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Windows => Television => Topic started by: audiodoctor on December 12, 2018, 11:07:12 am

Title: severe pixellation [Solved]
Post by: audiodoctor on December 12, 2018, 11:07:12 am

playback and recordings are interrupted with blotches looking like weak signal- all stations. Tuner is a Hauppauge Win TV Dual HD. The performance in Win TV 8.5 is flawless. Is Hauppague's quad HD PCI tuner any better?

Title: Re: severe pixellation
Post by: ErikN on December 12, 2018, 11:38:46 am

I own both their dual and quad pcie tuners. The quad is good though runs a little hot for my taste. For me, there is no reception quality difference between the two.

Are you saying that your existing dual tuner produces bad recordings in MC but perfect ones with WinTV?

For signal strength, there is a standalone Hauppauge signal strength utility (displays strength, correctable and uncorrectable error rates). I used this to position my antenna. You run the utility while MC is recording a show on tuner #0. It then displays the real-time signal details. You can go through various channels and get a broad view of your signal quality.

MC has it's own signal strength info but you get more detailed results using Hauppauges own tool alongside MC.

Title: Re: severe pixellation
Post by: audiodoctor on December 12, 2018, 03:32:40 pm

Yes, recordings done with WinTV are fine. Both viewing and recording in MC are fubar. ATSC antenna with line of sight to towers. I'll try Hauppague's antenna utility. Also ordered the quad PCI board.

Title: Re: severe pixellation
Post by: Yaobing on December 12, 2018, 03:56:07 pm

Are you using RO standard or HQ?  If HQ, did you make any customization of madVR?  Try switching to RO standard.

Title: Re: severe pixellation
Post by: ErikN on December 12, 2018, 04:40:19 pm

If the goal of RO vs HQ is to see if it is simply a playback issue, audiodoctor can also just try playing a WinTV recording (if it can save to disk?) with MC. Or play an MC recording using vlc, ffplay, etc.

Title: Re: severe pixellation
Post by: audiodoctor on December 14, 2018, 12:20:49 pm

I've tried both, no difference. The Hauppauge signal strength utility indicates a perfect signal. The problem reverts to a frozen screen eventually.

Title: Re: severe pixellation
Post by: ErikN on December 14, 2018, 01:17:31 pm

Have you tried recording in MC and playing that recording with another player (likely not windows media player because Win8/10 dropped OS mpeg2 support). If so, what happens?

Similarly, can WinTV save a recording? If so, what happens when this is played by MC?

The goal is to determine if the problem is a corrupt recording is just bad play back of a recording.

Title: Re: severe pixellation
Post by: audiodoctor on December 14, 2018, 01:45:04 pm

Just tried playing back a recording made with WinTV- perfect. So, looks like something is going wrong in the recording end.

Title: Re: severe pixellation
Post by: Yaobing on December 14, 2018, 06:25:39 pm

When you watch live TV, do you use time-shifting mode?  If so, does the situation improve if you cancel time-shifting?

Title: Re: severe pixellation
Post by: audiodoctor on December 15, 2018, 01:38:22 pm

I installed a new QuadHD card and the problem went away.
Now, I need to figure out why only one of the tuners is recognized.

thanks
Cornell