Not meaning to bash Media Center(so, don't take it the wrong way) but, I have been wondering this one for a while. Just wanted to hear it from the source. Sorry about the long post here. I have installed about 100-150 Media Centers in homes and offices and have heard this before.

As most video quailty issues wont be noticed on smaller tvs (under 32") but, when you get into larger 50-70"+ sets you really notice and even more on SD programming.

The other day I read a Review for a Niveus Media Rainier Edition 500HD Media Center PC system (Cost as tested: $7,697), so this is the top end of Media Center systems.

Here's the review..
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/hd-dvd-bluray/2875/niveus-media-rainier-edition-500hd-media-center-pc-system.html

The thing that catches my eye is ....(quote from review)
The Rainier's video processing with 1080i (interlaced) programs and standard-definition movies and TV shows was passably good but not stellar. It failed the full suite of tests on the Silicon Optix HQV Benchmark Blu-ray test disc, and some tests on the DVD version of the same — surprising for an ISF-certified piece of gear. Any shortcomings here won't be an issue for Blu-ray movie playback, since those discs are encoded at 1080p resolution. But it does mean that jaggies (stairstep artifacts) might appear on both 1080i high- and standard-def programs originating on video, particularly in shots with camera motion. (Sure enough, when I went looking for artifacts, I spotted some.)

I find this kind of hard to deal with on a system that starts at $4600 for a High end Media Center with only passably good video quality.

I even did my own tests. I have a USdigital HD box, and my Media Center with a Avermedia A180 or HDhomerun. I was able to get NBC Off air, and Did a A and B with a remote watching Jay Leno (1080i) I took the Attena connection and spit it between between my off air box and my media center. My Results were, noticable difference in color and detail. The cheapo($70) off air box looked far better than my $2500 media center system. This is after tweaking everything I could find on my TV and Media Center for picture perfomance.

I do know people can buy Nvidia or ATI cards but,.if you spend $200 or $700 on a video card, it helps but, still not as good as most off the shelf boxes. 

I know the media center offers more than your cable box/DTV box or Tivo but, the real question is when will Media Center catch up on the video quality that one could get out of a $60 box or a simple cable box ?

Is there anything that will enhance video processing or give better detail over all? Is there anything coming up that will handle this better ? Any real plans for this ?

---

-Dave

MCP, MCSA, MCSE 2003
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Technologists
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Sales professionals

Home theater specialist (10+ years)

I would guess that this has less to do with Media Center, and more to do with the quality of the tuners and video cards, and to some extent the video codecs as well. All media center is doing is taking the stream, and displaying it. There are numerous threads about the quality of different tuner cards, so obviosly there is a difference.

I suppose that Microsoft could maybe do some enhancing on the software side of things, but there are pros and cons to that as well. Just take a look at the avs forums on that.

Of course I could be completly wrong here. Anyone else have an idea?

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Foxer

One thing MS does to decrease quality if any video played through MC is to lighten the whole picture (blacka appear gray). You can fix this at least with an nVidia card using the newest drivers, but I find it odd that the picture for a given video is so different just between MC and WMP.

I am not going for quality of Media Player Vs. Media Center. This is to compaire what you will get from a standard STB or a Tivo for picture detail vs. using a Media Center system into a HD tv (RPS, Plasma, LCD, etc).

As I read the review, I wanted to hear from Micrsoft on what they have to say on this. I guess it's something people should wonder about, look at a $7000 piece of gear and they say the video is ok on it....

I am not trying to flame, I just want to know if there is any movement to get this better....

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-Dave

MCP, MCSA, MCSE 2003
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Technologists
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Sales professionals

Home theater specialist (10+ years)

On MediaCenter 2005, one's choice of MPEG2 decoders made a big difference on how the output appeared. Even if you're watching hdtv from an over-the-air source where the video does not need to be recompressed, you still need to go through the mpeg2 decoder to view it.

I don't have Vista, but I think you're forced to use Microsoft's MPEG2 decoder and I seriously doubt they put much effort into improving the quality of that component. The design and software of Extenders are made by microsoft and I see compression blocks / artifacts that were not evident when watching the video directly from mediacenter. There was a video quality comparison of the DVD player on the xbox360 with an off the shelf dvd player (think $50) and the xbox360 lost. So I think Microsoft needs to either re-engineer their codecs or license a better one. You can put a $10,000 video processor to improve the output, but it's only as good as the video that Mediacenter sends to it.

FWIW the blu ray HQV test disc runs in a third party app hosted in MCE independent of the MCE pipeline. If it failed so many of the HQV tests then the 3rd party decoder they were using has some issues that need to be sorted out. The jaggies tests are on 1080i content, something you will rarely encounter on BRD. For 1080i broadcast content you will use the MSFT decoder and in this case we will get inverse telecine and decent adaptive deinterlace if the GPU supports it and it is exposed in the proper manner via DXVA. MCE is bound by the performance of the GPU and its video process core (both AMD and NVDA have dedicated video processing silicon on their GPUs).

But you are absolutely right, there is a lot more that can be done to improve video quality in MC in general by all parties involved.

I transcoded/remuxed a lot of the HQV test content to run natively in the MCE pipeline. I found that, at least with NVIDIA, inverse telecine of 1080i content worked fairly well although recovery from lost cadence was sometimes slower than one would expect.

In your 1080i test your STB has the advantage of outputting at 1080i a 1080i signal. MCE will process to 1080p first, then the GPU re-interlaces to 1080i. So the image will get softer. There is an architectural disconnect on the platform here that currently prevents us from syncing/gen-locking to your display for doing "native" res output.

As far as difference in color, I can tell you that via DVI the color is correct. We process 709 and 601 color space accurately. The color is to spec in the frame buffer. If your connection is YPbPr I can tell you that all GPU vendors have issues with taking the RGB frame buffer back into the component space accurately.

Finally, yes, GPU based video processing is not nearly as good as dedicated silicon. And that is where the real issue lies IMHO. I would love to see anyone implement the Silicon Optix or Algolith technology on a modern GPU.

FWIW try these handy and totally unsupported reg keys:

This will enable a more efficient scaling path in the AV pipeline. On some GPUs it may result in a sharper image, on some it may get funky:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Debug\ehPresenter.dll]
"BoundByNativeSize"=dword:0

This will set your nominal range to video levels, the current defualt for MCE. Use with properly calibrated consumer displays and projectors. IE: devices set for 7.5IRE blacks.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Debug\ehPresenter.dll]
"NominalRange"=dword:2

This will set your nominal rante to 0-255 (PC levels) essentially doing "expanded blacks" use this with a typical PC monitor calibrated for blacks==0.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Debug\ehPresenter.dll]
"NominalRange"=dword:1

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Ian Kennedy - eHome TV Playback Test Lead
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Box:EVGA 730i,8600GTS,E6600,4GB,Seasonic PSU.Zalman HD160. 1x WD 1TB, 1x OCZ 32GB SSD. 2x OCUR /w CableCard. Win7 build 7227

iank:

But you are absolutely right, there is a lot more that can be done to improve video quality in MC in general by all parties involved.

<snip>

In your 1080i test your STB has the advantage of outputting at 1080i a 1080i signal. MCE will process to 1080p first, then the GPU re-interlaces to 1080i. So the image will get softer. There is an architectural disconnect on the platform here that currently prevents us from syncing/gen-locking to your display for doing "native" res output.

Thank you Ian, This is exactly what I wanted to hear. Just a view from what I was reading by someone who knows what is going on. 

Still to this day, I will watch tv or a recorded 1080i show on my media center and I'll say it looks good but, not great. This is what I am looking into here, as you see a $7000 system and they feel the same....

Riddle me this....

