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Full Version: How to get the best quality from an SD signal?
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Hi,

   Is there any guides, or any tips from kodi users, on how to get the best image quality from an SD(480p) tv signal?    I was a long time WMC user here and image quality was very good with our SD signal.  Then we used plex when the EPG for WMC stopped working and while the image quality wasn'T as good(wish I knew what microsoft used to improve the image that much without setting anything!) it was still nice.  Now, I moved the HTPC to kodi but I'm struggling with the image quality.  On the worse channels, I can't get to the level that plex has. 

Based on posts I saw here, I've set the video settings to lanczos3 but I do no really see any difference from bicubic or automatic and I see alot of "vertical bars" on children toon show and blocky faces .  I see some posts also about editing XML for DXVA2, but it seems reading that XML is deprecated.  Any other tips/tweaks/guides I could follow?

Kodi HTPC setup:
Kodi 18.9
nextPvr backend
HD Homerun dual tuner with SD cable signal going in
AMD A4 APU (used as the GPU too)
plugged in an AVR then to the TV through HDMI

View mode is set to Zoom, so my thought is that the scaling method is probably the most important here, but I'm far from being an expert Tongue

Here is an example on one of the show my kids watch.
Image
Forgot to mention:  Kodi is running in windows 10 (Am I blind or there is no edit button for forums posts?)
For 480i from your OTA tuner the quality is most likely to be related to you deinterlacing method (not scaling) setting which you can see in the setting while watching a channel. 

If you use the NextPVR client instead of Kodi you can use the same renders and decoders that WMC used.

Martin
(2021-01-17, 20:17)emveepee Wrote: [ -> ]For 480i from your OTA tuner the quality is most likely to be related to you deinterlacing method (not scaling) setting which you can see in the setting while watching a channel. 

If you use the NextPVR client instead of Kodi you can use the same renders and decoders that WMC used.

Martin

I see,  so it means  DXVA is the only option I can see(?) (I do not see any difference btw it turned on or off) 

I can't use nexpvr client since the nexpvr backend is on a remote server and that's not supported by the client(and it would complicate the setup too much for the familly to watch tv in one soft and othere media in another)
Does the video card has an impact on deinterlacing?  I did a test and installed my unsused geforce 1050ti to take over from the AMD APU and I can see a difference, less lines. (it might be the placebo effect, I'll need more time to be definitive about it)
Many factors impact video quality.  The card could be one one factor.  Plex was probably sending 480p so you would have seen how ffmpeg was transcoding the source.  Some people don't like that.  I like my CoreElec Amlogic deinterlacing best but I'm sure others would disagree.  Some will want to go through hopes to use MadVR, for me this is just TV.

Martin