Not happy with Hauppauge 250 captures, macroblocks

[Hellbore]

Hey guys. I am capturing VHS stuff to DVD using a Hauppauge PVR-250 card.

I have a Mitsubishi U770 S-VHS VCR I am using for now. It produces a very nice-looking picture when I plug its s-video out directly to our big screen TV.

To capture, I run S-video from the VCR to an I.DEN IVT-7 full-frame timebase corrector that has built-in proc amp, then from there to a SignVideo DR1000 detailer box. For most of my home movies I'm not able to use the Detailer because they don't have the quality.

I have been capturing at 720x480 by the way.

For some reason, even though I am capturing at 12 mbits, when I burn the DVD and play it back, it just doesn't look like commercial DVD's. There are macroblocks, especially in areas of movement.

I'm not really sure what the reason for this is. I don't see noise in the signal. I'm trying to figure it out. The tapes I am capturing as a test are good quality tapes recorded recently and they look really good when played on the VCR.

I got the colors to look good but I can't get rid of the macroblocks. Is this just the way Hauppauge cards are? Would I need a better encoder to get rid of the artifacts / blocks? They aren't majorly obvious but I can see them and it is really bothering me.

Would something like a Canopus MPEG Pro MVR help/

I will post PICTURES of exactly what I am talking about as soon as possible, probably tonight.

[davideck]

Hellbore -

What are you playing the DVD on?
12MBits/s may be too high for your DVD player.

I would recommend that you try a capture at 8mbits/s or less.

I also have a PVR-250 that I use with a JVC6800U and a TBC-3000.
The captures are very good, particularly with SVHS Camcorder tapes.
Not professional DVD quality, but certainly as good as the original source.
Blocking is rarely visible, and typically only in highly detailed areas.

[junkmalle]

For some reason, even though I am capturing at 12 mbits, when I burn the DVD and play it back, it just doesn't look like commercial DVD's.

Commercial DVDs don't start with a noisy VHS source. Consider capturing at 352x480. You can also try fiddling with the PVR-250's sharpness and noise reduction settings (these functions take place on the card before conversion to MPEG).

[Hellbore]

I think what I am playing on is a Pioneer 5 disc DVD changer. I am not sure because it's my Dad's. You know what though, now that you mention it, it is a fairly old player. It does know how to play SVCD's though.

I will get the model number of the player when I go home, if that helps.

Would I get better results if I did, say, 8 MBITS CBR, or better to do VBR with max of 8 and min of 4 or so?

By better, I mean more detail, better motion, less blocks. I don't really care about file size, DVD's are cheap and I'm trying to preserve family videos at any cost.

[Hellbore]

For some reason, even though I am capturing at 12 mbits, when I burn the DVD and play it back, it just doesn't look like commercial DVD's.

Commercial DVDs don't start with a noisy VHS source. Consider capturing at 352x480. You can also try fiddling with the PVR-250's sharpness and noise reduction settings (these functions take place on the card before conversion to MPEG).

I don't remember seeing any noise reduction settings for the Hauppauge card. Can you tell me where? I do have the sharpness set to 7 though using the registry tweak.

The VHS tapes don't look noisy to me, is the kind of noise you are talking about something you can SEE when played back to the TV? Because I don't see anything like that.

I should mention, I have a JVC HR-S9911U VCR coming to me, I just bought it online. Do you think using this for playback would help reduce these problems? I know it's supposed to have some kind of noise reduction features but since I haven't received it yet I am experimenting with my other VCR (in fact I have 3 of them: An older JVC VHS machine, the Mitsubishi S-VHS machine, and a newer Emerson VHS machine).

[davideck]

Would I get better results if I did, say, 8 MBITS CBR, or better to do VBR with max of 8 and min of 4 or so?

Either would be a good test.

When I tried to capture at 12 MBits/s, my SONY DVD players couldn't handle it, but I don't remember what it looked like. I think the maximum bitrate for standard DVDs is around 9MBit/s? So I am thinking that the playback out of your DVD player may vastly improve if you stay below this figure.

[Hellbore]

Thanks for that info... I actually was capturing at VBR with a max of 12 and min of 6. I only saw macroblocks sometimes, and in areas of motion and high detail. I bet what was happening was it was ramping up to 12 mbits to try and preserve all the busy stuff goin on in those areas of motion, so the player wasn't able to play it correctly. We'll see...

[Nelson37]

Something else you may want to try is to narrow the range between max and avg bit rates. One of the things I discovered on my ATI card was that using a wide range contributed to macroblocking.

Perhaps it cannot change rates fast enough, I don't know. I keep the gap at less than 1000, usually 500.

[junkmalle]

For some reason, even though I am capturing at 12 mbits, when I burn the DVD and play it back, it just doesn't look like commercial DVD's.

