When is Ceton going to fix the macroblocking issue?

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mcewinter

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#141

Post by mcewinter » Sat Jul 28, 2012 10:16 pm

stonethecrows wrote:Regards this particular issue, barnabas did discover that the macro blocking issue remained (albeit with less intensity) when he swapped out the InfiniTV with a HDHR Prime.
The issue does not appear to be confined to the InfiniTV alone.
There's that but Ceton also has a repro of the issue. ...so were they able to "toggle" the issue or is that somebody in their camp simply has the same issue?

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#142

Post by STC » Sat Jul 28, 2012 10:20 pm

I don't know. The last time I was reading about this, Ceton were attempting to fix the problem. I don't have any more detailed info sorry.
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#143

Post by btracy » Sat Jul 28, 2012 10:59 pm

The issue for Barnabas was different but for some of us it is a Ceton issue. I switched out my Ceton card for a HDHR Prime and I no longer see the issue. I am keeping my Ceton card though in the hopes that they fix the issue as I really prefer 4 tuners and in the end, I can just add it back on the network and have 7 in the mix. :)

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#144

Post by barnabas1969 » Sun Jul 29, 2012 4:16 pm

stonethecrows wrote:Regards this particular issue, barnabas did discover that the macro blocking issue remained (albeit with less intensity) when he swapped out the InfiniTV with a HDHR Prime.
The issue does not appear to be confined to the InfiniTV alone.
My problem turned out to be the video card. The problem does not appear on my extenders... only on the PC. However, I think that some people see this issue on both extenders and on the PC directly. Some have had this issue resolved by using the HD HomeRun Prime tuners instead. Some haven't.

One interesting thing to note is that the problem seems to have disappeared when I made the change in this thread. It's only been a couple of days since I made the change, but I haven't seen the problem... even on the channel that displays the problem most frequently (comedy central).

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#145

Post by barnabas1969 » Tue Jul 31, 2012 7:35 pm

Regarding my post above, I was thinking about it this morning on my drive to work. I also made another change recently that I think is more likely to have solved the issue. I changed my TV setup in Media Center to tell it that my display is a "TV", not a "flat panel". This stops Media Center from over-scanning the image. You can see the setup at this link. You will also want to make the registry changes as described in the comments on that page (posted by user NitDawg).

The reason I think this change is more likely to have solved the issue for me is because Media Center would no longer be using the GPU's scaler. It's possible that the glitch is introduced by the scaler.

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#146

Post by barnabas1969 » Thu Aug 02, 2012 11:19 pm

Well, I guess it was premature to say that the problem is gone. It is less frequent, but still there. Oh well.

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#147

Post by crawfish » Fri Aug 03, 2012 12:09 am

barnabas1969 wrote:Well, I guess it was premature to say that the problem is gone. It is less frequent, but still there. Oh well.
Does this mean you've finally crossed the threshold for checking out the signal? Maybe renting a DVR for a month for comparison purposes?

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#148

Post by barnabas1969 » Fri Aug 03, 2012 12:20 am

crawfish wrote:
barnabas1969 wrote:Well, I guess it was premature to say that the problem is gone. It is less frequent, but still there. Oh well.
Does this mean you've finally crossed the threshold for checking out the signal? Maybe renting a DVR for a month for comparison purposes?
My signal is fine. The problem also does not appear on my extenders when watching the same shows that display a problem on the TV that is connected directly to the PC. It is definitely related to the graphics processor. I've also tried two different graphics processors from two different manufacturers (AMD/ATI and nVidia). They both exhibited the problem, but the problem looks a little different on the two GPU's.

If it was a signal problem, I would see it on my extenders too.

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#149

Post by crawfish » Fri Aug 03, 2012 12:59 am

barnabas1969 wrote:
crawfish wrote:
barnabas1969 wrote:Well, I guess it was premature to say that the problem is gone. It is less frequent, but still there. Oh well.
Does this mean you've finally crossed the threshold for checking out the signal? Maybe renting a DVR for a month for comparison purposes?
My signal is fine. The problem also does not appear on my extenders when watching the same shows that display a problem on the TV that is connected directly to the PC. It is definitely related to the graphics processor. I've also tried two different graphics processors from two different manufacturers (AMD/ATI and nVidia). They both exhibited the problem, but the problem looks a little different on the two GPU's.

If it was a signal problem, I would see it on my extenders too.
I'm pretty sure you reported earlier that you do see it on your extenders, but to a lesser extent. Like I told you months ago, my macroblocking problem manifested in a different way on the cable company DVR, but it did appear in the same places as on the PC, and it proved the problem was with the signal. Confidence in that finding helped me get the problem escalated and fixed. I've been watching you complain about this for a long time. First you were beating Ceton up over it, and you finally bought an HDHR. That didn't help. Next you bought a new video card, and as I predicted, you were chasing your tail again. Most recently you were thinking disabling overscan fixed it, but now you've had to retract that conclusion. All the while, you've refused to do the simple, inexpensive test I've suggested several times, or even just call the cable company. What you're seeing is not normal, and other people using the same video cards as you don't see it. That suggests to me the problem is most likely with the signal.

