Video quality lacking - Printable Version

Video quality lacking - Printable Version

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Video quality lacking - ijourneaux - 2012-10-07

Yesterday, I configured NPVR and the XBMC NPVR addon. The process went relatively smoothly. When watching liveTV from within XBMC I noticed that the video quality is not very good. It looks like there are significant interlacing artifacts when there is side-to-side motion in the video.

Is this a result of something I haven't got configured correctly?

Also when you click on a channel, right now it opens up a small window for the video and I have to click on the vidoe to get it to go full screen, Is it possible to get the default behavior to be full screen?

The speed changing channels is quite good. I am looking forward to continuing the evaluation and looking forward to improvements.

Ian

RE: Video quality lacking - itsonlyme - 2012-10-07

I have found no problem with video quality, however this morning I "Upgraded Huh

?" to the then latest incarnation of OpenElec and found that the NPVR addon no longer works. Tomorrow I shall check and see if I can make a newer version.

RE: Video quality lacking - ijourneaux - 2012-10-07

When there is only alittlemotion in the vidoe, the quality is excellent but if there is any side to side motion, there is significant tearingthat looks like an interlacing issue.

So when NPVR serves up a video stram, is it NPVR hthat handles the video decoding or is it XBMC?

RE: Video quality lacking - sub3 - 2012-10-07

(2012-10-07, 16:55)ijourneaux Wrote: Yesterday, I configured NPVR and the XBMC NPVR addon. The process went relatively smoothly. When watching liveTV from within XBMC I noticed that the video quality is not very good. It looks like there are significant interlacing artifacts when there is side-to-side motion in the video.

Is this a result of something I haven't got configured correctly?

The NextPVR addon is not doing the playback itself, so video quality issues will just come down to your xbmc settings.

For deinterlacing, when you playing live tv, click the screen, then click the small film reel icon in the lower right to get the video settings, then enable deinterlacing.

Quote:Also when you click on a channel, right now it opens up a small window for the video and I have to click on the vidoe to get it to go full screen, Is it possible to get the default behavior to be full screen?

This is also an xbmc setting. I think you can go to Settings->Live TV->Playback, and uncheck the 'start playback minimized' setting, then it should start fullscreen when you click on a channel.

RE: Video quality lacking - ijourneaux - 2012-10-07

Thanks I will try those settings.

I also noticed that I am getting pauses in the playback and an indication that the video is buffering. NPVR and XBMC are on the same computer.

RE: Video quality lacking - Scout - 2012-11-08

Hello all,

A big thanks to everyone who is helping with the transition to PVR.I am always impressed with the amount of work that people put in to these transitions. We all benefit tremendously from the efforts of XMBC contributers.

I have been having some issues with the NPVR add-on (in Windows 7) and I was hoping to get some help with fixing them. I hope someone will be able to help me. I have read through all of the threads that I could find on the topic. With this in mind, I have:

- log files for both XBMC (with debugging enabled), and NPVR - just let me know what to do and I'll upload/email them (I can't add attachments in this forum yet).
- Installed the NShared.dll patch for the NPVR add-on
- Enabled the timeshift option in the NPVR add-on
- As per instructions, matched the NPVR add-on with the appropriate versions of XBMC-frodo (I have tried several versions).
- Configured NPVR to work outside of XBM
- tried countless other things that I have read in other threads.

NPVR itself is working beautifully - the video quality is great, and the channel changing speed is quick. I was very impressed.

However, this is not the case in XBMC.

Here are my three main problems at the moment with the NPVR XBMC add-on:

1. The video quality is poor (a big difference to what NPVR provides. Changing settings in XMBC - e.g. deinterlacing - only makes very modest differences).

2. The channel changing time is slow (at least 5 seconds between channels, and this varies between channels) and it frequently crashes - after changing channels 3-4 times the screen goes blank and the computer is non-responsive.

3. I too am getting pauses in the playback and an indication that the video is buffering. NPVR and XBMC are on the same computer.

I would greatly appreciate your help. I really hope that I can get this working. It is a wonderful PVR add-on (much simpler than most others).

On a side note, should it be possible to reproduce the same quality and performace of NPVR in XBMC? I understand that, when running the NPVR add-on in XBMC, XBMC takes care of the decoding, not NVPR. I have tried all of the PVR add-ons for Windows 7 and this one is the best that I have found.

Thank you in advance.

RE: Video quality lacking - Scout - 2012-11-08

any ideas?

RE: Video quality lacking - sub3 - 2012-11-08

(2012-11-08, 00:00)Scout Wrote: Here are my three main problems at the moment with the NPVR XBMC add-on:

1. The video quality is poor (a big difference to what NPVR provides. Changing settings in XMBC - e.g. deinterlacing - only makes very modest differences).

I cant say I've noticed anything wrong with the XBMC picture quality, other than needing to turn on deinterlacing. Admittedly I've not spent a lot of time looking closely at XBMC decoding capabilities though. You milage may vary though depending on the source material and your video card etc. I'm using H.264 HD/SD DVB-T broadcasts and MPEG2 SD DVB-S broadcast and Intel HD 4000 video.

At the end of the day NextPVR just delivers the original broadcast transport stream to XBMC, so in theory the video delivered from the NextPVR addon should be no better or worse than any of the other PVR addons.

Quote:2. The channel changing time is slow (at least 5 seconds between channels, and this varies between channels) and it frequently crashes - after changing channels 3-4 times the screen goes blank and the computer is non-responsive.

The channel changes are pretty slow. The NextPVR addon is delivering channel data to XBMC in less than a second, but unfortunately XBMC usually spends 3-4 seconds seconds in an ffmpeg function called avformat_find_stream_info() before it'll start showing anything. To date I've been unable to find any way around this, but I have posted questions to XBMC devs to ask what can be done.

