[mythtv-users] pcHDTV - 2 questions

[Jarod C. Wilson]

On Nov 4, 2003, at 20:39, Brian Foddy wrote:

> Looking at the card and how to use it
> (haven't bought it yet), I have 2 questions.
>
> 1.  The spec sheet claims it supports NTSC (std tv)
> signals as well as ATSC.  How is the card used for
> NTSC?  ie:  for a non-hd show, can it function
> like a standard analog Hauppauge card?  How good is it
> for this, etc, etc.  Reason I ask is for standard
> non-hd tv, do we still need to reserve space for
> the old cards and their pci slots?

Works at least as well as any other standard 
non-hardware-encoder-equipped tuner for NTSC, at least in my 
experience. However, note that MythTV cannot shift on the fly between 
NTSC and ATSC. You have to pick one, and that's it (unless there has 
been a major breakthrough in CVS that I've missed, which is very 
possible, because I have been a bit out of the loop the past two 
weeks). It is in the plans to have the card shift on the fly between 
the two, if it isn't already possible.

> 2.  Question 2 deals with the signal output to the
> HDTV itself.  With my current analog stuff, I have
> a signal converter that takes the vga and outputs
> a std ntsc signal.  My TV can then stretch that
> signal to a 16x9 wide mode so it covers the whole
> screen.  My tv will not however stretch an input
> from the component inputs, only a simple zoom.
> So the question goes, if I hook the thing up for
> hd signals, that implies the non-hd signals will go
> through the same video input, and now my tv can't
> stretch a std tv anymore.  How do I balance this?
> I want true 16x9 hd when available, but want a
> stretched 4x3 when not in hd.  How have people
> handled this?  I guess I want the best of both
> worlds.

Signal converter. Ick. Bad. No good for HDTV. Get rid of that thing. 
You'll be rescaling the video once to a resolution the computer can run 
and output through it, then rescaling it again w/the converter, and in 
the end, spitting out a greatly degraded picture. That's like trying to 
display HDTV on a standard-def TV, more or less. It should be a bit 
better than NTSC, but not anywhere near as good as actual HDTV. You 
need something that can feed either Component video, DVI or VGA to your 
TV. Personally, I use Audio Authority's 9A60, outputting from my 
computer via VGA to the AA, which transcodes to component video to feed 
the component video inputs on my HDTV.

-- 
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE

Got a question? Read this first...
     http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
MythTV, Red Hat Linux 9 & ATrpms documentation:
     http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?pageName=rh9pvr250
MythTV Searchable Mailing List Archive
     http://www.gossamer-threads.com/archive/MythTV_C2/
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