Reason for visible blockness by TV-out?

[ppera2]

What is the reason that by watching DVD and DivX on TV from computer blockness is more visible? It looks similar when on monitor we have 16 bit color depth. Maybe answer is here exactly - as I see many TV encoder chips work with limited number of bits - 10,12...

[scharfis_brain]

This may be a problem with your video-overlay.

If you setup your TV-Out in the way, that it is the only Video-Output, it should work fine.

TVTool helps alot configuring the TV-Out.

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

>Maybe answer is here exactly - as I see many TV encoder chips work with limited number of bits - 10,12...

no,it's not........
if nothing,i see less blocking on tv-out (as it should be)

check output res.,brightness/contrast settings (most folks think
the thing that works for tv program will be ok for tv-out too...)

i have tnt2+bt869 and it's very good tv-out solution...
off course tv-tool..........
hell,i can make 320x240 divx watchable with tvtool on 800x600,ffdshow
with a bit of noise and sharpening...
usuall video res. is 768x576,
640x480 doesn't sound promising (never tried it for video)

[ppera2]

Why you guys think that everybody has nVidia based cards?

Also TNT2 card <> TNT2 card. TV out depends mostly from card, not main chip(set). Actually it depends mostly from used PAL(NTSC) encoder chip and quality of implementation.

I don't think that overlay setting has anything with all this, of course when display is set to true color.

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

Originally posted by ppera2
Why you guys think that everybody has nVidia based cards?

Also TNT2 card <> TNT2 card. TV out depends mostly from card, not main chip(set). Actually it depends mostly from used PAL(NTSC) encoder chip and quality of implementation.

I don't think that overlay setting has anything with all this, of course when display is set to true color.

we're not thinking everybody has nvidia!
we're saying what works for us!if you can't draw any conclusions from our experiences,and your statement is that tv-out cards generally "produce blocking" (tv out chip only displays what he "sees" it doesn't add blocks or so....),then don't use them....how many tv-out cards have you tested anyhow? all? they all had blocking? check your encoding,not tv-out hardware/software.........

also,have you expected that blocks would look smaller on that tv bigger screen?

as i said ,i generally prefer tv-out to monitor mainly because monitor is too small to watch video,and tv has that anti-alias effect to smooth image a bit,so it doesn't have sharpness of monitor,but ffdshow is a choice to tweak tv-out sharpness....tv-out software should have sharpness control too.........bit of tweaking and results is really nice...

also:i think we are just saying that we didn't saw this "problem"...
to say that tv-out generally has more blocking is silly statement....

>I don't think that overlay setting has anything with all this, of course when display is set to true color.

i agree;when overlay didn't kicked in playback is very jerky....not real plb at all.........

next time state your hardware/problem,and perhaps someone can help....

so much from me

/ivo

[ppera2]

Maybe I didn't expressed myself correct with that 'blockness'.
I meant that color tranzition is more visible. It is not square shape, but random, and best is noticable in dark scenes, when compression is higher and bigger areas are in same color.
On monitor it is barely noticable, but on TV is sometimes too visible.
I'm not talking about because I have this problem - I can see it very rare with my encodings and my V3 3500 card (still has better TV out than many new cards, including 'famous; 'ATI' cards).

Probably worst, what I saw is one cheap Savage card, therefore I suspect that it has something with bitdepth of PAL encoder.

[digitaladvisor]

Originally posted by ppera2
Maybe I didn't expressed myself correct with that 'blockness'.
I meant that color tranzition is more visible. It is not square shape, but random, and best is noticable in dark scenes, when compression is higher and bigger areas are in same color.
On monitor it is barely noticable, but on TV is sometimes too visible.
I'm not talking about because I have this problem - I can see it very rare with my encodings and my V3 3500 card (still has better TV out than many new cards, including 'famous; 'ATI' cards).

Probably worst, what I saw is one cheap Savage card, therefore I suspect that it has something with bitdepth of PAL encoder.

You are correct - the encoder chip vary greatly in quality, the owrst being the philips encoder for grain and block prone. The TVTOOL web site confirms all these facts.

