[chexi]

I've built an HTPC to get the best video quality possible for my projector, but aside from better colors, I'd say I have worse quality than my DVD player. I figure it must be a settings problem. I also get quite a bit of screen tear. So, I thought I would ask the throbbing brain on the AVS forum for help.


1. How do I avoid screen tear? I play NTSC videos with a Radeon 8500 128 Video Card. Is it simply a matter of refresh rates?


2. How do I improve the picture quality? In particular, I seem to have a large amount of what I think is fixed patter noise (grainy dots at times in solid colors). These are not present (or less so) when using the DVD player. I don't think it's a cabling issue, because the DVD Player actually uses a longer cable (or actually feeds into the DVI-I cable I use for computer by means of a female/female coupler). Of course, the DVD player is going component to DVI-analog, which may lessen the noise for some reason, thereby making the cable the problem on for DVI-D (i.e., the computer), but if I knew, I wouldn't be asking.

 

[SRR]

What are your projector specs, did you do 1:1 pixel mapping with powerstrip? What DVD playback software are you using? Did you turn on hardware acceleration for dvd playback? NTSC videos? Are you talking about DVD's or VHS tapes using the Radeons video in?

 

[chexi]

I have the Sharp M20X projector (4:3 native using Stretch mode which appears perfect on Widescreen DVDS, with the exception of the cropping of course). I'm using NTSC DVD's in a Pioneer slot-load DVD-Drive with a Radeon 8500 128 and an Athlon 1.2 gig processor. I don't recall setting anything to maximize DVD playback. Where would one find that setting?


I was using PowerDVD and getting massive tearing. I checked my hertz level and it's at 59.9 something, which I think is exactly double of the 29.97 fps of the video. I've switched to WinDVD and that seems to have worked. I didn't notice any tearing after about 10 minutes in scenes where I was getting massive tearing before. Doesn't seem like just switching the software would work, but it has. I think I'm even getting better colors too, but that's probably just a setting thing. The picture does look fantastic, but I am still getting what I think is fixed pattern noise on certain objects/colors (whites in particular). Would Reclock help with the noise? Or maybe dscaler? I guess Dscaler won't work with the Radeon, so I would need another Vid Capture card, so I'm hoping to avoid that, but they aren't that expensive, so if that is the answer, I'll do it. I just don't want to buy something on a guess if I can avoid it.


1:1 pixel mapping... I've never totally understood this. Every time I play with the resolution I get a blurry screen. So, I have been running in the native resolution of the projector, which is 1024x768. (I had the same problem with the Panasonic 300).


BTW, is there a comprehensive powerstip how-to somewhere? I really don't understand 90% of the features in that program.

 

[Paul_Seng]

Instead of setting your hz level to 59.9 Try setting to a regular computer rate that is the native of your PJ. the 20mx is designed for computers first, HT later, so I think you should try try 70, 72 or 75 HZ refresh rate.

 

[chexi]

screan tear seems to have been solved with WinDVD. Now to fix the screen noise.

 

[Huey]

I'd bet that the tearing is because you were not using overlay with PowerDVD 3.0 or older. This happens when you try to use dual video head and PowerDVD 3.0 has a bug that won't use overlay with dual head activated.