Has anyone done a review of the NVIDIA DualTV MCE?  Does anyone have one?  Has anyone seen anymore information about it other than these links?

http://store.nvidia.com/product.aspx?sku=2768081&section_id=57&culture=en-US

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=1655

http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archive/2006/04/05/89432.aspx

 

accident posted a mini review in the first thread about the new card
http://www.thegreenbutton.com/community/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=41&MessageID=163249

Whens the website redesign comming?  It would be nice to have a working search...

I have had the card for a few days now, I have mixed feeling about it.  I guess what ever "Media Squeeze" or whatever Nvidia is calling this type of hard ware encoding is supposed to be good thing, it allows you to store more Recorded TV in a smaller footprint.  On the other hand I think this technology comes with a picture quality hit, no matter how much I tweaked my settings, I could not get the same picture I was getting from my previous Happauge card.  Also this card has an internal splitter, which is inherently a weaker signal then what I previously had connected to my Happauge.  So to sum it up I am not in love with the picture this thing puts out.  But is the picture terrible? No, its pretty good, I can live with it.  I forgot were I read it but I remembering seeing some Nvidia Spokesman as being quoted as saying this this card has the best image quality of all dual tuner cards, I thought at the time it was an odd statement, to word it that way, but it kinda makes sense to me now. 

Okay, so if the picture is just okay, was it a waste of money? I don't think so, because there are plenty of positives to talk about as well.  I never had a true dual tuner set up  before, I didn't have the space in my case, but this is just one slot and makes it all possible.  Also, and this was totally unexpected, the FM tuner on this card is the best I have ever experienced, with just the stock dipole antenna I was getting pretty clear signals.  The installation and set up of this card on MCE is a no brainer, comes with the Pure Video Decoder that Nvidia sells for at least 20 bucks, was using only about 3-5% if my CPU while I was recording two shows at once. 

I would like to see some type of driver update to turn "media squeeze" off and on, it might make the difference in image quality.  I have over a terabyte of storage and I don't really need better compression, I have not seen any info yet on how much smaller files are when compared to conventional tuner cards, and I did not have anything previously recorded to compare.  Its a new device and Nvidia has a pretty good track record with drivers, so I expect to see some type of enhancement or advanced driver setting app in the future.  Till then I would say this is just a good card, and only for those want a double tuner set up but only have one slot available.

> I would like to see some type of driver update to turn "media squeeze" off and on

actually, I think they are doing the same thing like they did with purevideo.  Its a marketing term to say hardware assisted decoding.  I think media squeeze is a marketing term to get the novice to buy the card because it sounds cool.  In reality, its mpeg2 encoding  

Theres no difference in bitrates on this card.  In fact I reg edited mce to raise the bitrate higher to get it closer to my 550 and it did help a little.  I'm playing back on an lcd flat and I'm using a 7600GT now so its not missing any corrections so perhaps what your seeing, I'm just not seeing because its fixed on playback?  

I'm using pro mode, lowest noise filter, no color seperation for my settings.  I like it best.  MCE bitrates is reg edited to raise video to 10mbits and double the audio for best quality.  I never use any other quality so I didn't touch the rest.

Taken from the Nvidia web site.

"The NVIDIA DualTV tuner offers a unique MediaSqueeze technology that allows users to store more of their favorite TV programs on their hard disk, DVD, or portable media player. Users can record live TV shows at a lower bit-rate than normal or "transrate" previously-recorded TV programs into a lower bit-rate to preserve disk space, without significant loss in picture quality. In internal testing using a Tektronix PQA300 MPEG image quality measurement system, NVIDIA found its picture quality rating at medium bit-rates scored consistently better than competitive products recorded at a higher bit-rate.^1"

^{IF this is just some PR crap about MPEG2 encoding, I would be pretty upset.Yet it seems to me there is a little more going on here then just talking about MPEG2. If its all hardware based maybe tweaking the registry has no effect and might require some type of Bios Flash on the card itself.   Still feel like Media Squeeze is a bad thing but I will give your setting a whirl.}

Just sounds like their implementation of mpeg2 to me.  Just their algorithm or analyzing of the data is a little tighter.  Might be a simple live 2 pass, thats uncommon and hard to do well with limited 1-2 seconds of data to use.

I also have this card with quite a strange fault:

when i go to more programs, and start the nvidia settings tool (from purevideo), it says
that the video player or livetv is not playing at the moment........

so at the moment i use powerdvd, BUT i want to use purevideo decoder!

Also: how can i see (registry or wherever) what internal player exactly MCE is using at the moment?
Maybe that is the reason that purevideo/nvidia mce-extensions dont work?

