[politby]

I'm very disappointed in the image quality I get on SD TV with my Radeon HD 4350. This is European MPEG-2 DVB-T broadcast in 576i/50, upscaled to 1080p by the ATI card. I'm using Catalyst 8.12 drivers and Microsoft's built in MPEG2 decoder in 32 bit Vista Ultimate. I have applied the ATI registry settings pointed to in another thread, that's all. I have ruled out any problems with the tuner hardware/driver (FloppyDTV-T) so I'm pretty sure this is a graphics hardware/software issue:

As you can see there are extremely jagged edges and pixelization (the moiré effects are not in the video image, just in the photo) which results in a very poor viewing experience.


Is there something I can do about this? I have heard of SD issues with the 4350 so I have considered upgrading to a 4650 but I won't do that unless I'm sure it will help.


any suggestions appreciated.

thx

/politby

 

[walford]

What is the make/model of display? If an HDTV have you considered having it do the upscaleing instead of your graphics card?

 

[renethx]

HD 4350 is not great in post-processing because of a small number of stream processors and lower bandwidth of video memory. You will need HD 4550 or higher for better PQ, except for HD 4650 (several people reported that 4650 has a post-processing problem).

 

[politby]



Quote:
Originally Posted by walford /forum/post/15450856


What is the make/model of display? If an HDTV have you considered having it do the upscaleing instead of your graphics card?

It's a Samsung 50" full HD plasma display (PS50A556). So are you suggesting I should set my graphics card output to 576i when watching SD TV?


/politby

 

[politby]



Quote:
Originally Posted by renethx /forum/post/15453102


HD 4350 is not great in post-processing because of a small number of stream processors and lower bandwidth of video memory. You will need HD 4550 or higher for better PQ, except for HD 4650 (several people reported that 4650 has a post-processing problem).

So do you think a 4550 would improve my PQ, based on what my picture looks like?


/politby

 

[cychou]



Quote:
Originally Posted by politby /forum/post/15453630


So do you think a 4550 would improve my PQ, based on what my picture looks like?


/politby

I suspect that you might have software configuration problem (codec....) as well. 4550 is better than 4350 in cases like this, but 4350 should not look this bad

In my experience (Nvidia owner), driver is most likely the culprit. Try different versions and see which one is the best, latest is not always the best for HTPC purpose. Especially for lower end card, post processing using GPU shaders is problematic. My guess is driver development effort mostly concentrates on 3D gaming benchmark for high-end card, so they can drive more sales.

 

[politby]



Quote:
Originally Posted by cychou /forum/post/15453797


I suspect that you might have software configuration problem (codec....) as well. 4550 is better than 4350 in cases like this, but 4350 should not look this bad

In my experience (Nvidia owner), driver is most likely the culprit. Try different versions and see which one is the best, latest is not always the best for HTPC purpose. Especially for lower end card, post processing using GPU shaders is problematic. My guess is driver development effort mostly concentrates on 3D gaming benchmark for high-end card, so they can drive more sales.

Well, I can rule out a codec problem, I have compared to several others using the same tuner hardware/software and the same MPEG-2 codec (tried both Microsoft's and Cyberlink's) and they have a much better PQ so it must have to do with the ATI stuff. I will do some more fiddling around with the ATI driver and/or configuration and report back.

 

[bonzichrille]

its my understanding that the microsoft mpeg2 decoder is not connected to AVIVO. For this you need either powerdvd or windvd and then activate this option from withing their respective programs.


Should we be so surprised that microsoft own, software based, america in mind decoder sucks on 576i?


Can we really blame ati in this situation?

 

[walford]



Quote:
Originally Posted by politby /forum/post/15453625


It's a Samsung 50" full HD plasma display (PS50A556). So are you suggesting I should set my graphics card output to 576i when watching SD TV?


/politby

I am suggesting that you try it as a test to see if the PQ is any better. It is not a long tims solution.

 

[renethx]



Quote:
Originally Posted by bonzichrille /forum/post/15453847


its my understanding that the microsoft mpeg2 decoder is not connected to AVIVO.

Yes, Microsoft MPEG-2 Video Decoder works fine with AVIVO processor. This combination gives perfect HQV scores (for HD 4550 or higher).

 

[walford]

Retnethx,

Is that becasue you can configure those AVIVO features that are appropriate for MPEG2 in CCC so that they are invoked whenever a dedoder such as the MS MPEG2 decoder invokes hardware acceleration for decoding?

If yes then I beleive the same capability is available with Nvidia PurevideoHD features using the Nvidia Control Center in their 17xx and later drivers,

Hopefully in Windows7 when MC will support H.264 decoding as well as Meg2 dcoding that the MS decoder will also support the AVIVIO an PurevideoHD H.264 capabilities,

 

[sneakerx]

Another suggestion here: it could be that the 8.12 version of Catalyst is a problem. Try uninstalling it and reinstalling from the disc that came with your card. A higher version or newer driver isn't always better with ATI.

 

[lstepnio]

The ATI codec for MPEG looked pretty terrible in my experience and didn't handle content errors very well. The Cyberlink decoder works really well for 1080i and 720 MPEG2 so I see no reason why it wouldn't be as good for SD.

 

[Wakecrash]

I have a 4650 that I think SD TV looks very bad on my 1080P, where could I find a screen capture of a properly processed 480i signal?

 

[Dodgexander]

Hmmh, if you want to know if its the video cards problem, just switch off hardware acceleration and use the players inbuilt software scaling. Both Power dvd and windvd have this.


Also, why not try FFDSHOW to see if that is any better quality.

 

[politby]



Quote:
Originally Posted by sneakerx /forum/post/15457273


Another suggestion here: it could be that the 8.12 version of Catalyst is a problem. Try uninstalling it and reinstalling from the disc that came with your card. A higher version or newer driver isn't always better with ATI.

I have discovered that there is no "Advanced Quality" setting available in CCC 8.12 for my 4350. Not sure if this is 8.12 specific or if it has been deactivated intentionally for ATI with this card. This means I cannot switch off denoise and edge enhancement.


I have now ordered an open box 4650 which I should receive this week. That's my final attempt with ATI, if that doesn't work out I'll throw out the ATI card, and use my Intel on board video in combination with a Xonar HDAV sound card instead (and no, I don't care about 24p

)


/politby