Why cant I adjust motion compensation, etc with my wintv pvr usb2 in 4.1?

[loudog3114]

I cant seem to find any adjustments that I can make to image quality... are they gone?

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by loudog3114

I cant seem to find any adjustments that I can make to image quality... are they gone?

I'm pretty sure that because the external tuner has a "hardware" based encoder, those parameters are pre-programmed. I don't know how much flexibility you can get from an encoder that is actually firmware on the tuner card. With the ATI AIW, that is a software based encoder, so you have much more user interaction built in.

That's just my guess. There may be registry "hacks" that will turn on or off various features or give you some adjusting capability for the hardware based encoder, but I'm not entirely sure.

[Bilar Crais]

I am reasonably sure that the motion compensation controls in 3.4 were for softare encoding cards.


There are many recording parameters that you can manipulate on your Hauppauge, but motion compensation isn't one of them.

Here's a third party program I use to adjust the pre-filter settings on my PVR-250. Unlike some generic tweakers or registry tweaks that were intended for use in Hauppauge's native PVR, this one works with third party programs such as BTV. It's trialware; at least you can see if it's something you can use before you buy.

http://www.chris-pc.com/tweak/index.html

[Rich A]

Hey many thanks for that Bilar. Many moons ago when that "tweak" program was first being developed I tried it. At that time it had an assortment of bugs and had limited functionality. I put it aside and forgot about. I see now it's MUCH more polished and looks like a VERY nice add-on to use with BTV. Thanks for the information.

This brings up a question. Is there any way to have certain tweaks only work for certain BTV mpeg profiles? In my case I have one or two channels that could really benefit from some "noise reduction" as well as other things. But the rest are fine. I could make two different mpeg profiles in BTV and when recording only that show use the tweaked settings, but for all others use a profile without the tweaked settings. Is that possible?

[Bilar Crais]

Originally Posted by Rich A

Is that possible?

Hi ya Rich -

I recently spoke with the author about the possibility for custom profiles...I was thinking of one for my rotten analog cable, and another for digital cable, which would require little if any filtering. It's on the agenda for the next release.

How one would incorporate the BTV profiles I can't imagine, but he's very receptive to input. He's even going to have ChrisTweak monitor a record folder, so that when BTV starts a recording, your preset filter profile will be applied. (all of the prefilter settings currently work with BTV, but BTV changes sharpness settings to default vlaue of 2 upon record initialization. This would override that behavior.

Someday we'll all be HD and we won't have to be concerned about such things.

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by Bilar Crais

Hi ya Rich -

I recently spoke with the author about the possibility for custom profiles...I was thinking of one for my rotten analog cable, and another for digital cable, which would require little if any filtering. It's on the agenda for the next release.

How one would incorporate the BTV profiles I can't imagine, but he's very receptive to input. He's even going to have ChrisTweak monitor a record folder, so that when BTV starts a recording, your preset filter profile will be applied. (all of the prefilter settings currently work with BTV, but BTV changes sharpness settings to default vlaue of 2 upon record initialization. This would override that behavior.

Someday we'll all be HD and we won't have to be concerned about such things.

Ah ... "you're a good man, Charlie Brown". heh heh. Exactly my situation. I think I'll purchase it (it's relatively cheap and we have to support his work after all). Even without the ability to apply different profiles, it's going to be worth it for me. I can always find an "average" between two extremes and come up with one middle ground setting that should help one without hurting the other.

Thanks again.

[Bilar Crais]

Originally Posted by Rich A

I can always find an "average" between two extremes and come up with one middle ground setting that should help one without hurting the other.

That's what I've done. When used with a third party app such as BTV, no NR is applied to the capture. In WinTV, Hauppauge has temporal filtering set statically at 8, which nearly everyone agrees, results in motion "trails" (too aggressive). But they do at least have NR enabled, and I think that is why a number of people think that WinTV has a better picture than BTV.

The ChrisTweak default filters are set for dynamic temporal and spatial filtering. I've played around quite a bit, and finally settled on a static temporal level of between 4 and 6, with everything else disabled. At that setting, I think it does a good job of cleaning up the cable, while leaving the digital cable seemingly untouched. Theoretically, dynamic NR should be ideal for a multitude of conditions, but it seems to me it doesn't react fast enough. You'll have to play around I guess. Have fun.

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by Bilar Crais

That's what I've done. When used with a third party app such as BTV, no NR is applied to the capture. In WinTV, Hauppauge has temporal filtering set statically at 8, which nearly everyone agrees, results in motion "trails" (too aggressive). But they do at least have NR enabled, and I think that is why a number of people think that WinTV has a better picture than BTV.

The ChrisTweak default filters are set for dynamic temporal and spatial filtering. I've played around quite a bit, and finally settled on a static temporal level of between 4 and 6, with everything else disabled. At that setting, I think it does a good job of cleaning up the cable, while leaving the digital cable seemingly untouched. Theoretically, dynamic NR should be ideal for a multitude of conditions, but it seems to me it doesn't react fast enough. You'll have to play around I guess. Have fun.

Oh goodie .. I haven't screwed up anything for at least 24 hours. Now's my chance.