I've been messing around with MCE and iv managed to get digital quality for Live TV and Recordings. Now because not everyone has the same system specs, these settings may not work for everyone. I'm currently using a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150MCE and i highly recommend this capture card. I've used an all-in-wonder card in the past which uses software encoding and it doesn't even come close to the video quality of a hardware encoding capture card.
First off, before you make any changes to your system, do yourself a favor and make a backup. I use Acronis True Image, and it has never let me down. Using windows System Restore just doesn't cut it.
If you aren't using InterVideo as your DVD Decoder, go get it now. It comes with WinDVD and i highly recommend you get the Platinum version. Then make sure you’re using it as you default video decoder using Microsoft’s "Video Decoder Checkup Utility". Also another tip, if your updating your video decoder i recommend you uninstall any previous versions and run a registry cleaner before installing the latest version.
With regards to motion blurring and choppiness. To fix this problem i enabled DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) and Hardware Motion Compensation (HWMC) through the registry. These settings seem to be apart of the video decoder, and i've read that not all video cards support these settings.
Here are my registry settings:
note* you'll have to restart your computer before any registry changes take effect.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\InterVideo\Common\VideoDec]
"DsContinuousRate"=dword:00000001
"DXVA"=dword:00000001
"HWMC"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\InterVideo\Common\VideoDec]
"DsContinuousRate"=dword:00000001
"DXVA"=dword:00000001
"HWMC"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\InterVideo\MCE\VideoDec]
"DsContinuousRate"=dword:00000001
"Dxva"=dword:00000001
Try these settings, they should make a difference. Aslo make sure "DsContinuousRate" is set to 1 or the video will stick when ff and rw'ing. The settings above seem to work just fine.
Here's my EncodingQuality settings:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Recording]
"EncodingQuality" 3000000, 4500000, 6000000, 8500000
Here are some other Hauppauge WinTV settings that make a nice difference. The first thing you want to do is add the below "HcwSaveEncoderSettings" to your registry. This will allow the below settings to save after you restart your computer. After you add this to your registry restart your computer before making any further changes.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hcwPP2\DriverData]
"HcwSaveEncoderSettings"=dword:00000001
Now that your settings will save you can use GraphEdit to make some changes. Using GraphEdit, go to: Graph > Insert Filters > Multiplexer Devices > Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Encoder and Insert Filter. Then right click on the filter and select properties. Under the "Hauppauge ECP Video" tab change the Bitrate Average to "6000", the Peak to "12000" and P Spacing to "1". Then under the "Dynamic Noise Reduction" tab i changed the "Temporal Static Level" to 0. Try changing this to something between 0 and 3, so see what looks best for your system.
You can also adjust the sharpness of you Hauppauge WinTV card, although i find the default setting is fine. With the current drivers the default settings is 4.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hcwPP2\DriverData]
"HcwSharpness"= "4" note* the default setting may be different.
Okay one more setting, search through your registry for "DefAvgBitRate". Increasing the Decimal value for this registry setting seems to make a big difference in picture quality. The default settings is something like "20000000", try settings this value to "85000000" or even higher. I've actually set this value to as high as "850000000" count the zeros, and the picture quality got significantly better. I suggest trying to find the highest value your computer will handle without any problems.
I hope this helps some of you out there. I can now watch Live TV and Recordings on a 57" HDTV without any noticeable loss of quality. Here's a screenshot.
xpMCE 2005
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150MCE
InterVideo DVD Decoder