Commercial DVDs don't start with a noisy VHS source. Consider capturing at 352x480. You can also try fiddling with the PVR-250's sharpness and noise reduction settings (these functions take place on the card before conversion to MPEG).

I don't remember seeing any noise reduction settings for the Hauppauge card. Can you tell me where? I do have the sharpness set to 7 though using the registry tweak.

The VHS tapes don't look noisy to me, is the kind of noise you are talking about something you can SEE when played back to the TV? Because I don't see anything like that.

I should mention, I have a JVC HR-S9911U VCR coming to me, I just bought it online. Do you think using this for playback would help reduce these problems? I know it's supposed to have some kind of noise reduction features but since I haven't received it yet I am experimenting with my other VCR (in fact I have 3 of them: An older JVC VHS machine, the Mitsubishi S-VHS machine, and a newer Emerson VHS machine).

Like with the sharpness setting, Hauppauge doesn't really give you control over the noise reduction. You can fiddle with the registry settings but this program makes it easy:

http://www.shspvr.com/download/hcwpp2ut.zip

You can make the adjustments and see the results in realtime -- well, with only a second or so delay.

I think the default temporal smoothing setting for the PVR-250 is 7. If you go over 10 or so the image will start to smear. 7 is probably about right for VHS captures. I use 0 for digital cable captures.

Don't go overboard with the sharpening. 7 may be too high. Keep in mind that sharpening increases noise (static) making the video harder to compress. And televisions usually sharpen the picture a bit anyway. If you sharpen too much you'll start seeing overshoot on sharp edges.

If you install GraphEdit you can adjust the sharpness with realtime feedback.

[FulciLives]

Some people do a CBR of 12,000kbps then afterwards to a multipass VBR encode with CCE or TMPGEnc to make it DVD compliant (plus you can do video noise filters at this point, etc.)

I think the WinTV PVR-250 can actually go up to 15,000kbps CBR even though I think it claims only 12,000kbps CBR in the documentation.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[SHS]

Hellbore
The DVD spec MAX bit rate is 9.8MB on all Home DVD Player unless is a PC Hardware Decoder name Sigma Designs REALmagic Decoder card or Soft Decoder which can take a lot more bitrate then reg Home DVD Player.
Macroblock can becuase by a number of thing have you test any reg TV recording like sport show?.
Try taking your VCR output rigth the PVR250 with out any timebase corrector, etc, etc device.
With out know which PVR 250 you have there is one other image anomalies (pixellation/mosaic effects) which cuase but the encoder chip overheating which is common problem with 350 and some older 250 that have a heatsinker.

[lordsmurf]

Just to agree ... An overheated encoder chip can do this too. The earliest LiteOn DVD recorders had this issue, which is why many of us dismantled them and added custom fan/heatsink mods.

[FulciLives]

SHS does not have the best English skills but he does know what he talks about when it comes to the Hauppauge WinTV PVR line of capture cards/devices.

So you should check out his website as it is a great wealth of knowledge and tips and tricks etc.

http://www.shspvr.com/

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[davideck]

Hey guys. I am capturing VHS stuff to DVD using a Hauppauge PVR-250 card.

The tapes I am capturing as a test are good quality tapes recorded recently and they look really good when played on the VCR.

I got the colors to look good but I can't get rid of the macroblocks. Is this just the way Hauppauge cards are? Would I need a better encoder to get rid of the artifacts / blocks? They aren't majorly obvious but I can see them and it is really bothering me.

Would something like a Canopus MPEG Pro MVR help/

I will post PICTURES of exactly what I am talking about as soon as possible, probably tonight.

After reading your recent posts on various threads, I suspect that something is wrong with your setup.

As a point of reference, my PVR-250 provides excellent results with off-air, VHS, SVHS and Beta captures (through a TBC-3000). In fact, the images are actually cleaned up a bit during the process to the point where the DVD often looks better than the original tape. I have not done any registry tweaks.

Do I see blocking? Yes, if I focus on finding it, but that is what MPEG compression is going to do. It is not significant enough to be objectionable particularly for lower detailed sources like VHS and Beta.

Have you tried capturing off-air to eliminate the VCR / TBC / Noise Reduction variables? Have you tried more than one DVD player?

Posting pictures would be a big help...

[Hellbore]

OK I will get pics as soon as I can. Unfortunately I am going out of town today until Sunday so please don't forget about this thread... lol... I'll be back with pics!

Just a couple things though: My Hauppauge PVR 250 is not the MCE version. It came with the newer silver sleek looking remote and it has both S-video and composite inputs. My dad has an older one so I know mine isn't the old kind, my dad's old one does not have a composite input plug, he has to use an S-video to composite adapter. Also his came with the black ugly remote.

Also my card does not have a heatsink on the Conexant encoder chip. I have done lots of overclocking and modifications involving heatsinks and fans so I could easily put on a heatsink if it would help. Should I try this? I would use Arctic Alumina thermal heatsink adhesive and do a nice job of it....

