Picture quality, not happy

Channels Apple TV Troubleshooting
#7

Edited my first post, I was a little cranky.

Yes, apple tv 4k and Samsung 4k KS8000.
HDHOMERUN PRIME
Signal Strength 99% (-1.0 dBmV)
Signal Quality 100% (37.4 dB)
Symbol Quality 100%

Just tried VLC on Windows, pixelation is pretty much the same as the apple tv. It’s a smoother playback though. Not as good as my cable box but there’s no apparent screen tearing or sudden stutters.

The pixelation is really the same on every device, I’ve it tried on my xbox, computer, tablet, ect… It just becomes more apparent on a big tv. It looks as if the stream is compressed like a good 25%.

#8

Are you using a CableCARD? Is it paired according to my.hdhomerun.com

#9

Double check that you are actually going to the HD versions of the channels and that your TV is not automatically resizing the image to fit in a large screen.

Some cable companies “remap” their cable boxes to show the HD version even though you select what would have normally been the SD version… (example: CBS here is channel 2, CBSHD is channel 702) When using the cable box, selecting channel 2 will display the feed from 702 on one of the cable box models used by the cableco.

For cablecard tuners they have to keep them separate…

To verify, go to http://IPADDRESSOFTUNER/lineup.html?show=all and make sure that it says “HD” to the right next to the channel number that you need.

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#10

Hi, yeah it shows HD next to the channel under the web ui lineup. Recordings are big too, like 1-3GB. It's just as if it's being compressed on the fly. I've attached a image.

As you can see there's just a pixelation around the players, especially as they're moving

#11

Yeah, everythings good
Card Authentication success
Card OOB Lock success
Card Validation success
Tuning Resolver ready

#12

Is it happening on other channels? I’ve noticed that sometimes ESPN and Fox channels have really horrible picture quality.

#13

On the web UI, if you click into a show and then select View Details in the dropdown for a recording, what is the resolution and bitrate shown?

#14

On the details panel, it also lists whether the recording is interlaced or progressive. If you watch a progressive recording does it have the same problem?

#15

Was this the first time you watched the streams on a TV that big? Comparing the picture quality on your computer in a smaller window (probably less than it’s native size) to the picture quality on your 4K TV (quadruple the native size of the video) isn’t exactly equivalent. The video is being scaled up a ton, and the artifacts are being exaggerated.

MPEG2 is an old codec and doesn’t scale nearly as well as h.264, so this happens. Also, depending on the compression of the stream, you might see more. Artifacts usually show up most around fast moving objects. This is just the nature of compression.

The good news is, in actual general watching of TV and content, at good distances, things look just fine.

#16

A sports event for me would be WAY larger than 1-3GB. On the order of 8 to 10 times that size. I have sports events on my DVR that are 25-30GB. There is no way that your 1-3GB recording is not compressed by the cable co.

#17

I could see someone seeing a difference but they’re about the same. ESPN/cable box is much better than espn/hdhomerun which is the issue

#18

For a half hour show it’s around 1-3, more like 2-3GB’s.

#19

Yeah, first time with the hdhomerun. But its in comparison to my cablebox.

#20

Please double check the resolution and bitrate of your recordings as outlined above. There are situations where the HDHomeRun locks onto the wrong cable signal and actually receives a standard-def or otherwise compressed version of the channel.

#22

Here it is

TV\SportsCenter\SportsCenter 1979-09-07 2018-02-22-0825.mpg
Duration
9 min
Bit Rate
14,053,497 bits/sec
File Size
929,038,336 bytes
Track #0: MPEG-2 video
1280x720 16:9 yuv420p progressive

Track #1: ATSC A/52A (AC-3)
5.1(side) eng 448kbps

#23

A 1280*720p MPEG-2 stream at 14Mbps?! Whilst the resolution is low, the detail should be pretty fantastic, that’s a really high bitrate.

#24

That’s a progressive 720p video, so no deinterlacing is required. It seems very unlikely that the mpeg2 decoder is at fault, since there’s not much to decoding mpeg2 especially when it’s already progressive.

Your bitrate is quite high as well, so the picture quality should be very good.

Are you sure that your TV is not doing noise reduction or other processing on the video signal? Perhaps it’s only happening on the hdmi input where the Apple TV is plugged in, and not on the cable tv input.

#25

I only see that when I have motion settings turned on. I generally always have those off because of the artifacts that they create.

#26

@ch4545 Were you able to figure out what’s going on?

#27

Hey, thanks for following up. Awesome service.

I put this on the back burner for a while. I actually tested it out one night a few weeks ago though, went through all the settings from the Apple TV to the TV. I’m not sure what I was missing the first time but I got it to look a lot better. Pretty much identical to the cable box. I’ve been meaning to fully move over and watch more than a few minutes, see if the same pixelation or tearing is there during sports before I chimed in. But I think I remember it looking pretty great at the time, can’t imagine having the same issues as before.

When I get the chance, I’ll have to find out exactly what it was.

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