The BT encoder along with Coxenant (if you find them fitted on nvidia ) are quite good.

The Nv17 encoder on nvidia integrated along with Chromtel are okay with Chromtel being unpredictable in quality and shimmering and line crawl are common in Pal in overscan via TV TOOL.

I have been all through nvidia cards looking for the best Tv output as I wanted it to match or be on par with a GOOD DVD plater for TV.

Was that possible?

Well when I finally went over to Radeon starting with 7500 I was delighted with TV quality and DivX playback looked smoother.

But I was unhappy with it accelleration factored performance - so I went upto a Radeon 9100 (same as 8500) well I hit the 'holy grail' - the quality and smoothing techniques used on the overlay with proper gamma settings and more accellerated MPEG decoding capbility on the card breathed new life even into some of my earlier DivX collections.

I played Harry Potter 2 recently and this movie has a heavy dark emphasis all through it with misty scenes and candle light settings and heaps of subtle tones in browns and greys, particurally the castle wall scenes.

The Spider lairs den was perhaps the most tricky one.

Now I compared with TV output from a nVidia with BT chipset and came to the following conclusion:

The radeon accurately rendered fine detailed levels of blacks and subtle mist scenes and the Spider lairs scene showed no evidence whatsoever of pixelations! It was like looking into the 3d rendering of the spiders which of course were shades of greys to rich blacks.

On the nvidia getting the gamma level right was coarse and difficult and the card showed signs of pixelation in dark scenes and the Spider lair scene came across flat, dark, dull and uninteresting.

The test was carried on a Sony 36" TV with sharpness level turned up to 100% using a QUAD shielded SVHS cable into the TV. The TV is not high definition - it is however a PAL set.

IMHO, the Radeon 9100 has the edge over the NVidia for a more high end TV experiences of movies. Even better then some more up market DVD players.

Another thing by moving to Radeon 9100 I noticed it was faster then a G2 MX400 and a G4 MX440. Somewhere just a tad under the speed perception of a nvidia ti4200.

The Radeon card has got its own specialised chipset, overscan and very precise resizing of the Windows desktop are all possible. This gets rid of annonying too much overscan and underscan on a TV.

The specific video standards worldwide can be detected by your country code embedded in your Windows config and there is a feature to turn on Component progressive or interlaced (If dongle fitted $20) as well as widescreen formats for 16:9 TV displays.

The card came DVI-D and I am awaiting the delivery of a LG 60" widescreen HD rear projection. This model has DVI-D and will ACCURATELY interact with the DVI-D radeon outputs just like a high res computer widescreen monitor. Digital to Digital connection fro Video.

Opinion is therefore in favour of the Radeon and if you wre wanting to stay with Radeon and get the beefy games side of things up to par you would have to get a Radeon 9500 upwards if your into high end gaming.

Regards

DA

[ppera2]

ATI is currently better in 3D than nVidia, also TV out and video playback is better, no doubt.

But I don't like one thing - picture can't fill TV vertically. Always remains 1 cm black at top and bottom. I tried with Radeon 7200, couple Radeon 9000 and 9100 cards from diverse manufacturers.

I think that PAL is limiting factor of quality, so I will try to put RGB TV out om my card soon...

[Valky]

Originally posted by ppera2
ATI is currently better in 3D than nVidia, also TV out and video playback is better, no doubt.

But I don't like one thing - picture can't fill TV vertically. Always remains 1 cm black at top and bottom. I tried with Radeon 7200, couple Radeon 9000 and 9100 cards from diverse manufacturers.

I think that PAL is limiting factor of quality, so I will try to put RGB TV out om my card soon...

I have also this same limiting thing with Ge2 mx. It can't fill the whole picture not even when using tv-tool so dont expect any miracles.
There is always this little black border on the edges. There is an option in tvtool to use 'full screen' -output, but it doesn't show the whole picture either. If you watch 4:3 movies it doesn't show the whole picture. edges from movie are now somewhere in twilight zone so example hard-subtiles can be out of the screen completely if they are positioned very near of bottom in movie.