If media center is finally making it into the living room for a wider base (as I am reading about Media Center systems in a Audio/Video mag), this is the real question I have here.

As all video cards today are made for PCs, and not for HDTVs, why don't you work with a Vendor (Nvidia/ATI) to make a HTPC video card, something that is made for what I am looking for. Why spend $400-600 on a top of the line card that you can play games on when you only want it to get the best perfomance from a HTPC ?

Just think if the card could be made for the HTPC, it could be tweaked for Video and get the best perfomace from it, and also, I could see the cost come down for the hardware over time.

I think if this could happen, you could get the high end video market interested in the all in one box and PC in the living room.

Thoughts ?

PS. I am looking foward to trying these tweaks to see what a difference it makes.

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-Dave

MCP, MCSA, MCSE 2003
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Technologists
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Sales professionals

Home theater specialist (10+ years)

David -

You make some great points, I think it boils down to MS doesn't treat those of us here as typical users and they don't feel we are where they should invest their time.

Most people won't invest in a custom computer to be a HTPC and buy multiple X360s.

As for your other point...

I see no reason we can't have videophile cards when they have audiophile cards...

Its not about pixel pushing as it is crushed blacks, excellent scaling etc.

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My VMC setup:
(2) Xbox360s
Dell XPS410 (2.6Ghz C2D, 2GB Ram,Nvidia 8600GT, Blu-ray internal, HD-DVD external (X360 drive), (2) Vboxx DTA150s (OTA HD), 1 HVR-1150 (OTA HD) and Dish Network

rgreenpc:

David - You make some great points, I think it boils down to MS doesn't treat those of us here as typical users and they don't feel we are where they should invest their time. Most people won't invest in a custom computer to be a HTPC and buy multiple X360s. As for your other point... I see no reason we can't have videophile cards when they have audiophile cards... Its not about pixel pushing as it is crushed blacks, excellent scaling etc.

Thanks Richard,

I guess the main reason and I said this a few times here but, this is where Media Center needs to go. Microsoft has been trying to get in the living room for years and it's starting to happen. The experts and us, as you say are non-typical users, is a good point but, how does Microsoft get into everyone's living room unless something is done about one of the main things for not using a PC on a TV ?

The problem is in the videophiles who read this type of stuff about a $7K system and it sounds great for features but, the picture will kill it for them. When people have a 50"+ set, you really start to notice, I have a 65", so I can really see it.

Media Center needs to get serious for Video quality, to make it a contender with everthing else on the market.

After all, why would someone spend $4-7K on a system when a $300-500 sat or cable box will give a better picture ? Even though the features are nice but, 90% of the time is watching live TV/Movies/ Recorded tv, this would make most people not even take a look at it.

I do love my Media Center for what it can do but, this is just one of those things that bother me and a few of my clients...

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-Dave

MCP, MCSA, MCSE 2003
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Technologists
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Sales professionals

Home theater specialist (10+ years)

I can relate... heck I have 3K in my system and I want better video and audio.

I have a baby freeze on electronics purchases but I plan to add 7.1 to my setup and that is pretty much it.

I have:
55" 1080p
Great Speakers
Blu-Ray/HD-DVD

But I need the computer to provide great audo and video... not professional but at least prosumer.

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My VMC setup:
(2) Xbox360s
Dell XPS410 (2.6Ghz C2D, 2GB Ram,Nvidia 8600GT, Blu-ray internal, HD-DVD external (X360 drive), (2) Vboxx DTA150s (OTA HD), 1 HVR-1150 (OTA HD) and Dish Network

I've been quite frustrated with the video quality as well, but I'm not sure where to really point the blame (I'm leaning towards the video card manufacturers, but would like to see MS lay down some specifications that force them to do a better job).

In my situation I have a Toshiba 51H83 51" high definition TV and I'm running Vista.  The HDTV has a DVI port with HDCP (one of the first HDTVs with HDCP back in 2003).  Note that I have carefully reviewed the EDID and E-EDID, and everything is there, including the fact that it requires HDTV formats and does not support PC formats (other than the DVI spec requiring 640x480).

