[mythtv-users] Better looking playback?

Steve Hodge stevehodge at gmail.com
Sun Oct 30 22:03:29 EST 2005


On 10/31/05, MacNean Tyrrell <dardack at gmail.com> wrote:
> So i've checked the file on my laptop and a nuv recordings looks perfect,
> like it should.

Yeah, definitely sounds like a problem with TV-out on your MythTV box.
I've got a nVidia 5200 based card and I was pretty happy with the
TV-out when I was using it, but apparently the TV encoder chip is not
built into the GeForce chipset so the quality does depend a bit on
which TV encoder chip your particular card has. I've also just
remembered a few comments people have made about particular chips
being better at particular resolutions. Have tried different
resolutions (640x480, 800x600, etc)? Might be worth a go.

> And holy cow i just thought of something.  Everyone i keep
> seeing talks about vga in on there tv, i just downloaded the manual, i
> didn't remember something like that, plus nothing on my remote, but i have a
> RGB in, it looks like 3 rows of pins in according to the manual, would that
> be VGA? and would i just find a vga male to vga male cable?

If your TV has DVI in it probably has VGA in so yeah, that's probably
it. Does it look like the one here?
http://www.bris.ac.uk/audiovisualaids/images/DSC00003.JPG

If so then a VGA male to male cable is all you need.

> What would that require in the XF86Config-4 file?  That would be so cool.

It would just appear like a normal monitor in the X config file. You
might not even need to make any changes. Give it a go, and if it
doesn't work let me know.

> do they make a vga to component device?

I'm not sure, it'll be fairly pricey if you can find it. Component
video is a bit of a forgotten area in terms of computers so there
doesn't seem to be much that supports it either in or out.

>  Or something, obviously not
> going to take my 5200 out of this system, but maybe use my old sis 315, or
> something.

If you get your main TV working nicely with the VGA connectors then
the best solution might be to use your old card on that MythTV box and
put the 5200 which has the best TV out into the bedroom MythTV box. I
doubt you'll see much difference in quality between the cards using a
VGA connector but the difference in TV out might be quite marked.
That's pretty much what I think I'll end up doing - I've got GeForce
Ti4200 which has TV-out but it's nowhere near as good TV-out as the
5200 so I'll probably put the 5200 into my bedroom frontend (which
needs TV-out) and use the 4200 in the main box that is connected to
the plasma via VGA.

Steve


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