Regarding the crash, you'll probably need to post the xbmc.log and web.log so I can take a look.

Quote:3. I too am getting pauses in the playback and an indication that the video is buffering. NPVR and XBMC are on the same computer.

I'm not aware of any known problem that could cause this. How is the CPU usage at the time? Do you get this on both HD and SD channels?

Quote:On a side note, should it be possible to reproduce the same quality and performace of NPVR in XBMC?

There is no reason why the picture quality shouldn't be as good as NextPVR. I expect it's always going to have slower channel changes than the NextPVR frontend, but I am sure we'll see some improvements on this in the near future.

RE: Video quality lacking - Scout - 2012-11-09

Thank you for your reply sub3. I do appreciate it.

With regard to the video quality, I'll keep playing around with the settings. When you say:

Quote:I'm using H.264 HD/SD DVB-T broadcasts and MPEG2 SD DVB-S broadcast...

Are these configurable in NPVR?

I have just built my HTPC and I am running an ATI HD7750. Maybe I should try using my Intel HD video for testing purposes.

Quote:The channel changes are pretty slow. The NextPVR addon is delivering channel data to XBMC in less than a second, but unfortunately XBMC usually spends 3-4 seconds seconds in an ffmpeg function called avformat_find_stream_info() before it'll start showing anything.

Yes, I thought that XBMC may still have a while to go on this side of the PVR. I hope the developers can speed up the channel changing. Outside of XBMC, PVRs seem to perform quickly in Windows. It would be great if the XBMC PVR interface can achieve the same speed as this.

Quote:Regarding the crash, you'll probably need to post the xbmc.log and web.log so I can take a look.

Currently, this forum won't let me upload any attachments. I do have my logs ready to go though. Is there any other way of uploading them for you?

Quote:I'm not aware of any known problem that could cause this. How is the CPU usage at the time? Do you get this on both HD and SD channels?

The CPU usage is minimal <15%. It happens intermittently on both SD and HD channels.

Thank you for your reply.

RE: Video quality lacking - sub3 - 2012-11-09

(2012-11-09, 02:06)Scout Wrote: With regard to the video quality, I'll keep playing around with the settings. When you say:

Quote:I'm using H.264 HD/SD DVB-T broadcasts and MPEG2 SD DVB-S broadcast...

Are these configurable in NPVR?

No - like all other PVR's you always get whatever the broadcaster uses. ie, in North America it's MPEG2 HD/SD. In the rest of the world is usually H.264 for HD, and MPEG2 for SD (and some exceptions - H.264 is also used for SD in some places like New Zealand, and Australia uses MPEG2 for HD, Colossus/HDPVR uses will get H.264 regardless of part of world).

Quote:
Quote:Regarding the crash, you'll probably need to post the xbmc.log and web.log so I can take a look.
Currently, this forum won't let me upload any attachments. I do have my logs ready to go though. Is there any other way of uploading them for you?

Create a thread on the NextPVR forums, and attach them there. (ie, click 'go advanced' when creating a post, then use the paperclip icon to attach your zip file.

RE: Video quality lacking - Scout - 2012-11-10

Thanks Sub.

I went to the NextPVR forum and read through some of the more recent posts there. I see that your new coding is about to be merged with the latest frodo nightly build - http://www.dotnetdevelopers.net/XBMC/xbmcpvr.html

Before I waste your time, I'll try the latests versions of the add-on, patch, and frodo nightly build.

I'll report back by creating a thread in the XBMC sub forum - http://forums.gbpvr.com/forumdisplay.php?54-XBMC - when I've tried this out.

I love your work.

Cheers mate.

RE: Video quality lacking - a_team - 2012-11-30

(2012-10-07, 18:09)sub3 Wrote: The NextPVR addon is not doing the playback itself, so video quality issues will just come down to your xbmc settings.

For deinterlacing, when you playing live tv, click the screen, then click the small film reel icon in the lower right to get the video settings, then enable deinterlacing.

Was having the same issue... Found this and Thank You! Perfect!

In my defense, I'm sure I would've eventually have figured it out. But still, thank you

RE: Video quality lacking - Oceangrace24 - 2012-12-12

I am having the same issues as Scout. I am setting up a brand new HTPC going straight from the PC to the TV via HDMI.
After spending a bunch of time playing with the different setttings, I was able to get the Quality on the NextPVR client excellent, but when I play it through XBMC, the quality isn't near as good. I have not tried the deinterlacing. I will try that and see if it helps. I spend a bunch of time last night getting rid of the video stutter and slow fps problems that a lot of people are experiencing. Most of the troubleshooting and guides are directed towards those that have a AVR. I am not using one, so it was a bit more challenging.

I love the look and feel of XBMC and hopefully it will improve, I understand how beta software works.
For now, I have WMC set up and it works beautifully with no video or audio issues. I may use that for now and play with XBMC until I get it to my liking .

RE: Video quality lacking - Huckster - 2012-12-12

I have the same issue with video quality. One thing I have noticed is that the quality is great if I back out to the main menu while video is playing, but when I select fullscreen my tv changes from 1902x1080p to 1920x1080@60hz. When it changes the video seems to get hazy/blurry. Is it possible to force XBMC to stay in the first resolution?

RE: Video quality lacking - PimpTwzt - 2013-02-24

Ok here is what I see. Hit O and look at the video details. On SD channels it says its running at 88% and HD is at 38% on vq Im guessing that means Video Quality because the audio or aq is running at 99% This is the reason the video quality is lacking, because it is not running at 100% like it should be. There are no settings to change this. What I what to know is how do we fix this?