If I use an Nvidia card:

The card detects the TV as a monitor and until I do some hot swapping or dual screen playing (with a monitor) and force the card to treat it as an HDTV, I can't get an image.  There is also no way I can ever get into the BIOS without pulling out a PC monitor and using it (or disconnecting the DVI cable and plugging in an s-video cable but the BIOS is difficult to read using s-video). 

At that point with any card older than the 9000 series (I don't have a 9000 series card, but I've tried 6000, 7000 and 8000 series cards) grey levels are not consistent between software applications.  With MC running, it sends expanded video with 0-255 grey levels and my HDTV requires RGB 16-235 (RGB BT.709 - just like any hardware STB, Bluray, DVD, or HD-DVD player would output). 

To work around this I need to manually and significantly adjust the brightness and contrast in the Nvidia Control Panel.  Unfortunately when I run PDVD I need to adjust the brightness/contrast again in the NCP to different levels in order to pass grey level tests.  WMP's grey levels also do not coincide with MC's grey levels requirements within NCP.

With an ATI card:

The card properly detects the HDTV as an HDTV with support for 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i.  I can also see the BIOS screens, POST messages, etc.  Even without a driver installed the image is there and once the driver is installed everything is up and running.

Unfortunately, ATI too sends RGB 0-255 to the HDTV, yet all HDTVs require (by default) 16-235; in my case RGB 16-235 (newer HDTVs prefer YCbCr with a 16-235 range).

To make matters worse, ATI cards have a long standing bug (or "design feature") and treat SD and HD grey level expansion differently (regardless of what type of display is used).  With HD content they expand 16-235 into 0-255, just like PC monitors require.  With SD content every single ATI card user, trying to display SD video needs to add the UseBT601CSC = 1 registry entry (do a Google search to figure out where to place it) in order for SD to be treated the same way as HD (to map the ~16-235 BT601 colorspace into the standard PC colorspace of 0-255 grey levels).

At that point I have everything being output using the RGB 0-255 so I need to crank up the overall CCC "color" brightness and contrast to +31/74% to convert the RGB 0-255 (sRGB)into the required RGB 16-235 (RGB BT.709) on output.  For those of us with HDTVs with HDMI ports, the work around is to install the ATI HDMI dongle (if your card supports this) and this automatically performs a final 0-255 to 16-235 conversion (it also switches to YCbCr instead of RGB at the same time), but this only works with displays that have physical HDMI ports.  Note that according to ATI there is no rounding errors created during these conversions because all of the calculations are performed within the GPU using 10-bit accuracy (not to mention that depending on how the code is written they could actually be smart enough to not perform an expansion in the first place when the final output is 16-235, just like the source video).

At least with ATI cards it is possible to get all grey levels to pass the tests, regardless of what software is running (MC, PDVD, video games, photo editors, etc.).

The next problem with ATI cards is the excessive denoise that is performed on quite a bit of analog captured SD content (such as recorded TV using a TV Tuner card).  To fix the "ghosts" in the image we need to use the TRDenoise = 0 registry entry (Google will tell you where to place it), except that this unfortunately also turns off the denoise filters for DVDs and reduces DVD video quality.

Although there are many additional video quality issues, I would very much like to see Microsoft add a certification requirement for video card manufacturers that forces them to include the ability to manually select between RGB 0-255, RGB 16-235 and YCbCr 16-235 output formats - as well as forcing them to default to 16-235 whenever outputting to an HDTV (including whenever the "treat as HDTV" check box is selected and regardless if RGB or YCbCr is preferred by the HDTV).

I would also like to see Microsoft add an image quality test as part of the certification process that ensures excessive denoise is not be performed on analog (s-video, etc.) recordings.  In ATI's case they need to allow temporal denoise (TRDenoise) to be turned off or lowered whenever Media Center is playing Recorded TV.  Possibly allowing Media Center to control denoise depending on the source, or as an absolute minimum allowing the user to turn off temporal denoise from within CCC.

