[mythtv-users] Using with a TV

[David Watkins]

On 11/05/07, Karl Buckland <karl at digital-end.com> wrote:
> David Watkins wrote:
> > For what it's worth, when I was using analog cards, mythtv playback
> > was indistinguishable from the source signal, except for fast moving
> > scenes. That was on a much smaller CRT though (28").
>
> What was wrong with fast-moving scenes? Have you been getting
> tearing/blurring?

It was blurry, and the movement didn't seem quite smooth.

Interestingly I have now moved over to using UK Freeview (DVB-T) on my
myth box, and am noticing a similar thing when watching football
(soccer) from BBC or ITV.  It's difficult to put my finger on exactly
what's wrong, again it looks a bit blurry and movement is not quite
smooth, but the effect is that the picture is significantly worse than
the analog broadcast of the same channel fed directly to the same CRT
TV.  For all other content I'd say the picture qualilty out of my myth
box is as good or better than the direct analog signal.

I've spent a while fiddling with my frontend,  but am coming to the
conclusion that the problem is with the compression of the signal at
the broadcast stage.  I was at my brother in law's house at the
weekend, who has Sky HD, into a 32 inch LCD screen.  Watching football
on BBC (SD), the quality was similar to what I see out of my myth box.
 On Sky Sport (SD) the picture was slightly better, and in HD
obviously it looked excellent.

I'd be interested to hear from any other UK freeview mythtv users,
perhaps who also have a TV with an interval freeview tuner, to comment
on the quality of the picture they recieve when watching football.

At the moment I'm starting to think that HD might be necessary just to
get back to the quality of the analog broadcast, even for relatively
small screens.  Or perhaps Freeview bit rates are being set
deliberately low, to encourage HD takeup!