[Wetek Play 2 / Wetek Hub] 1080i live TV blurred, fuzzy, unsharp with hw acceleration

    Hi,

    I am on LE 8.2.1.

    1080i live TV footage is very blurred, fuzzy, unsharp compared to my VU+ Receiver, several Windows PCs.

    My settings is:

    1080p@50Hz

    HW acceleration: on

    When I disable hw acceleration I get the same sharpness in live TV as I have on VU+ and my Windows PCs. But of course the hardware of the Wetek devices is to weak to play video without hw acceleration.

    So there must be some kind of image processing that does make the video go blurry. And with blurry I mean the whole video looks like it would have a smaller resolution than 1080. Its not that movements look funny or anything like that. It just looks like the overall resolution would be smaller.

    So what I have tried so far is:

    Disabling de-interlacing whilst hw acceleration is on: echo 1 > /sys/module/di/parameters/bypass_all

    • This made the video even more blurry

    Disabling AMLogic Noise Reduction: echo 0 > /sys/module/di/parameters/nr2_en (thanks to wrxtasy )

    • This did not have any effect on video quality at all (strangely)

    So, I think (and I hope) that this is caused by some image processing. I hope this is not a limitation of capabilities of the AMLogic CPU / GPU.

    Maybe could anybody help me to solve this or to clarify that theres not better image quality possible?

    Thanks in advance.


    Kind regards

    Edited once, last by nilleiz: fixed typos (November 29, 2017 at 11:57 AM).

    I watch European DVB-S2 streams in SD, 720p (the German HD stations), 1080i (all other HD stations) or 4k on three different boxes, connected to three different output devices. Never had any of the problems you mentioned.

    I would guess some post-processing of your TV is active and really messes up your picture or something else interferes with the signal. So:

    • try a different TV or monitor
    • try using "PC" or "Game" mode on the TV
    • set the LE resolution to 1080p60 and set change the setting of display resolution/refresh to "on start/stop"

    Hi,

    thanks for your response!

    I have second TV but that one only supports 720p anyway, so the effect is not noticeable there.

    I have got this problem on both Wetek Play 2 and Hub but not on any Windows PC .

    Tonight I will try libreelec on my windows Laptop (Pentium, integrated GPU) and see if it is related to LE or KODI or hardware.

    I have disabled all image processing options my TV offers.

    movies and other progressive media is absolutely fine. Just German HDTV (1080i) looks blurry (unscharf) and doesn't have that sharp contours that my VU+ receiver and my Windows PCs have.

    Also since disabling hw acceleration in LE makes the blur go away I'd say it is not the tv. Also I tried different HDMI cables and ports.

    Also: the GUI is perfectly clear and sharp whilst the video that is shown at the same time is blurry.

    Resolution is set to 1080@60, and automatic refresh is set to in "start/stop". I have no auto resolution swtich to enable.

    By the way. Are all your different boxes powered by AMLogic CPUs?

    Hi,

    Yes I was posting it in Wetek forum. The tips I tried mentioned in my first post have been from there.

    So now I hooked up my laptop without libreelec and I can also get the clear sharp video as I get on Windows.

    When using the deinterlacing option "deinterlace".

    Using vaapi Bob, or Bob I get the blurry image that I have on libreelec on Wetek. As I can not change the method on Wetek I assume that Bob is the preconfigured deinterlacing method. Or some similar?

    Never seen this blurry picture problem on any AML devices and a variety of TV's and I watch a lot of 1080i25 H264 and 576i25 mpeg2 TV on my 4K TV.

    Make sure ALL video Hardware acceleration options are selected to "Always" as well.

    Only suggestion I can make is change Kernels by using GDPR-1 's standard Marshmallow one in his 32bit Kodi Krypton/Leia releases for Play2 / Hub.

    Hi wrxtasy

    thanks for your reply.

    I have checked that the acceleration is enabled for all different types and that it is set to always.

    When they are enabled the video plays fluent, but is blurry. When its disabled it is stuttering, but is sharp.

    What is the difference in kernel from GDPR-1 ? As my Hub is already on rb-krypton18 and has just the same problem.

    Slowly I am getting more and more afraid of that something must be wrong with me, as I seem to be the only one seeing this. :D

    For you to see what exactly I am on about I tried to make a photo of the different video qualities.

    This first one is the blurred example, you will not see it as blurry in this picture because it is so close, but you can see at the borders of the channel logo that theres some "extra" white color (pixels) that should not be there as seen in the second example.

    Yes they are exposed slightly different as the second one is darker than the first one, but this doesn't influence the picture. This shimmering "beyond" the border of the logo is actually there and visible by the huma n eye.

    blurry:

    blurry.jpg

    sharp:

    sharp.jpg


    You would probably also say that when you have to be that close to see the difference it is negligible. But otherwise I would not be able to show in a picture and you do notice this effect even when sitting 3 - 4 meters away that there is some shimmering blur that should not be there (my eyes are actually not good and I see it, and my girlfriend does see it, too :D).

    Maybe the pictures give you another idea of where I could tweak something (apart from changing to Raybuntus build).


    Just out of curiosity: Why is it not pissible to tweak the deinterlace method on AML Libreelec =

    Kind regards

    Edited once, last by nilleiz (December 1, 2017 at 10:16 AM).

    Alright.

    So is this a filter that can be enabled somewhere?

    Like it is the same tv, the same settings on tv and on libreelec. Only difference is one is hw acceleration AML and one Is hardware acceleration intel. (with deinterlace settings set to "deinterlace")

    Can I force, or enable this sharpening in LE for AML?

    Just to let you all know.

    I have got myself the NUC6CAYH (SSD, 8GB RAM) and the video quality is perfect.

    No blur. No nothing and better perfomance and it was cheaper than the Wetek Play2

    Running it on LibreElec8.2.1.