[stasis096]

I have been recording OTA HDTV and have noticed that the frame rate of my recordings seem low. It's most noticeable when viewing a scrolling ticker running across the screen


Here is my setup:

-Hauppauge WinTV-HRV 1600 Internal HDTV tuner card

-Terk HDTVi Antenna pro pointed towards a tower 21 miles away (Note: Good signal with no dropouts while monitoring with WinTV signal monitor).

-Have used both WinTV and Windows Media Center to record (recording quality is the same with both software i.e. low frame rate)

-Recordings being stored onto an 1.5 TB external HD.

-Using a Dell Dimension DM051 Intel Pentium D CPU 3.20 GHz. 3.50 GB of RAM.


Here is a short video i recorded that demonstrates the quality of my recordings i've been getting:

Question:


1.) How can I improve the frame rate of my recordings?

2.) Would a Tivo do a better job than using a TV tuner on a PC?


Thanks

Stasis096

 

[walford]

It is not the tuner or any aspect of your recordings It appears that you graphic card can not keep up with the HD content so it is dropping frames and/or stuttering. The problem is caused by the Decoder software you are using with MC and/or the grapics card you are using.

 

[kalex]

not sure what the problem is. video looks fine to me

 

[Verge2]



Quote:
Originally Posted by kalex /forum/post/18228361


not sure what the problem is. video looks fine to me

If you watch the text scrolling across the top there is a slight stutter every now and then.



Pentium D is pretty slow, are you sure it's capable of playing this stuff back?

 

[stasis096]

Thank you very much for your timely replies!

Quote:
The problem is caused by the Decoder software you are using with MC and/or the grapics card you are using.

Do you have any suggestions what Decoder software i should be using? I don't fully understand what the decoder software is even used for even after ready a quite lengthy article about it that i found online.

Quote:
Pentium D is pretty slow, are you sure it's capable of playing this stuff back?

I do have a lot of multimedia downloaded on my computer. I have converted DVD's to .iso files and have a lot of .avi, mpegs, etc. and they all play very smoothly without any jittering on my computer. The fact that the computer will play back these files without any stuttering means that my graphics card should be adequate to play back TV onto my computer too?


I download a lot of motorsport clips from 6-7 different sources online who have captured the HD clips off their TV. In all instances I notice the jerky ticker and I just thought that was the nature of the beast when recording TV onto the PC. I'm just worried that I'll spend a lot of money upgrading my computer hardware and not notice any major improvement. That's one reason I questioned how well TIVO records TV. Is there any noticeable quality loss with TIVO recordings too or is it pretty much impossible to tell the difference when watching Live TV versus a TIVO recording?


Thanks for any further help or direction you can give!

Stasis096

 

[Verge2]



Quote:
Originally Posted by stasis096 /forum/post/18229142


Thank you very much for your timely replies!



Do you have any suggestions what Decoder software i should be using? I don't fully understand what the decoder software is even used for even after ready a quite lengthy article about it that i found online.



I do have a lot of multimedia downloaded on my computer. I have converted DVD’s to .iso files and have a lot of .avi, mpegs, etc. and they all play very smoothly without any jittering on my computer. The fact that the computer will play back these files without any stuttering means that my graphics card should be adequate to play back TV onto my computer too?


I download a lot of motorsport clips from 6-7 different sources online who have captured the HD clips off their TV. In all instances I notice the “jerky” ticker and I just thought that was the nature of the beast when recording TV onto the PC. I’m just worried that I’ll spend a lot of money upgrading my computer hardware and not notice any major improvement. That’s one reason I questioned how well TIVO records TV. Is there any noticeable quality loss with TIVO recordings too or is it pretty much impossible to tell the difference when watching Live TV versus a TIVO recording?


Thanks for any further help or direction you can give!

Stasis096

Maybe, i don't ever watch nascar so i don't know how it's supposed to look.



F1 is nice and smooth, and I've have downloaded races others have captured which show the same thing. So i would assume that isn't normal.

 

[walford]

Does your sound also uneven or stutter?

What make/model graphics card are you using?

What resolution(s) are you outputting to over what interface to your TV.display(s)?

What OS are your running?

DVDs since they are SD resolution put a lot less load on a graphics card then HD resloution content files which are 4 times the size of SD resolution files do.

 

[stasis096]



Quote:
Does your sound also uneven or stutter?

No problems at all with sound.

Quote:
What make/model graphics card are you using?

Here's my graphic card info:

Quote:
What resolution(s) are you outputting to over what interface to your TV.display(s)?

I'm not outputting to a TV display but watching it all over my computer monitor.

Quote:
What OS are your running?

Windows XP Media Center Edition Version 2002 SP3.


Do you think my graphics cards is the major bottle neck? Also i don't know how to determine what Decoder software i'm using to know if it's adequate for what i'm trying to do.


Thanks again for all your help everyone thusfar, you've been a huge help already.

 

[stasis096]

One more thing worth mentioning:


NASCAR on FOX is being broadcast in 720p.

The Winter Olympics on NBC was broadcast in 1080i.


When i view any of my NBC Winter Olympic recordings, the interlacing is very noticeable during fast panning shots. It will look something like this...

Instead of this...

Would the effects of interlacing be decreased if i was using a faster processor and better graphics card or is there more to it then that? I stumbled across an in depth forum talking about this 1080i interlacing issue and it sounds like it's a problem for a lot of people. Here's a link:

http://forums.amd.com/game/messagevi...hreadid=100464


These guys were having trouble with 1080i broadcasts and tried several different cards/driver configurations that never seemed to work for them. I'm worried that after upgrading all my computer hardware that some of these issues i'm trying to solve will still be there.


Thanks

Stasis096

 

[walford]

It's your graphics card. The X600 is an older model and I am not at all suprised that you have problems with it dropping frames at any HD resoloution and with it having poor dee-interlacing of 1080i content.

What is the native resolution of your PC monitor? If it is a lower resolution PC monitor 1080i content will also look poorer on it then 720p on it due to the down scaling required.

 

[mike_311]

absolutley the graphics card, i upgraded my g45 to an ati 3450 and i got the same problem you did. I couldn't even watch an ABC college football game, i may as well have watch the sd espn feed.


I returned it and went back to my g45. it plays 1080i perfect, i can deal with the minor quirks it has as long as live is as crisp as it should be.

 

[renethx]

Yup, G45 to HD 3450 is overall a downgrade.

 

[stasis096]

I'll be sure to try updating my graphic card to see if that takes care of the stuttering problem I'm having. If it's blatantly obvious that my current graphic card is inadequate to handle HD video, I'll give it a shot. That being said I'm only cautiously optimistic that it will solve all my issues.


Here's another good informative post that i stumbled across in the AVS forum where a guy was experiencing a similar stuttering issue...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...=graphic+cards


In it people were describing how they were changing out graphic cards, updating drivers, codecs, cleaning out OS systems, upgrading to new OS systems, increasing power supply wattage, and other technical things I didn't really have a full grasp on. In the end, no resolution came about for him. I just hope I'm not opening up a rats nest.

 

[stasis096]

Installed a NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT 1GB DDR2 PCI Express Graphics Card last night to see if this would help. Installed latest drivers from NVIDIA website but am still experiencing the interlacing problem on NBC. There may be a slight improvement in the stuttering but it is by no means gone.


Also with my old card a racing game i would play would consistently bog down to 15 FPS. With the new card it's closer to 22 FPS but i was expecting a bigger improvement with this new $100 card installed.


Any other suggestions or something i might be overlooking with the new card?


Thanks

Stasis096

 

[zryder]

for $100, buy yourself a GT220 or a ATI 55xx or 56xx, and all of your wishes will come true!

 

[stasis096]

Here are some of the things that I have done to try to increase my computer's performance. Again my ultimate goal is to record stutter free HDTV (both 720p and 1080i).


-Removed all nonessential files (.mp3, movies, pictures) from my computer to an external hard drive. The 225 gig internal hard drive now has 185 gigs free instead of just 15 gigs.

-Ran Malware AV to check if any maliciousness was on my computer (checked clean).

-Ran CCleaner to clean up temporary files and the registry (lots of registry errors and missing .dll files removed and fixed).

-Ran full scan of AVG Free 9.0 and everything checked out clean.

-Reduced the number of programs that run at startup (went from 65+ processes to around 40 after initial boot).

-Ran disk defragger.

-Changed performance setting to adjust for best performance' under the system properties (Right click my computer ->Properties->Advanced->Performance settings->Adjust for best performance).

-Reduced the amount of disk space used for system restore points (from 12% to 4%).

-As mentioned in a previous post, updated my graphics card from a Radeon X600 to a GeForce 9500.



The result of all of this is that I can still see some stuttering in my recordings. I was reading about Nvidia's PureVideo Decoder and how it was able to help people fix the stuttering they were experiencing. Anyone have experience using this decoder?


I'm running out of ideas how to completely fix this stuttering annoyance. Anybody else got any more ideas for me? Maybe something will stick.


Thanks

Stasis096

 

[sitlet]

the interlacing you see on nbc 1080i is normal. thats why its called interlacing. when you watch it at full speed on a tv you should not see any interlacing. on a pc monitor, you may see some even when playing at full speed. thats the reason abc and fox decided to go with 720p, less resolution but more framerate.

 

[walford]

The Nvidiaa PureVideo decoder was designed for use only for use on XP.

Since you are runnung Windows 7 use the following utility to insurs that your are using the Microsofte video and audio decoders for Media Center:

http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/bl...aces-vmcd.aspx

 

[stasis096]

Hi Walford,


Thanks for the reply. I am running on Windows XP though. Also in an earlier post you had asked me this question:

Quote:
What is the native resolution of your PC monitor? If it is a lower resolution PC monitor 1080i content will also look poorer on it then 720p on it due to the down scaling required.

I'm not sure of the answer to this question but i can look it up tonight. I do know it's a Dell 19' flat screen.

 

[walford]

If on XP then use the following utility:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en


And see what MCE compatible decoder is selected at the preferred decoder.

If not the Nvidia pure video decoder then download the 30 day eval of it from their Website, If it does the trick then get it from them for $20.

If you don't know the monitor's resolution then please provide it's actual model number.