Has anyone gotten an ATI card S-Video out to TV to look as bright as Cable?

[Dragonfly2337]

I'm setting up a media center pc and I have run into two problems.
1) The picture on the TV from the ATI card S-Video out is not as bright as regular cable and it's not as clear because if it, I think.
2) I sometimes get artifacts on the TV when I watch it through the media center pc.

The Media Center PC is running a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR500 dual tuner.
3.0 HT P4, BeyondTV 4.4, 1 Gig of memory, two 400 Gig Western Digital SATA drives,
an ATI Video: ATI Hyper Memory PCI-Express X16 (DVI/VGA/TV out) Radeon X300 SE, Driver, Windows XP, Multi Language, Multi System, v.8.23-060209a1-030546C, A03.

Thank You.

[redwudz]

I've never noticed any differences in brightness between a S-video input and regular TV. Have you checked your video card settings? There may be a adjustment there for brightness, etc. I don't have my X300 card hooked up at present, but it has a complete set of adjustments in the 'Overlay' tab. You might check your screen resolution and refresh settings also to make sure they are acceptable for your TV.

I'm not sure about the artifacts. Does it do that with all forms of video? S-video is fine for video viewing, but not so great for text.

[Dragonfly2337]

I agree S-video is fine for video viewing, but not so great for text.
Trying to replace my Motorola Dual-Tuner DVR DCT6412 with a PC and Beyond TV 4.4 running but I cannot get the video to look as bright as what the Motorola Dual-Tuner DVR DCT6412 produces.
Will try to adjust settings.

[edDV]

x300 is very basic but allows setting brightness, contrast saturation etc. in the display properties, advanced overlay settings.

As for picture detail, I agree that normal HTPC cards have problems because they are forcing interlace video though a progressive pipe which forces all the progressive conversion issues vs passing interlace directly.

But didn't they warn you about that? That is the cost of other HTPC adavantges, if any.

[Dragonfly2337]

"As for picture detail, I agree that normal HTPC cards have problems because they are forcing interlace video though a progressive pipe which forces all the progressive conversion issues vs passing interlace directly.

But didn't they warn you about that? That is the cost of other HTPC adavantges, if any."

No, I never heard, or remember any mention, or warning of that.

Maybe I missed something along the way.

[SatStorm]

Yeap, you miss the fact that PC output the picture in a progressive way, while normal TVs look good on interlace material. So, PCs emulate interlace output but not always in the best way. You need software dedicated to do the best possible on this (search the tool sections)

Overall, having a HTPC is the best alternative if you have a LCD/Plasma TV or a Projector.

Oh, yes: If you can, set your TV output to 768x480 (NTSC) / 576 (PAL) and not to 720 x 480/576. Some times that helps overall (but I don't know if that is the case of the ATI cards here...)

[Dragonfly2337]

"You need software dedicated to do the best possible on this (search the tool sections)."

I tried but I could not find anything. I tried google but could not find anything either. Maybe I am not using the correct search term. Care to share the correct search term.

[edDV]

First, did you get your video card overlay settings correct for the S-Video out?

Next. What else are you looking to do?

[Dragonfly2337]

I tried the video card overlay settings but did not see any real big difference.

What else am I looking into is what SatStorm talked about.

[Nelson37]

Basic solution to original problem is to increase the brightness setting on the PC.

How exactly is your "Regular Cable" connected to the TV? This is important since this is your baseline for comparison.

ATI TV-Out typically significantly darker than PC display. Not a huge difference, but noticeable.

[Dragonfly2337]

Regular cable is connected by coax RG-6 cable.

Will try the brightness setting this morning.

[edDV]

I tried the video card overlay settings but did not see any real big difference.

What else am I looking into is what SatStorm talked about.

You need to solve that basic problem first. If the controls don't work, reinstall the x300 Catalyst driver.

Here are typical S-Video outputs from an ATI Radeon. In this case it was a 9550 recaptured with a Canopus ADVC-100.

Desktop to S-Video:




Theater Mode to S-Video:

[Dragonfly2337]

Thank you for the captures. I tried taking a stab at the video card settings and have almost come to the point of making it appear exactly like having cable connected to your TV. It still appears somewhat soft but that I can live with probably the problem with that is the progressive/interlaced phenomonen. I think that the artifacts are actually coming from the video out of the video card. There appears to be no artifacts on the computer monitor only on the TV monitor so one would think that it is the S-Video out to TV that is making the difference.
Next Objective,
Burn a movie from the captured TV signal that Beyond TV recorded and watch to see if there are any artifacts.
Buy a better S-video cable and connected it up from computer to tv and check for artifacts.

[edDV]

I'd suggest playing a DVD to separate tuner issues from display card issues. Try a normal movie DVD to test progressive performance. Most are progressive. Next test an interlace DVD such as one recorded on an external DVD recorder or a commercial live TV recording (e.g. sports, Saturday Night Live or other live recorded events). This will test the deinterlacing features of the software player and card.

Anything coming from an internal tuner is likely to be interlace. 720p HDTV is the exception.

If your TV has analog component or DVI-HDMI inputs, you will get much better perfomance from a card upgrade to x1000 series AVIVO or Nvidia PureVideo. http://ati.amd.com/technology/avivo/products.html

PS: Don't spend too much on an S-Video cable unless it goes long length (>25ft).
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/s-video.html

[Dragonfly2337]

Brilliant! Thank You for the trouble shooting tip. Will definately be trying that later.

[Dragonfly2337]

Hopefully this week I will have time to try.

[Dragonfly2337]

Having nothing but problems trying to get system to become my replacement PVR/DVR. I get one thing fixed and then along comes another. Formated, reinstalled so many times its not even funny anymore. I am using MCE right now it works ok and I don't have any issue with artifacts in the picture when viewing on the the TV. I could not get either Beyond TV or MCE to be as bright as cable pumped right into the TV. The burned DVD's appear as bright as TV. So it must have something to do with the video card. I do have an ATI Radeon X600 and not a X300 my mistake on that one. My current problem is using ConvertXtoDVD producing a jittery DVD from the MCE captures. Will be posting that in a separate posting. Thank You for all your help I'm about to abort this mission.

[edDV]

It seems your problems are video card related but I have no experience with the x600. PAL "brightness" is either a capture (A/D) or an export (D/A) issue. Since you have no problem with DVD encoding, all eyes stare at the x600 card and its drivers.

[Dragonfly2337]

edDV I agree it must be the X600 and its drivers.

What I currently am having problems with, started a new post.

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=315772&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

[lacywest]

Good stuff