. Theatertek with NV hardware, in Theatertek configuration you select pixel adaptive de-interlacing, this is as close to the quality of an external scaler box as you will get with a HTPC. Theatertek includes the NV purevideo decoder, dont install it seperately, the TT ones are always newer thant direct from NV.
Non adaptive interlacing techniques basically throw away odd or even frames so only use 540 lines of info (these are the common bob/weave etc techniques used by the majority of playback software & hardware), the missing lines are interpolated.. not good..
Pixel adaptive works for sure on the 7800GTX cards, I think it works on others with correct drivers but you need to check on that (if you have the option in TT it works)
the top external scalars use this technique & it basically works by discarding pixels (rather than frames) that would have shown combing effects, so instead of losing whole frames you lose individual pixels, end result a much higher PQ, expensive scalers go further & then use diagonal interpolation etc to get rid of jaggies but thats another discussion..
As for res, I would always recommend scaling using the HTPC to the native res of the display, this seems to be causing you problems though so output it as close to your native res as possible.
Dont feed your tv with 1080i it will hatchet job it to 540 lines then scale up to 720p - not good... get the HTPC to apply proper de-interlacing & then do a 2/3 size scaling.. much better.
Play it back with theatertek to de-interlace & use ffdshow as the secondary post processing (selectable in theatertek configuration, assuming you have it installed of course) to scale it to whatever res you want to use & sharpen or whatever else you want to do with the image.. avsforums are good for ffdshow configuration info.
bottom line on res, native is best but tv's vary on how they deal with it, so its really down to personal choice what you are happy with but certainly try & avoid using the tv's own scaler as much as possible
beginning of March I will be setting up a new HTPC & projector for my cinema room, I'll try & do a full guide on setting up TT & ffdshow for optimal PQ. There are a huge amount of options/tweaks in ffdshow, it can be quite daunting to use..