As far as "whose fault these problems are", I don't think it really matters.  It seems reasonable to me that Microsoft would assume the video card manufacturers wouldn't have these issues, but at the same time Microsoft should force the video card manufacturers to fix these (and other) issues through some mechanism (feedback, specifications, etc.).

Out of the problems I've mentioned above, the fact that ATI treats SD and HD differently as far as grey level expansion is a MAJOR problem.  Without adding the UseBT601CSC=1 registry entry, every single Media Center PC that shipped with an ATI video card is guaranteed to fail grey level tests and this is totally unacceptable for a "high end Media Center".  Even my father's turn key Acer Media Center, when hooked up to his Olevia HDTV using both the ATI HDMI dongle and an HDMI cable still produced horrible, out of spec SD grey levels until I added UseBT601CSC=1 (I had thought that Acer themselves may have set it, but they didn't).  As an Electrical Engineer himself, my father couldn't believe that as shipped the SD image quality was so far out of spec and so inferior to cheap, standard TV hardware (SD STBs, $39 DVD players, etc).

 

Ian,

Have you or someone else at Microsoft brought these issues to the attention of the video card manufacturers?  Do you have a process in place where Microsoft can ensure ATI and Nvidia fix fundamental issues like these that severely take away from Media Center's ability to perform?

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STB w/R5000HD USB I/O, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4, Quad Q6600, 4.0 GB RAM, ATI HD 3870 512MB, Ultra XVS 600W PSU, 3x SATA 500GB, 2x SATA 300GB, LG GGC-H20L, PVR-250, Toshiba 51H83 (51" HDTV), Yamaha RX-V2400 Amp, 5x Energy Speakers, SVS Sub, Harmony 880 Remote

HTSlider -

What a great post...

I have seem some of the same issues you have with Nvidia cards...

My Dell won't even start without my 2nd display port plugged into the VGA port on my TV (Sony KDS-55A3000).

My black levels just aren't right and Blu-Rays just don't look as good as they do on a stand alone.

I may try Ian's tweaks.

---

My VMC setup:
(2) Xbox360s
Dell XPS410 (2.6Ghz C2D, 2GB Ram,Nvidia 8600GT, Blu-ray internal, HD-DVD external (X360 drive), (2) Vboxx DTA150s (OTA HD), 1 HVR-1150 (OTA HD) and Dish Network

rgreenpc:

HTSlider - What a great post... I have seem some of the same issues you have with Nvidia cards... My Dell won't even start without my 2nd display port plugged into the VGA port on my TV (Sony KDS-55A3000). My black levels just aren't right and Blu-Rays just don't look as good as they do on a stand alone. I may try Ian's tweaks.

+1

HT Slider, very good points, I hope Microsoft could get something in motion to correct these problems. I hate to see such a great product be lowed like this because of hardware issues. It is something that needs to be adressed if Media Center / PC in the living room will be something that will grow even more of the market place.

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-Dave

MCP, MCSA, MCSE 2003
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Technologists
Windows Vista Connected Exp:Home Theater for Sales professionals

Home theater specialist (10+ years)

Ian -

I think it will take someone like MS to spearhead an effort to get quality silicon onto a GPU.

I honestly think that if we did without all the video game fluff we could get a resonably priced board that could run circles around anything we have out today.

I mean my HTPC is not a multi-use box other than VERY occasional TGB surfing.

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My VMC setup:
(2) Xbox360s
Dell XPS410 (2.6Ghz C2D, 2GB Ram,Nvidia 8600GT, Blu-ray internal, HD-DVD external (X360 drive), (2) Vboxx DTA150s (OTA HD), 1 HVR-1150 (OTA HD) and Dish Network

iank, I'd love to see a lot more about "unsupported reg keys" 

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Just my $0.02.