Another Q: (related to Q above here) When i install powerdvd in MCE, does this mean i'm
using only the cyberlinks decoder, or MCE's internal player IS powerdvd as well? Or does the
internal player stays with WMP?

Thx!

Babedieboe, to change your Pure Video TV settings in MCE, you need to already have the Tuner going, so start up MCE, switch to any channel, then back out of it (but don't close it or stop it), and go into the "More Programs" menu.  From there you change the Purevideo settings and you shouldn't get that message.  As far as PowerDVD is concerned and which decoder you are using, look around the forum for a decoder check-up utility, should help in letting you know what the TV tuner is using.

Thx Cesar! I'll give that a go again tomorrow then (easter......family etc
and will let you know (about the purevideo error)

As far as the checkup util: i have that, but that only tells me the decoder i'm using, not the player.
Or am i totally seeing this wrong? I'd like to know whether MCE uses powerdvd or WMP or whatever
player in the background.....

Thx!

He started a seperate thread for his player question.  that conversation continues here: http://www.thegreenbutton.com/community/shwmessage.aspx?ForumID=41&MessageID=164483

Thanks Bryan. Yes that point is clear now

On the issue i have with the nvidia card&purevideo decoder (this should stay in this thread i presume):
This evening i installed the nvidia purevideo decoder 1.02.196 (last ones) and removed powerdvd before that.
In the checkup utility all shows up nice now: nvidia is the default decoder, and when i have liveTV running, i DO
get the nvidia icon in the tray. i tried all settings in there, and these are my best so far: click here to see
All in here works fine, except the 2nd tab color (kleur in my language as you can see....sorry, its dutch):
nothing i do on THIS tab seems to work in MCE. Ok then, i think: thats where the nvidia extensions come in, right?

Wrong.....

The nvidia extensions show up in MCE->Main Menu->more programs, BUT they dont work!
When i start them, i get this screen 
Of course this is also dutch, so in short, its something like:

display settings

advanced settings

the video is currently not playing. We advise to let the  television or video play in order to achieve the best results.

Of course i had the TV playing at the time of the screenshot (as you can see) and i also tried avi and a real DVD: i always get this screen no matter what i do......

i need these settings working in order to get good results in my situation.......
Thank so far!

a sidenote: when i install winDVD f.e., the MCE extensions also dont work........like above........
The powerDVD ones DO though.......(but they only have presets clev2/normal/theater/vivid/bright etc)

another sidenote: my system is the philips showline mcp9350i, for details click here (its in dutch, but
you can find the specs here, as well as a photo of the tuner etc a little down)

I do the purevideo changes in the nvidia window.  I have stuff play, I resize mce so I can see it at the same time and adjust.  Everytime I hit apply, it kicks in the changes. 

That was live tv you had playing?  while there are differences between country versions, how to check whats playing should be the same dev wise.  This might be a country issue and you may want to contact nvidia support on this one. 

Also I lot of people like the way it looks better when you change deinterlace from smart to auto. 

I do my video output changes from the advanced screens in the driver IF NEEDED.  I say that because of a lot of the adjustments I do on the tv itself.  those options I dont have, I do in the video driver. 

-i also did the changes in the direct nvidia window (from the taskbar), and they DO work, except
for the 2nd tab (color), which is just the one i need.....
-Why dont the 2nd tab here, and the complete mce extensions work?......they should!
1.as said: also the winDVD MCE extensions dont work (when installed of course......)
2.same goes for this nvidia tunertool.....does this work for you? not for me.....cool tool!

-what do mean exactly by "That was live tv you had playing?" / country differences?
is something not ok here? as said, i also tried dvd, avi, mpeg etc, both in the mce extensions
as well as via the windows tray.

-i will set deinterlacing from smart to auto, thx. i read that smart would be better at different places, thats why

-how do i exactly get to the advanced screens of the driver DIRECT then?
as you said: i also CAN tweak most things on my tv of course, but i need a few more settings, that have to be done from the source i think.

Thx a million so far!
b.t.w. i have rollup 2 installed.

MCE standby problems? Click here

I beleive that the 'Color' tab in the NVidia properties window, works against your video drivers. Which in your case are Intel 950, so NVidea may not understand how to set them. You should be able to set those using a control panel that comes with your video drivers (I presume Intel provides one).

I use the NVidia decoder with an ATI x800XL. On the color tab I get Brightness, Contrast, Hue and Saturation. But the Gamma, Digital Vibrance and Video Calibration are all disabled.

Another setting on the Video tab of NVidia properties that you should try. Try changing the 'Uitgebreide ondersteuning nView', from 'Voorkeur voor Overlay' to 'Voorkeur voor VMR9'. If your video drivers support it, you may get a better picture.