As for seeing blocks, it just makes me sad because if I pop in a commercial movie DVD, everything looks so nice and perfect with almost no artifacts. Actually to tell you the truth I definitely see compression artifacts on commercial movie DVD's. However, they are MUCH more subtle and they don't degrade the image. In fact you can only really see them if you pause the movie. My captures, on the other hand, have much larger macroblocks, though you still have to pause the dvd to really be able to see the blocks clearly. It just seems like comercial DVD's have artifacts that are smaller and more "grainy" or sharp, where as my Hauppauge artifacts are larger and smeary, seem to have more of a regular grid-like pattern to them all over the picture. Even while the picture is moving, you can see a slightly "busy" look to some areas due to the little macroblocks changing with time.

[Hellbore]

Oh, by the way, for what it's worth, someone said it would help to know what TV I am using to view the DVD's. This is the TV I'm using:

Panasonic PT-53WXD63 53 in. Rear Projection HDTV Television with 16:9 Aspect Ratio

I put it on 4:3 mode though when viewing these normal aspect ratio DVD's.

[davideck]

My Hauppauge PVR 250 is not the MCE version. It came with the newer silver sleek looking remote and it has both S-video and composite inputs.

Also my card does not have a heatsink on the Conexant encoder chip.

Actually to tell you the truth I definitely see compression artifacts on commercial movie DVD's. However, they are MUCH more subtle and they don't degrade the image. In fact you can only really see them if you pause the movie. My captures, on the other hand, have much larger macroblocks, though you still have to pause the dvd to really be able to see the blocks clearly.

It sounds like you have the same PVR version that I do.

Your description sounds like normal perfomance.
I think that you are up against the limitations of MPEG compression.

[Hellbore]

Well maybe I can never be happy then. Once again, evil compression rears its ugly head to make my life miserable. Woe is me!

I should have known. After all, I'm the kind of guy who gets in my car with my nice stereo and listens to an MP3 and says "eww that sounds like ass" then listens to the real CD version and says "Ahhh, much better!" I can't help it, I'm picky when it comes to quality.

[FulciLives]

Not only does a TBC stabilize the image (which helps the MPEG encoder to do a better job) thus eliminating some artifacts but the TBC also tends to soften the image which again makes the MPEG encoder do a better job i.e., less artifacts.

This could be why the person using the TBC is getting such good results.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[junkmalle]

Try capturing at 15000 kbps CBR. Then convert down to 9000 or so with a software MPEG encoder for DVD. That may look better.

[FulciLives]

Try capturing at 15000 kbps CBR. Then convert down to 9000 or so with a software MPEG encoder for DVD. That may look better.

I suggested that already earlier in this thread.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Hellbore]

OK I will try that.

By the way, guys, I do have a TBC, and I use it. It's an I.DEN IVT-7 full-frame TBC frame synchronizer with proc amp controls built in. Using it hasn't seemed to make a noticeable difference in my capture quality though. I know it's working though, I notice vertical lines are straighter when I play through this TBC.

I also have some other processing shizzle I haven't started using yet (gotta learn more about them). One is a Sima SCC-2 which I may never end up needing since my TBC has proc amp controls. The other thing is a SignVideo Detailer box, DR-1000. I also have a better VCR on the way, a JVC HR-S9911U. I hope one of those things will help! This will be my 4th vcr so far. I went like this:

Emerson VCR sucked -> some older JVC VHS machine looked OK -> Mitsubishi S-VHS looked a little better -> JVC HR-S9911U hopefully will be better

[davy19]

I have a PVR 250 as well, and I have been trasnferring my VHS tapes to DVD. I use a approx 8-10 year old Sony VCR with composite.

I use 352x480, with VBR of min 3000 and max 5000,


I have to tell you my DVD's look better then my original VHS tapes. Maybe it just my eyes who knows. I have never seen macroblocks and i have lots of old ECW wrestling tapes where lots of fast action.

I also use the sharpening trick and changed the value 7


I also have a real old PVR 250 card, I think I got it back in 2001 or 2002 I cannot recall.

[maryah]

I don't remember seeing any noise reduction settings for the Hauppauge card. Can you tell me where? I do have the sharpness set to 7 though using the registry tweak.

Could you share those registry tweaks, or direct me to where you found them? I've been looking for a way to make my Hauppage 250 card remember my video adjustment preferences, but haven't found any.

[FulciLives]

I don't remember seeing any noise reduction settings for the Hauppauge card. Can you tell me where? I do have the sharpness set to 7 though using the registry tweak.

Could you share those registry tweaks, or direct me to where you found them? I've been looking for a way to make my Hauppage 250 card remember my video adjustment preferences, but haven't found any.

My guess is all the tweaks and tips you need will be found here: CLICK HERE

Good Luck !!!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman