[mythtv-users] Simple Question About TV Out Quality

jose rubio debian at nc.rr.com
Thu Oct 23 10:58:05 EDT 2003


On Wed, 2003-10-22 at 19:56, James L. Paul wrote:
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> 
> Michael Starks wrote:
> | It is hard to see how picture quality can, as a rule,
> | exceed what you get from a standard TV on the cable.
> |
> | In the standard TV, the cable signal is decoded by
> | the tuner and the resulting video is displayed.  With
> | Myth (or TiVo, or Replay), you're substituting a
> | different tuner and some additional signal processing....
> | --------
> |
> | Thank you for the response, however that's not quite what I'm looking for.
> | I'm interested to know if *subjectively*, people are as pleased with video
> | out to a TV as they are with the tuner in their TV.  In other words, how
> | does it look?  (Again, generally and subjectively speaking.)
> |
> 
> Ahh, subjectivity. I'm good at that. ;)
> 
> The single largest threat to quality that I have is my cable signal
> quality. That said, for most casual TV watching, anything anything
> better than VHS-LP quality is perfectly fine to me. For archiving
> recordings, I like to have as high quality as feasible.
> 
> I've used Tivo for 4 years and use "basic" quality for most everything.
> I use "good" quality for special things, but rarely. I haven't used tape
> since 1996, back when I switched to VCDs for storage. A couple years ago
> I switched to CVD (an XSVCD format that happens to be DVD stream
> compatible.)
> 
> So, I've been using TV-out in various forms since my first homebrew PVR
> in 1996. There are 2 big factors in the quality, the first is the
> quality of the capture card, the other is the TV-out video.
> 
> I'm using PVR-250 cards (Freestyle) and an nVidia GeForce II GTS for the
> TV-out. The quality is very decent, but not as good as the Tivo on the
> better quality modes. This isn't due to the capture card, it's due to
> the TV-out.
> 
That is exactly my set up, including the Tivo with "basic" quality and I
agree, the video out of the GeForce is just no as good (maybe I should
say more bad?) as Tivo's basic.
It has nothing to do with resolution.  I went as far as freezing a frame
in my Tivo (at its best resolution) and on the same frame in my myth-box
and switching back and forth.  The myth image was much better than
Tivo's BUT, when viewing the file, the video was too jerky.  Ok to watch
Friends and Ed but not Monday Night Football or Coors commercials (...
and Twins!!!)
Then... 
'ah went and got maself a threefity...  

I got tv-out working in no time (of course, I broke everything else...)
and it looks great.  can't tell the diff between it and the live cable
feed.  PLUS you will never have problems of sync between the pic and the
sound.

Highly recommend it.  but it is still an alpha driver.  (and that's not
like an alpha male, by the way)


-jose-



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