goafreak

frez
Thanks goafreak.

I also did some experimenting with the options using the “Save Frame…” option via the RMB menu in RenderView … and a contributing factor appears to be the ZIP compression of exr files.

I tried switching to no compression and got a crisp image, however an HD resolution frame went from 450KB to 32MB in size.

The ZIP compression is lossless, therefore it should not have any impact on the image quality!

The IPR doesn't do any pixel filtering, that's why it appears “sharper”. The final render uses the pixel filtering as noted in the manuel:
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini15.5/nodes/out/ifd#output [sidefx.com]
You can try a different filter method to get a sharper look (Sinc for example).

StefanN
Try to run it as administrator.

Did that, too.
On one hand, I just want it to work, but on the other hand, I want to understand what the problem is. I never have any issues installing software, I never had any issues installing Houdini, why is the installer of the new version such a problem?