[digitaladvisor]

Originally posted by ppera2
ATI is currently better in 3D than nVidia, also TV out and video playback is better, no doubt.

But I don't like one thing - picture can't fill TV vertically. Always remains 1 cm black at top and bottom. I tried with Radeon 7200, couple Radeon 9000 and 9100 cards from diverse manufacturers.

I think that PAL is limiting factor of quality, so I will try to put RGB TV out om my card soon...

Hi pper2

But to appreciate DVD movies you use PowerDVD in a suitable 16:9 balance on the TV or the lastest Divx player even going to semi 4:3 aspects.

But so do not like black bars at all. Some cannot this lack of precise screen filling. The radeon however can be tweaked into OVERSCAN by a tweaking tool called Rage3d.

You get very minor clawback on the right vertical however and it hardly noticable. This is so minor I do not consider an issue when traded off to the quality of oridnary Tv output on radeons.

Everyone who has seen the DVD playback and who own computer and do it like this has commented on the quality and some have not even noticed the monor shortcomings.

Tweak3d makes it vitually disappear. It is not a Pal problem it is an issue with 5% overscan issue with TV's. Factory settings can have this a high as 10% on factory overscanning. This is unaccptable.

TV overscan and underscan is a inprecise science on nearly all cards.

You could fix even the above by changing the veritical squeeze or even the horizontal by adjusting the sub setting but you'll need either a tech or a guide to get into those settings.

The ultimate fix is of course the new generation TV with easy access to vertical and horizontal adjustments on Euro configurable/SD/HD TV's.

This should resolve your dislike of any black bars whatsoever. Suggest you get a hold your factory setting access if it bothers you that much - this is particurally true if your got an expensive large screen Tv display already and you want to get to see it through its life cycle before you want to upgade again in 5 years or so.

When you are referring RGB are you meaning RGBi like the Euro scart stasndard (RGB interlaced timings)? There are many derivatives of RGB. Computer based RGB is really RGBHV.

You may have the same issue still in RGBi. IMHO I am getting RGBi quality already.

Regards

DA

[ppera2]

When make RGB TV out you need to make simple circuit for convert H and V sync pulses into composite sync, and propriate level for TV.
RGB signals go directly from VGA output.

Benefit is sharper picture without encoding/decoding distorsions and similar.

I can put Vertical size regulator on outside of TV, but it is not solution...

[digitaladvisor]

Originally posted by ppera2
When make RGB TV out you need to make simple circuit for convert H and V sync pulses into composite sync, and propriate level for TV.
RGB signals go directly from VGA output.

Benefit is sharper picture without encoding/decoding distorsions and similar.

I can put Vertical size regulator on outside of TV, but it is not solution...

If is the circuit your referring to it also requires setting low frequencies in the graphic card. It is very iffy and touchy. You have to force the Vertical and Horizontal sync to very low levels.

It may not work with some graphic cards. As well this may not work in WindowsXP without resorting to heavy handed editing of Windows profiles in the registry. It is possible to destroy a computer monitor with those low frequencies and burn out the TV if settings get 'through' that are too high.

If you a tech or tech minded howrver and handy with soldering iron you may do well with it.

I would not try it myself besides my Sony does not RGBi inputs there is no point.

In evaluation of RGBi on the TVTOOL web site the quality jump was not worth it IMHO.

The overscan turning on ability by Rage3d ultility on the Sony 80cm is almost perfect anyway from a Radeon. I am happy with it.

Regards

DA

[ppera2]

Of course I thought that card will work then in TV out mode via it's regular driver, but instead using PAL or NTSC composite signal we will use RGB. Ehhh, just got idea: maybe no need for sync convert circuit - we have it in composite signal already!

Yes, it will work only with cards with TV out, but today almost every card has it, and of course RGB out may not work on all cards.

Forcing non-TV out card to work on TV frequency is also possible, but it requires good knowledge of Windows programming etc.
I wrote DOS driver for VGA card to work on 50 Hz, but it was pretty simple.

Btw. my monitor works well on 50 Hz freq. It is rarer case, of course, but newer monitors have protection, and will switch off when receive incorrect freq.