Hauppauge 250 and Shadows

[EAO]

Noticing pixelation in the shadows on TV captures from DIsh Network .

This includes captures on 'DVD standard' setting.

Don't know if it was always there or if their signal is worse or if my eye is getting more refined.

The problem is the shadows have more 'dancing pixelation' in them. I first noticed it on a Battlestar Gallactica capture. They use the format that has a band of black on the top and bottom of the screen. Instead of capping solid black, I notice slight variations in the black pixels. Some are darker and some lighter than the predominant black background. This is not the basic graduation of shade banding I see in a high contrast scene. There is some variation of darkness even within what should clearly be a uniform blackess.

I also notice it in the Matrix Reloaded in any dark scene.

Is there a reg setting that will smooth this out?
Is it related to poor image quality from Dish Network?
Is there a different card that clearly captures mpeg2 better than Hauppage?

[Barnabas]

Dish is only 480x480 res, and simply does not use enough bits on some channels.

[EAO]

I understand.

Is there a way to smooth out the pixelation?

Regedit maybe?

[GKar]

I had the same pixelated shadow/dark area problem with my Dazzle DVC II, its the lousy Dishnetwork signal. I tried evrything I could and then cancelled Dishnetwork, now I just rent from Netflix.com.

[EAO]

Netflix not total option. A lot not available, etc.

Is direct any better?

Still waiting to see if anyone knows of a regedit to maybe smooth it out without smearing motion.

[Barnabas]

C-Band satellite rather than KU-Band, which is compressed will give you a MUCH better picture, but needs a big dish.

[GKar]

Netflix not total option. A lot not available, etc.

Is direct any better?

Still waiting to see if anyone knows of a regedit to maybe smooth it out without smearing motion.

Sorry, forgot to mention, I rewatched certain movies looking specifically for the shadow areas and there was pixelation before I recorded the movie. Maybe HDTV sat recordings will improve the situation....

[yoda313]

Hi,

If directtv is really 480x480 have you tried capping at halfd1 dvd resolution???? It is 352x480 and is a dvd standard. Try recording at the preset halfd1 option that wintv has. It may lessen your problem. Give it a try.

Kevin

[junkmalle]

As others have pointed out the probem is in the Dish transmission. They use very low bitrates leading to lots of artifacts. Direct is no better. If you want to verify the PVR-250 is not the problem, use a 15,000 kbps constant bitrate for your captures. That's enough bitrate for just about any video signal. If you see artifacts at those rates they were in the signal before the PVR got it.

[EAO]

OK.

I conceed the Dish Network sucks.

Anyway to clean the pixelation up. Pre or post?

[yoda313]

Hi,

I know this may sound crazy but have you tried taping it to vhs (directly from the dish receiver)???? If it looks decent there you could then dub it to your pc.

You'll of course lose quality doing it that way but if theres no pixelation on the video tape than it might be worth the extra hassle of dubbing it twice.

Just a thought.

Kevin

[junkmalle]

OK.

I conceed the Dish Network sucks.

Anyway to clean the pixelation up. Pre or post?

Get a PVR that saves the Dish MPEG transport stream and lets you transfer (via hacked firmware) the file to your computer. Then use something like the MSU Deblocking filter with VirtualDubMPEG2 or VirtualDubMod to reduce the macroblocks.

[EAO]

Wanted to test this last night. Too late to do anything but run. Will look at the file today.

Curious...

How do you keep the file from being freakin huge! Over 40 gig! Or is this the drawback to using the filter?

[GKar]

Wanted to test this last night. Too late to do anything but run. Will look at the file today.

Curious...

How do you keep the file from being freakin huge! Over 40 gig! Or is this the drawback to using the filter?

Is that a 40GB mpeg2?? Sounds more like an avi. I never used VirtualDubmpeg2, if this clears up the dark area macroblocks I may sign up for Dishnetwork again...keeps us updated.

[yoda313]

hi,

It has to be a mpeg - that's all the wintv 250 records to.

kevin

[junkmalle]

Wanted to test this last night. Too late to do anything but run. Will look at the file today.

Curious...

How do you keep the file from being freakin huge! Over 40 gig! Or is this the drawback to using the filter?

I'm guessing you used VirtualDub(MPEG2/Mod) and created an uncompressed AVI file from your MPEG cap -- hence the large file size. If your intention is to create an MPEG file for burning to DVD the best method is to frame server from VirtualDub to the MPEG encoder (VirtualDub will handle frames one by one and pass them to the MPEG encoder without saving to a file).

But you can't use the MSU Deblocking filter to remove MPEG macroblocks that are in the satellite MPEG transport stream if you're capturing from an analog signal. At best you will only be able to remove MPEG artifacts added by the PVR-250 when it captured. This is because the MSU Deblocking filter looks only on 8x8 pixel boundaries that make up MPEG macroblocks. The 8x8 blocks from the original transport stream are not necessarily maintained by the PVR-250. Since the transport stream is usually 480x480 and you're capturing 720x480 they certainly won't align horizontally.

That is why I suggested you have to use a satellite PVR that records the MPEG transport stream from the satellite and then use a hack to transfer the MPEG files from the PVR to the computer.

[Abbadon]

Hi,

I have seen the pixelation you mention, and there is no much you can do, specially if you are capturing from the S-Video out of the satellite receiver.

You could try to use the built in filters of the mpeg encoder chip and see if that helps.



I have been able to access them with Chris TV 4.50, but unfortunately I only capture VHS tapes at this moment.

[SHS]

Dish, DirecTV and even lot of Cable system you see pixelation and ever odd ball artfact in REALtime there no way around this problem.
I'm not what mean by shadows on TV captures can upload a short clip so can get better look at what your talk about being I used to be on Dishnetwork byt the way what model dsih box do you have?.

[SatStorm]

I re-encode my crappy DVB sources, and filtering them at the same time
I use Virtualdub mpeg 2 (not the latest version, is buggy...)

I load direct my dvb mpeg 2 source and I use this filter combination by default

msu_deblocking
Static Noise Reduction (interlace, 8 )
Dynamic Noise Reduction MMX ( 7 )
msu_smartsharpen
resize (352 x 576 - I'm PAL)

then I frameserve to my favorite encoder

Of course, really bad DVB sources, need heavy filtering. Rising the static noise reduction to values like 12 - 14 helps a lot (never rise dynamic noise reduction above 8 )
Sometimes, even 2d cleaner is needed!

Just remember the step BEFORE resizing, add a sharpness filter