Hello all!

I wanted to start a thread specific to the nVidia (using TV Out)/PVR250 combination to compile the information for all of us using the same setup. Please add any info you might have to help with optimization and setup.

I've done a bunch of searches here and at other forums and this is what I have found so far:

- When using the nVidia driver and the bundled sample nVidia X config file, image quality seems better when increasing the default color depth to 24. The nVidia sample file is set to 16.
- The PVR250 captures interlaced signals (you can read more on this at this thread: http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... einterlace )
- Because the PVR250 utilized hardware encoding, we cannot use filters, etc. to deinterlace the file
- When using an nVidia card with the mpeg2 hardware decoding, you can't apply playback filters to deinterlace the signal. Additionally, the nVidia card can't pass through the interlaced signal.

So, my experience has been that this setup offer very good resolution but has a lot of "horizontally banded motion artifacts."

My assumption is that perhaps a future driver will fix this problem. Either a new ivtv driver or a new nVidia driver that fixes the problem. Is this correct? If I am correct, does anyone know what the roll-out schedule is for such a feature.

Am I missing something?

Please add any suggestions/corrections to this post.

Thanks!

unless you are using a severely underpowered box why not just turn off the xvmc hardware support and use the deinterlace filter works fine for me.

Hey Xsecrets, I tried that earler but started getting some audio stuttering. I'm using a 2.8G P4 with a gig of ram so I don't think I'm underpowered. I have DMA turned on and my IO set to 32 bit.

I just noticed the "extra audio buffering" option and just tried that. Seems to fix the problem. I'll keep testing it tongiht.

Thanks for the input.

hmmm that's odd I just have an athlon 1700+ and I have no problems with it and I have two tuners. I can record two shows and watch a previously recorded one and still have no problems.

Ah....no big deal. It's working now with the extra audio buffering selected. Maybe it has to do with my integated audio on my Intel 845EPI MB. I'll have to check my hdparm settings...maybe my disk is running a bit slow.

Anyway...thanks for point out the obvious earlier....I didn't even occur to me to just dump hardware decoding.

I have this exact setup:

Silverstone w/VFD and IR
2.2 Ghz. P4
1GB RAM
160GB Sata, 400GB IDE
DVDRW
PVR-250
Twinhan 102G
nVidia GeForce 6200 -> DVI to my Samsung 56 inch 1080p DLP

I had the hardest time getting any sort of quality and even then it sucked. I blame some of it on my cable. I gave up DirecTV and it's DVR for this and my wife is NOT happy. I have a hard time keeping it running. I can't get my iMon remote to work. I've spent about 3 weeks on and off just tweaking and getting everything right, I did get the VFD to work and the new nVidia drivers.

To the point, my PVR-250 recieves fine on about 60% of the channels and stutters horizontally really bad on the channels with lower cable quality. I've turned off vbi and really have tried anything I could find in this forum. I've even upgraded the ivtv drivers. The picture is so washed out and I can't even get it to show worth a damn. When it's in my windows box it works fine and I bought it new a couple years ago from CompUSA. I was at Circuit City the other day and saw the HVR-1600 and got it b/c it did ATSC, I was pissed when I couldn't find any ivtv support for it. I exchanged it for a PVR-150 and it is actually pretty stable. I can't get the picture just right, but at least it's not washed out. I notice that green bleeds in when it's really bright. I know it's not the tv b/c everything else I have has EXCELLENT picture quality.

I went to my parents the other day and they have less quality cable and I noticed their Tivo box looked better than my setup. I have the capture bitrate at 10000 and 12500. It's just not crispy. Does anyone have any ideas? I use Xvmc w/Kernel, it seems to be the best for me. The bob looks real stuttery and makes the text look horrible.

Have you been through all the troubleshooting suggestions on the wiki page? http://www.knoppmythwiki.org/index.php?page=PictureQualityIssues

I had many issues related to this and upgrading to the latest drivers helped. I am running R5D7 though.