Hauppauge PVR USB 2

[jagabo]

I was up late night looking for channels for the patterns, couldn't find any. Maybe I need to get the AVIA dvd calibrator. What settings do all you guys with this card use?

The problem with that is you'll be calibrating to your DVD player which may have different output levels than what you record off air (or cable).

Inside the MPEG files, in the YV12 data, the luminance should range from 16 to 235 with occasional overshoots below and above that. Most programs that save frames (like VirtualDubMod) expand the 16-235 range to 0-255 and lose the overshoots. Assuming you're using one of those programs, you should shoot to have the blackest blacks around 0,0,0 (R,G,B) and the whitest whites around 255,255,255. That will get you close to the proper calibration.

Another thing you should keep in mind: televisions normally receive fuzzy video so they all (except the smallest) have sharpening filters. Computer monitors normally receive crystal clear signals from your graphics card and they don't sharpen the image at all. So when a computer monitor displays a video signal it won't look as sharp as it does on a TV.

That said, there are controls for sharpening the image in the Hauppauge PVR series. Unfortunately, Hauppauge doesn't give you access to them in WinTV2000. Amontillado's site has some registry tweaks for the PVR-250 and PVR-350 series. I don't know if he has them for the PVR USB2.

The best tool I've found for tweaking the sharpness is GraphEdit (aka GraphEdt). Add the Hauppauge WinTV PVR capture filter, right click on it and select Filter Properties. On the Video Proc Amp tab is the sharpness control. You can adjust it and see the results the WinTV2000 window in real-time. The setting is remembered when you exit GraphEdt.

[strongbad]

strongbad I make a DVD Test Patterns see here
http://www.shspvr.com/smf/index.php?topic=8475.0

Can I use the registry tweaks from http://www.cask-of-amontillado.com/htpc.html
on my usb2? The tips on that site is only for the PCI cards.

[strongbad]

Ok I finished fiddling with the settings on the card. I used that tweaking tool to fix the sharpness and colors.

Now, I'm trying to re-encode the master source into a DVD compliant DVD. I'm using DVD-Rebuilder with CCE. The program won't let me choose the mpeg2 as a source. It has to be an authored DVD folder. Is there any way around this? How am I supposed to author it when it's not even compliant. Am I supposed to just author it in TMPGENC and ignore the pop up and then run DVD-Rebuilder like that?

As far as the CCE customized Settings, it's got VBR Bias, Qual Prec, and VBR Passes. What setting should I have VBR Bias and Qual Prec at? I read about it in the Guides and understand what it's for, but what should be the middle ground to sacrifice one or the other?

[FulciLives]

Ok I finished fiddling with the settings on the card. I used that tweaking tool to fix the sharpness and colors.

Now, I'm trying to re-encode the master source into a DVD compliant DVD. I'm using DVD-Rebuilder with CCE. The program won't let me choose the mpeg2 as a source. It has to be an authored DVD folder. Is there any way around this? How am I supposed to author it when it's not even compliant. Am I supposed to just author it in TMPGENC and ignore the pop up and then run DVD-Rebuilder like that?

As far as the CCE customized Settings, it's got VBR Bias, Qual Prec, and VBR Passes. What setting should I have VBR Bias and Qual Prec at? I read about it in the Guides and understand what it's for, but what should be the middle ground to sacrifice one or the other?

You can just use CCE or a combination of either VirtualDubMod with CCE or AviSynth with CCE ... no reason to use DVD-Rebuilder as that is made for a DVD Rip.

CCE has a lot of settings so you might want to look for a good guide.

As I recall one of the best CCE guides is over at the doom9 website although I'm sure some are here as well.

You might also want to look in the guides for my guide on using AviSynth and Convolution3D which is one of the better "video noise" filters.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[strongbad]

What is the difference between Dolby Digital 256kbit/sec stereo and MP2 256kbit/sec stereo? On my dvd recorder it records in DD, but the hauppauge does MP2.

[FulciLives]

What is the difference between Dolby Digital 256kbit/sec stereo and MP2 256kbit/sec stereo? On my dvd recorder it records in DD, but the hauppauge does MP2.

Dolby Digital aka AC-3 uses a better form of compression than MP2 does so technically 256kbps AC-3 will sound better than 256kbps MP2 since the AC-3 has better compression and will "retain" more quality.

I would use the highest bitrate that MP2 is capable of (which is 384kbps) then convert to PCM WAV then convert to 256kbps AC-3 for the final DVD.

You never want to use MP2 on the final DVD as some DVD players have issues with MP2 audio. Also you can go straight from MP2 to AC-3 but it's better to go MP2 ---> PCM WAV ---> AC-3

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jagabo]

You never want to use MP2 on the final DVD as some DVD players have issues with MP2 audio.

I thought MP2 was part of the PAL DVD spec?

[FulciLives]

You never want to use MP2 on the final DVD as some DVD players have issues with MP2 audio.

I thought MP2 was part of the PAL DVD spec?

It never was for NTSC and only on PAL in the early days ... apparently now it is no longer "official" ... call me "cautious" or the fact I'm from the USA ... but I feel better using AC-3 or even PCM WAV if the video is under 60 or so minutes.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[SHS]

Dolby Digital aka AC-3 uses a better form of compression

John in my test I saw no real diff in the two compression maybe about 100k or so at the same bitrate but on the other hand it all really depend DD can go one higher bitrate setting then MP2.

[jagabo]

And DD supports more than two channels. That's only of consequence if you have more than two channels to encode though.

[yasha3055]

I bought the non-MCE Wintv USB2 PVR for my laptop a few weeks ago. At first when I set it up, it worked great. I bought it for the world cup and haven't used it since, and in the meantime I finally got around to installing SP2 for my Windows XP Home. Today I was just playing around and I noticed that Wintv no longer works well. When watching live tv the video is very choppy and unwatchable. I tried recording something, and when I go to watch it afterwards, it is also choppy and it is constantly doing this little blurp where it gets very pixelated with bright and large Red green and blue pixels.

Anybody have any idea what the problem may be? I've tried changing it to all the different video settings, such as DVD-long, VCD, mpeg2 etc. but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

-edit-
I forgot to mention that when I first open up Wintv, it runs fine. But slowly it starts to stutter every now and then, and it just gets progressively worse until after about 3 minutes it is unwatchable. Hopefully that is useful information.

[FulciLives]

I bought the non-MCE Wintv USB2 PVR for my laptop a few weeks ago. At first when I set it up, it worked great. I bought it for the world cup and haven't used it since, and in the meantime I finally got around to installing SP2 for my Windows XP Home. Today I was just playing around and I noticed that Wintv no longer works well. When watching live tv the video is very choppy and unwatchable. I tried recording something, and when I go to watch it afterwards, it is also choppy and it is constantly doing this little blurp where it gets very pixelated with bright and large Red green and blue pixels.

Anybody have any idea what the problem may be? I've tried changing it to all the different video settings, such as DVD-long, VCD, mpeg2 etc. but that doesn't seem to make a difference.

-edit-
I forgot to mention that when I first open up Wintv, it runs fine. But slowly it starts to stutter every now and then, and it just gets progressively worse until after about 3 minutes it is unwatchable. Hopefully that is useful information.

Check out the forum at the following website:

http://www.shspvr.com/

That would be your best resource for this capture device.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman