Video quality

[hazeus]

Hey guys, I'm using the cyberlink and intervideo codecs. But I can't really see any difference in quality between the two. The quality is good with both codecs. But I've seen better in Xvid/divx files. I dunno if I'm comparing apples to oranges.

(1) Is there any way to improve picture quality with the cyberlink/intervideo codecs.

(2) Are there any better codecs than cyberlink/intervideo out there to improve the picture quality?

(3) Is there any way to interlace the video. The reason being, I connect my PC to my TV via Svideo out on my nvidia card. I've found that the video looks MUCH better on a TV when it's displayed in interlace mode and you'll get smoother playback too.

[CaptainHowdy]

First off I'm going to assume you are talking about MyTheatre as your viewer. There are better codecs out but there is a hitch. I personally use Nvidia PureVideo codecs but I'm running a cracked version of MT. They are much better than cyberlink or intervideo. If you want these codecs to work you'll have to run a cracked version of MT. Saar has incorporated Armadillo into the copy protection of MT. It launches a second copy running as a child process and debugs. When you try to install the purevideo codecs the codecs think you are trying to debug (crack) them and they unregister themselves. The cracked versions of MT have Armadillo stripped out so installation of a graph made with purevideo codecs works. Saar is aware of this but is unwilling to fix the problem (I posted a thread on his board about this-(said I had legit copy) and it got immediately deleted) So if you want better vid quality you'll just have to run cracked version. Just make a graph from the codecs and install to your graphs folder. Hope this helps...Cheers!

[zag1958]

First off I'm going to assume you are talking about MyTheatre as your viewer. There are better codecs out but there is a hitch. I personally use Nvidia PureVideo codecs but I'm running a cracked version of MT. They are much better than cyberlink or intervideo. If you want these codecs to work you'll have to run a cracked version of MT. Saar has incorporated Armadillo into the copy protection of MT. It launches a second copy running as a child process and debugs. When you try to install the purevideo codecs the codecs think you are trying to debug (crack) them and they unregister themselves. The cracked versions of MT have Armadillo stripped out so installation of a graph made with purevideo codecs works. Saar is aware of this but is unwilling to fix the problem (I posted a thread on his board about this-(said I had legit copy) and it got immediately deleted) So if you want better vid quality you'll just have to run cracked version. Just make a graph from the codecs and install to your graphs folder. Hope this helps...Cheers!

I am using a cracked version of MT (3.25.1) but PureVideo codec still unregisters itself if I try to use it with MT. I have been using cyberlink version 6 but it drops all frames containing digital artifacts therefore the end results looks like the video is skipping/freezing. I then tried intervideo v.6 but it eventually just freezes the video while the audio keeps going. I have to cycle the video on/off to get it going again untill it freezes again. Dscaler works well but it does not interlace so I get interlacing artifacts. My last hope was PureVideo but like I said it unregisters itself if I try to use it. What version of cracked MT are you using? I have tried 3.26 and 3.31 but I don't like the results so far so I am back with 3.25.1. BTW, I forgot to mention that since I use a 57" widescreen TV I run the video through FFDShow to resize to widescreen and apply a couple of filters.

[hazeus]

Same here Zag. I cracked MT, downloaded purevideo codecs from nvidia's site. They wouldn't work. I read up on other forums and apparently you need modified decoders, get them from here:

http://www.dvbsoft.net/download.php?view.543

Click the nvidia check mark or install them all. They all work great.
FYI, I'm going back and forth between cyberlink,intervideo and nvidia codecs as I'm watchin TV. Looks to me like the nvidia one looks a little better using hardware acceleration with my 6800 GT, it looks good on the TV. Still not as good as a real IRD signal though :(

[CaptainHowdy]

You guys are using "chopped" version of these codecs which work minimun at best. You need to get the whole 20 meg PureVideo v1.02.150 (works best) and keygen by ssg to register and "force" them. You will not benefit by using this chopped version trust me...... If you can provide me with somewhere to up the file I will up it(I'm not gonna sit here and section it to upload)

[CaptainHowdy]

Okies I upped the whole package. You can download it here for 30 days...no sign-up neccessary:http://z15.zupload.com/download.php?file=getfile&filepath=14872

[cf283]

thanks for this howdy, but how do you install this? After using winrar their are a bunch of zip files, now what? Thanks for your help

[CaptainHowdy]

You can use winrar for this too. Inside each .zip is a rar file. Create a new directory and extract each rar from the zips into that directory. You should have rars part one through 7 in the folder after extracting. Then create a new directory as to where you want to put the set-up.exe. Go back to the folder where the part 1 through 7 rars are and click on part 1....extract to where you created the set-up.exe directory. Extract keygen to wherever you want. Follow the .nfo carefully! Also during unpacking of zips you will get a pop-up saying certain files already exist...just click on "no to all" This is because the .nfo and file_id.diz is is each zip and you only need them one time. LOL..yeah I know it's a pain but I didn't pack it and I was too lazy to re-pack. If you have any probs give me a holler. Cheers!

[hazeus]

Guys I found something even better on the mytheatre forums, under the 'improving video quality' thread. All I can say is WOW, it blows away cyberlink/nvidia/intervideo etc. It's dscaler and ffdshow, instructions are in the thread at MT's forums.

[r_hill]

What did you use for codecs? I tried the "improving video thread" suggestions and whilst installing DScalar 4.1.11 it hung my computer at the "choose cards" screen, then after reboot I found it had uninstalled my VisionPlus 1020A DTV card!

Not good....

:D

Luckily I had the VisionPlus drivers right on my Hard Drive, so I was able to re-install drivers and recover MT3.26. I'd be careful following instructions on Saar's site. Plus, Saar is a bit of a dick, if you ask me. Users post some question about improving MT or pointing out shortcomings, and he just tells them to go install Ritz or ProgDVB if they don't like it. Nice attitude.....plus he wants $40 USD or 40 Euros for a piece of buggy software that the user has to troubleshoot himself and can only install on one box....unless he uses a crack.

Anyway, lets keep this MT picture-quality discussion going....better than all the BS about AVR-X and Syndrome cards....

;)

[CaptainHowdy]

Yes what hazeus says is true, If you can get ffdshow and dscaler to work properly it's the ultimate. But I have tried many times with different cards and different computers with different process speeds and nothing but problems. System hangs and crashes are common if you use this method. Extremely high cpu usage is most common. I'm not willing to burn up my cpu to get a few less pixels :/ Besides mine works to damn near DVD quality using the codecs above along with DVI-I to component on my Radeon 9800 to 55" Hitachi....good enough for me :)

[r_hill]

Hey, Cap'n Howdy: thanks for the reply! (Nice creepy avatar, too, by the way....)

Am I to understand you are using Pure Video Codecs with an ATI Radeon card....I thought they only worked with NVidia card?? I swapped out an Nvidia (Leadtek) card previously because NVidia doesn't support overlay and I wasn't getting OSD on my seconday (HD) monitor, so now I'm using ATI PowerColor X700 PCIx card with component out. Would like to get better video quality, however....

I can always reinstall PureVideo...still have it right on the hard drive. Does the armadillo deal-io install with MT3.26 using keygen (not cracked) or was it implemented later on, say in the 3.3X releases? If so, I may have to uninstall 3.26 although it has been pretty stable until I tried the DScalar stuff on my machine.... :D

I'm using an HP Pavilion a630n, 2.8GHz P4, 512 MbPC3200 RAM, PowerColor Radeon X700 PCI express videocard, MT3.26 and Cyberlink video codec graph....

Thanks.

[janstan2005]

Here is a list of the cards that should be supported by DScaler http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/card-support/index.htm

[r_hill]

Hey, thanks for the info.

;)

[CaptainHowdy]

r hill...yes I'm using a radeon 9800 pro card and the codecs work great. Armadillo has been on every instance of MT that I know of. I'm suprised you actually got MT to register using a keygen but good for you. Since you did get it registered though armadillo is still there. It's the cracked mt.exe that strips it out so the purevideo codecs probably will not install. You're still spawning a child process which the codecs think you are trying to debug. Guess you could give it a shot though...can always go back to what you were running b4. Let me know how it works out...Cheers!

[cf283]

hey howdy, thanks for the install instructions...everything worked out beautifully except that after successfully installing, in the MT settings under autograph i do not see the nvidia codec. Am i missing something? I would love to at least try this to see if it helps. I get constant "pixelation" using intervideo. It's like the picture is "pulsing".

[CaptainHowdy]

cf283 it's not going to show up untill you make a graph. I upped a quick and easy graphmaker you can download here:http://z18.zupload.com/download.php?file=getfile&filepath=8670 After unraring click on graphmaker exe. (Do not have MT running when you do this) It will read the video and audio codecs installed on your system. You will have several drop-down boxes....mpeg2 sources should be set to dvbcore (a must), mpeg2 video decoders set to nvidia (provided it finds them), and mpeg2 audio decoders can be set to what you want (I use the nvidia there too). Leave the video and audio renderers boxes at default for now..you can always experiment later making new graphs. Click on "try graph". Hopefully it will say graph successfully created. Name it something like purevideo and save it to your "graphs" folder in MT. Open your MT and look at your codecs and you should see "purevideo.xgr"..click on it . Video should switch to the codecs. Provided you're not in full screen yet you will see an icon on the systray for nvidia(will only be present when MT is executed). Right click on the icon and there are setting you can tinker with to get best quality. I wanted you to use this graphmaker because I don't like the graphedit tool in MT. Should be all set now....Cheers!

[r_hill]

Hey, Capt Howdy, just thought I'd give you an update. I have:

1) saved my Plugins folder and Channels.mdb file, deleted MT3.26....the one operating with Keygen and yes, it had the child process running....

2) installled MT3.30, then applied cracked executable to the MT directory, no child process running this time, MT says it's registered....

3) re-installed NVidia PureVideo, applied Keygen activation....

4) set up MT - dropped saved plugins folder and Channels folder into MT folder, setup diseqC, scanned sats, etc....

5) used graphmaker to produce a graph using NVidia Video decoder, InterVideo Audio decoder (I was using that before, so I stuck with it), and dropped it into the graphs folder under MT....

6) re-started MT, selected a few channels like Starz and History, and BAM! the video was A LOT better.....

:D

Man, that is more like it....what I've been looking for since I started using MT. A few more tweaks to get my picture exactly the way I want it on the second HD monitor (like choosing overlay mode in settings, etc) but this is a great start. A bit of micro-freezing but I'll keep playing until I fix it. Thanks for your very practical advice!

[cf283]

That is exactly what i am shooting for rhill. Congrats. Thanks for all your help captain but i'm not quite their. That graphmaker software is fantastic, i'm able to make graphs etc, but nvidia is not listed as one of my choices. It is installed because i can go the directory where it's supposed to be and it's there. Do i need a certain version of MT? I'm presently running 3.27 cracked with no problems at all, except for the video issues.

[r_hill]

cf283, are you seeing two instances of MyTheatre running under task manager, or just one? If there are two, you will have issues with nVidia codecs, but if you are running the crack you should be okay. I know my cracked executable for 3.30 is half the size of the "official" MYtheater.exe file, and there is only one process running.

Try manually registering the .dll in question or using regdrop to register it. Mine were registered when I installed PureVideo, since GraphMaker picked them up.

Open dos wiindow....type:

regsvr32 file_to_be_registered.dll

(Include the path if you open the dos window in a different directory from the .dll file)

[cf283]

Thanks for the info rhill, and you are right on the money. I have 2 instances of MT running. Anyway to fix this? I'm thinking not. I guess i am just going to have to live with the "pulsing Pixelation" problem. Besides dscaler and purevideo, what's the next best thing. Intervideo works best for me. I have an ATI AIW 9600xt vid card. Anymore suggestions would be appreciated.

[r_hill]

Before I switched to cracked MT3.30, I was using the WXP,Cyberlink-Video, Intervideo-Audio graph. I used Intervideo because it let me select spdif output. Also, autograph worked okay on 3.26.....

To get rid of the MT child process that prevents you from using NVidia PureVideo, you need to switch to the cracked version of MT. Apparently, MT has had this "armadillo" copy-protection scheme embedded in it for quite some time....it's also there in 3.12 un-registered version I have on another machine.

Lemme know if you need the copy of MT3.30 plus the cracked executable that I am using.....

[sputabc]

Why is graphmaker trying to access the internet?

[r_hill]

Are you getting a firewall alert?

[cf283]

Thanks rhill, i appreciate the help. Could you upload 3.30 plus crack as i can't seem to find it. Plus does this cracked version crap out after recording for 1 hour?

