HTPC Log 03 – TV Quality, IR Blaster Woes
Switched to using Composite input from the Starhub HD box. No significant improvements, unfortunately.
The poor quality can be primarily described as having a lot of significant scanlines. I’ll try to upload a screenshot/sample video. Perhaps something to do with the NTSC/PAL settings? I don’t know if Media Center has such settings, though.
Deciding to stay with the current setup, so that we can record other Starhub channels as well. After discussing with my dad, we decided that it’s not as important to be able to watch and record at the same time, as the likelihood of that being required is very low – usually we record stuff only when we’re not around. The chances of there being two programs we really want to watch being shown simultaneously is low. However, this gives rise to a new problem: I can’t get the IR blaster to work reliably.
First off, Vista Media Center is unable to recognize the Starhub HD box remote, and I can’t seem to get it to learn – it keeps telling me to press-hold-release button ‘1’, and never moves on. I decided to work around this by telling VMC that the box doesn’t have a remote, but it doesn’t change the channels properly 100% of the time. What happens is that the numbers being sent gets recognized extra times. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered it sending the recognizing numbers altogether. I’ve noticed that this seems to happen more (if not only) with certain numbers. In my case, the number 6 (ie. if I try to change to channel 6, about 40% of the time it changes to 66 instead). This of course is unacceptable because that means we may end up recording the wrong channel, so more investigation is required here.
Settings I’m using: Cable, comes with Set-top Box, No Remote, requires to press “Enter” or “OK” before changing channels, StarHub, code: (the first one) I think it is C19…something, speed: slow.
Come to think of it, when testing the speed, Fast/Medium may have worked. They worked sometimes, and other times I had the “duplicate numbers” problem. I forgot to notice whether or not that happened for all channels, or only certain numbers. If it was only certain numbers, perhaps the IR blaster is sending the wrong signal for those numbers, and the problem has nothing to do with the speed.
HTPC Quick Specs:
Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.80GHz
2x512MB PC3200 DDR RAM
Microsoft Windows Vista (6.0) Ultimate Edition Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
Shuttle FB71x
P4 with 1GB ram? I doubt it can run HD video.
Superman
7 Mar 09 at 11:00 am
Yea, it can’t, at least not at full HD resolution. I’ve currently lowered my output resolution to compensate for this, but even then it’s not always perfect, especially for videos in full 1080p (720p seems fine). I’m aware of this, and am actually planning to build a completely new machine in the near future.
Until I get the time to pick parts for my dream HTPC, I’ll be recycling this old fella.
hsadan
7 Mar 09 at 11:05 am
try this. stick the IR transmitter about 0.5cm slightly away to the left/right of the STB. and use bluetack to cover the area completely. that will shield it from stray IR that comes from the TV & lights.
as for image quality. there is no HDTV tuners that accepts component/hdmi input from the starhub HDTV. so what you are watching is SDTV if connected to MCE.
someone from SG
5 Apr 09 at 2:30 pm
Hi Dan,
I have the same VMC/Starhub problem you have (stuck in the remote learning page). I found this link: http://www.1-script.com/forums/Starhub-Digital-Cable-Set-Top-Box-support-ADB-3000-article41069–17.htm and will try it when I get home tonight.
Cheers,
Paul
Paul
6 Apr 09 at 8:21 pm
thanks, I’ll look into that.
hsadan
10 Apr 09 at 11:49 pm
[...] the channel changing side, site visitor Paul came across some useful information. This did help get past the remote learning phase, but instead [...]
HTPC Log 04 - EPG Done, Update on IR at Dan’s Space on the Web
17 Apr 09 at 12:31 am