Video quality on ATV

[knoall]

I am running the latest greatest on an ATV. I have some DVD rips on a networked folder that I was watching. I got the DolbyDigital audio working and was very happy with that.

I wanted to see if anyone had any experience with pixealted video? It is a clean DVD rip and uncompressed so its not a source quality issue. On my 50" DLP it seems pretty blocky. It is one of the PlanetEarth series so it is supposed to have pretty incredible video, but I dont boxee did it justice.

When went to start the video it initially showed up in a normal looking Apple OSX style window with the white bar, red close button and 'boxee' in the title. This took up only about 1/3-1/2 of the screen. after hitting 'menu' on the remote it went to full screen.

maybe two issues, maybe not?

[knoall]

Judging by the lack of any response on this I ask myself am I just being picky, or does no-one else notice this problem? Or should I just wait for later releases to see if this improves? Or should I not be speaking of this 'issue' at all on this forum?

[agentlame]

i try to offer some kind of response on most threads... but, i don't own an appletv.

i got nothin'.

[knoall]

Well, thanks at least for keeping me from a major complex!

[olyo]

I haven't had any issues - video quality has been fine on my ATV. I have had a very occasional skip in the video - kind of an imperceptible stutter - only when trying to stream hi def over my wireless network.

I think ATV has issues with matroska and anything beyond 720p just from a horsepower perspective. Can you play it back from a computer and do you see the same issues? Might just need a higher bitrate encoding. Though, 50" is also pretty big so may just be flaws are more noticeable.

[mwunder]

I noticed that on some of my DVD rips with lower production quality (read: Barbie movies for my daughter) the fast moving areas had some unusual line artifacts. However, Monster House looked good and not pixelated as did some of my other rips.

Are you wired or wireless...not that it matters but I am wired.

Sorry I can't help but my ATV is at 720P setting with some video calibration on the Boxee side since the initial picture is too big. I used to have my ATV set at 1080P since my TV is native in that format. However, it would always take a long time for the TV to "sync" with the ATV when the TV was first turned on. Not so in 720p mode and I can't tell the difference.

Funny thing, when I left Boxee on (I never put my ATV in standby) the TV would sync immediately on initial startup even at 1080p setting in ATV, but not when it was in the ATV menu.

[jeparkinson]

Video quality is different movie to movie. I use MacTheRipper to rip DVD and HandBrake to encode (even though it will rip also). The lines your seeing on Barbie are probably because of being a interlaced video http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/DeinterlacingGuide . You will need to check the deinterlace box if you are using HandBrake or what ever you use. That will fix it. I encode video's with H.264 with size around 1.9g-2.5g and they are very sharp. Bit rate 2500+

The only thing I have found with video quality is that from the ATV Main Menu - Movies or Sapphire video's are sharp. From XBMC they are pixelated alittle and you can see it. After up and running with Boxee I did a test with my different movies and yes they are sharp like playing like play them from ATV Main Menu. Not sure what Boxee does with video handling but it looks much better then XBMC. Hopefully XBMC will fix there problem.What ever it is. Running on a 32"lcd and 50" Plasma.

[knoall]

I'm not sure which resolution i'm set at but will try it at 720p if i'm not already.

As far as network i'm wired.

As far as the dvd, i use DVDFab to rip. The dvd's that i'm trying with came from DVD9 format so they are about 7.9g total size. Maybe my problem is they are too big?

[davilla]

Video quality is different movie to movie. I use MacTheRipper to rip DVD and HandBrake to encode (even though it will rip also). The lines your seeing on Barbie are probably because of being a interlaced video http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/DeinterlacingGuide . You will need to check the deinterlace box if you are using HandBrake or what ever you use. That will fix it. I encode video's with H.264 with size around 1.9g-2.5g and they are very sharp. Bit rate 2500+

The only thing I have found with video quality is that from the ATV Main Menu - Movies or Sapphire video's are sharp. From XBMC they are pixelated alittle and you can see it. After up and running with Boxee I did a test with my different movies and yes they are sharp like playing like play them from ATV Main Menu. Not sure what Boxee does with video handling but it looks much better then XBMC. Hopefully XBMC will fix there problem.What ever it is. Running on a 32"lcd and 50" Plasma.

Could be that you are seeing effects of the skiploopfilter being enabled by default on XBMC in order to handle higher bit-rate h.264 video content. Edit advancedsettings.xml in userdata, change skiploopfiler from 48 to 0, and that will turn it off. skiploopfilter can trade off quality for decoding speed.

[mwunder]

I am streaming from my NAS the Video TS folders...a direct rip. Could that still add the lines? I like that I can stream those movies since I don't have to spend the time encoding them like I did to get them to play on the ATV.

[knoall]

I am streaming from my NAS the Video TS folders...a direct rip. Could that still add the lines? I like that I can stream those movies since I don't have to spend the time encoding them like I did to get them to play on the ATV.

This is exactly what I'm doing as well. This is where i'm seeing the blockyness especially in fast moving scenes. This is something i have come to expect from some digital playbacks, but not from DVDs (which esentially this is)

[jeparkinson]

I have tried what you said about the skiploopfilter 48 to 0 but it did not change much if at all. There must be something else also that needs changed?

[jeparkinson]

After reading the setting page info for ffmeg. I have figured out the correct setting in the advancedsettings.xml file should be set from 48 to 8. Setting it to 0 will not fix the quality correctly. Again change the skiploopfilter from 48 to 8 and you will see the light. Video is razor sharp. Hope this helps everyone.


advancedsettings.xml change skiploopfilter to 8 (currently set at 48)