[tgrand]

Thank-you r_hill Note to board admins: The usefull info in this thread should be recompiled in an organized fashion, and changed to a sticky thread. This worked fabulous. Thanks again r_hill

[r_hill]

Thanks rhill, i appreciate the help. Could you upload 3.30 plus crack as i can't seem to find it. Plus does this cracked version crap out after recording for 1 hour?

Sorry to say I haven't checked the recording capabilities.....not something I bother to do except to test the system with a short recorded segment. Just have to try it and find out.....

I will PM you the URL for MT3.30 and the crack file, since uploads here must be approved. It's up to the Mods if they wanna allow the files or links to the Download site....(they probably don't)

:D

[Gothmog]

A couple of questions concerning graphs in MT.

Does installing the Graph aslo improve the captured video quality? I had heard that when you record you are simply dumping the Mpeg2 directly to disk?

Also I am using MT 3.26 cracked. I have tried 3.27, and 3.31, with the replaced hacked EXE. I noticed with both 3.27, and 3.31 recording breaks down after 1 hour. Have you guys seen this issue? Running with 3.26 serial modded version I do not have this issue.

Just to clarify MT runs pass the hour but if I attempt to record for longer than an hour the MPEG looks like it loses signal from the sat and jumps around. I can reproduce this is both the lastest hacks. So I had to stick with 3.26 as the serial hack does not have this issue.

[r_hill]

That's a good question. Try recording and using post-processing on the file during playback to see what happens. Like you, I used to use the 3.26 but only switched to the cracked executable so I could use the NVidia codec on real-time viewing.....

[Gothmog]

Post processing? Which option is this under in MT? I am not in front of my system now so I will poke around when I get home tonight to see.

[sputabc]

Zone alarm says graphmaker is trying to access the internet. What's it doing?

I'm using ffdshow's built in decoder. It's pretty good with some sharpening. Here's the graph file. I'm using vrm9 so the output shows on all monitors.

<GRAPH version="1.0">
<FILTER ID="Default_DirectSound_Device" clsid="{79376820-07D0-11CF-A24D-0020AFD79767}">
<PARAM name="data" value="30003000300030003000300030003000300030003000200000 000000000000000000000000000000"/>
</FILTER>
<FILTER ID="Video_Mixing_Renderer_9" clsid="{51B4ABF3-748F-4E3B-A276-C828330E926A}">
<PARAM name="data" value="30003000300030003000300030003000300030003000200088 010000040000000000803F0000000000000000000000000000 803F0000803F0000803F000000000000000000000000000080 3F0000803F0000803F0000000000000000000000000000803F 0000803F0000803F0000000000000000000000000000803F00 00803F00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000"/>
</FILTER>
<FILTER ID="ffdshow_Audio_Decoder" clsid="{0F40E1E5-4F79-4988-B1A9-CC98794E6B55}">
</FILTER>
<FILTER ID="ffdshow_MPEG_4_Video_Decoder" clsid="{04FE9017-F873-410E-871E-AB91661A4EF7}">
</FILTER>
<FILTER ID="Source_0" clsid="{FACE0501-DECC-11CF-A66B-00AA00BF96AA}">
</FILTER>
<connect direct="yes" src="Source_0" srcpin="Video MPEG2" dest="ffdshow_MPEG_4_Video_Decoder" destpin="In"/>
<connect direct="yes" src="Source_0" srcpin="Audio MPEG/AC3" dest="ffdshow_Audio_Decoder" destpin="In"/>
<connect direct="yes" src="ffdshow_Audio_Decoder" srcpin="Out" dest="Default_DirectSound_Device" destpin="Audio Input pin (rendered)"/>
<connect direct="yes" src="ffdshow_MPEG_4_Video_Decoder" srcpin="Out" dest="Video_Mixing_Renderer_9" destpin="VMR Input0"/>
</GRAPH>

[r_hill]

Thanks, I'll give the graph a try.....

:)

Don't know what's up with graphmaker triggering zone alarm alerts.....

[BigSwifty]

Your ZA is on crack! Sounds like ZA database is whacked, it happens. Reinstall ZA tends to work best for me in these situations...but that's me!

[CaptainHowdy]

There's nothing wrong with the graphmaker file...plain and simple. It's not accessing anything except your codecs :/