You know what this pattern reminds me of? The 29/59 bug. Only you haven't established the problem doesn't occur on cable company STBs.

BTW, I found disabling overscan for TV to be a losing idea due to the many channels that show garbage pixels or lines at the top of the frame. I tried it for a while and gave up; ISTR the tipping point were the many NBC programs that showed a single white pixel in the top left corner that flickered on and off. Too many TV broadcasts assume overscanning, and I don't know of any quick, easy way to turn it on and off, even if I did want to fool with it on an ongoing basis. Fortunately, I use Media Center only for TV, using XBMC for all other video, and in XBMC, I use zero overscan and so take full advantage of my TV's "full pixel" mode.

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#150

Post by barnabas1969 » Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:19 am

On the extender, I can see a slight error in a very small area of the screen in the same horizontal region as the larger problem that occurs on the PC. But I can only see it when I walk up close to the TV that is connected to the extender. This problem is not something that I would ever complain about to the cable company because I understand that it is impossible to have a 100% perfect transmission over miles of coax cable, and I don't expect cable TV to look as perfect as a BluRay movie.

Honestly, if I was a cable technician, and a customer showed me a tiny little imperfection in the picture that appears every 10-15 minutes, I would think he was the biggest a-hole I had ever met and I wouldn't be willing to do anything to fix it, but I understand the difficulties in sending a 1 gigahertz signal over miles of coax. You just have to expect little imperfections every once in a while, and the hardware/software should be able to deal with it.

As for the overscan issue... I very rarely see "line 21" captions at the top of the screen and they do not bother me in the least. Otherwise, it's perfect and I do not intend to change it back to overscan everything and lose detail/resolution in the process.

The only reason I posted back to this thread is because it has become active again, and I wanted to stress that my problem in the beginning of this thread was NOT caused by Ceton. Then, after making a couple of tweaks to my system, I thought that the problem was resolved and wanted to offer my observations.

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#151

Post by crawfish » Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:42 am

barnabas1969 wrote:On the extender, I can see a slight error in a very small area of the screen in the same horizontal region as the larger problem that occurs on the PC. But I can only see it when I walk up close to the TV that is connected to the extender. This problem is not something that I would ever complain about to the cable company because I understand that it is impossible to have a 100% perfect transmission over miles of coax cable, and I don't expect cable TV to look as perfect as a BluRay movie.

Honestly, if I was a cable technician, and a customer showed me a tiny little imperfection in the picture that appears every 10-15 minutes, I would think he was the biggest a-hole I had ever met and I wouldn't be willing to do anything to fix it, but I understand the difficulties in sending a 1 gigahertz signal over miles of coax. You just have to expect little imperfections every once in a while, and the hardware/software should be able to deal with it.

As for the overscan issue... I very rarely see "line 21" captions at the top of the screen and they do not bother me in the least. Otherwise, it's perfect and I do not intend to change it back to overscan everything and lose detail/resolution in the process.

The only reason I posted back to this thread is because it has become active again, and I wanted to stress that my problem in the beginning of this thread was NOT caused by Ceton. Then, after making a couple of tweaks to my system, I thought that the problem was resolved and wanted to offer my observations.
Unbelievable.

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#152

Post by STC » Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:44 am

At ease gentlemen :)
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#153

Post by barnabas1969 » Fri Oct 05, 2012 3:29 am

God, please let this thread die and disappear forever. I was mistaken when I started it... and these other people just need to start their own thread. Amen.

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#154

Post by newfiend » Sat Oct 06, 2012 11:26 pm

barnabas1969 wrote:God, please let this thread die and disappear forever. I was mistaken when I started it... and these other people just need to start their own thread. Amen.
LOL.
You poor person... this is going to haunt you.....Fooorrreeevvveeerrrr.... :mrgreen: Just Kiddin'
I guess you could ask a Mod for removal...??
newfiend~

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#155

Post by gpatlanta » Sun Oct 07, 2012 1:43 am

barnabas1969 wrote:God, please let this thread die and disappear forever. I was mistaken when I started it... and these other people just need to start their own thread. Amen.
I don't know if everyone feels this way, but I believe you have clearly repented and stated your mistake in enough occassions. Plus you have helped out quite a few users here... I think three more hail mary's ought to do it... :)

I should probably pre-apologize for that.. I meant no religious offense to anyone.
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#156

Post by STC » Sun Oct 07, 2012 3:24 am

[Topic locked. Recent posts on the subject moved to here: http://thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewtop ... =68&t=3060 ]
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