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[esotericxa]

Hi all,
Have looked around a bit and can not find much on this. So sorry if repeating existing posts but.

To get a Monitor/TV to show the best picture, one can adjust things a bit of course.

However, for a PC based MC set up, you have a repeating string of similar control options as in:
ATI or Nvidia controls, then JRiver controls, then finally your TV controls all for at least brightness, contrast, colour and so on.  Not to mention refresh rates which can also be affected or controlled at each stage.

If you are using a good TV, it makes sense to me to pass the signal through untouched and do the fine tuning or calibration on the TV. Oh and let the TV switch to the refresh rate of the source material.

If you are using a PC monitor, you may have to make the adjustments earlier if the monitor cannot provide the controls or refresh rates and most PC monitors are pretty limited in this area.

I have been used to calibrating my TV by turning off all control on the video card playing material through the system and adjusting the TV.  Now this does not seem to work too well using JRiver. So I looked around JRiver and right clicking on the playing video screen brings up a list, second last item of which is "Color Controls".  These appear to be what are preventing me from seeing the original material necessary to calibrate my TV. You do not appear to be able to save the settings, or turn the feature off so that it effectively passes through the untouched material.  Brightness levels are clipped or amplified depending on where you move the sliders too and they appear to reset when JRiver is restarted.

This seems to be quite a strange feature if you want to pass the original signal through. It is probably great if you are using a basic video card and a basic PC monitor, but it is unworkable for a system that has full capabilities for calibration on the TV.  That is, unless you can completely turn the feature off and disable it.

In short, this makes JRiver potentially unsuitable for near professional level work. But as far as I can find, there is little or no alternative, it is generally an amazing and fantastic system except for this issue, oh and it is changing the refresh rate of TV channels to 24p when they are actually transmitting 50p. Strange. Only does this for TV I think.

Am I missing something? Can this feature "color controls" be turned off so that original untouched material is passed through? Thanks.

[Hendrik]

If you just don't touch the Color Controls (or reset them back to defaults, ie. 0/100/0/100), then they'll effectively be turned off and don't affect the image. If you're still seeing problems with the image, its likely not a setting in MC, but more likely in the graphics drivers.

[esotericxa]

I try to use JRiver for everything, music, videos, and TV and it is pretty amazing.

However, I always have to have alternatives, as in standalone 3d Bluray player and stand alone tuners etc.
Stuff that worked on JRiver, say TV tuners, suddenly start showing very low as in -5 to -20 signal strength with 100 quality. I did fin and easy fix for this but forgot to write it down.

I have been using it for about 3 years on several PCs.

Getting 3d bluray to work is difficult (and then screwed up the TV).

My best system has a Rotel 7.1 external processor and a Panasonic 3d Plasma. Just upgraded the PC to a Q6600, trying to debug on all fronts before putting in a SFF i7 with clean setup.

I can see why people go for hardware only (it mostly just works perfectly) and now mostly Netflix(which I will probably never use). This has to be a hobby. The fixes are simple when you find them but generally not documented. For example: no tv tuner available for scanning(when it is there), fixed by reset of TV settings, then trying scan with NO EPG, and doing EPG next. Also when EPG is updating OTA, again "no TV tuner" appears whilst.. Very frustrating and confusing till you cotton on. Message could be a lot better, as in please wait while OTA/EPG is updating..?

BTW I am getting this -5 to -20 signal strength on 4 tuners, on two PCs but STBs and TVs work perfectly on same signal, it is a setting some where?

Love it but...usability and doco need some focus. Hate to criticise as it is really a stellar, stellar effort and it is an amazing product. If I get to be a master of it I am happy to try to help with doco and usability suggestions. Thanks Colin