[mythtv-users] Possibly a "dumb" question

[Jim Morton]

James Oltman wrote:
>
> I think you are confusing what the tuner can "magically" do versus the 
> signal quality.  By design, ATSC signals over the air are going to be 
> a better picture than over your cable system.  It really has nothing 
> to do with the tuner.  Cable companies HIGHLY compress their stream 
> because they don't have the bandwidth available on the wire.  ATSC OTA 
> signals are mostly at a bitrate of 19Mb/s (which is the highest that 
> ATSC can do IIRC).  That's why you get a better picture with less 
> pixelation.
>
> Jim Oltman

No, quality was not really a consideration. I was wanting to simply 
capture the signal _exactly_ as it arrives at my house, record it, then 
put it back on the wire later. (Whether OTA or cable is irrelevant but 
for the purpose of this discussion I was using OTA as the example.) The 
quality would be determined at the source and would not be affected at 
my end assuming I could deliver the _exact_ same signal to the TV. The 
TV has a digital tuner so it would be like running the antenna cable 
directly to the TV and feeding it what was broadcast at a previous time.

The part I didn't understand or didn't fully consider is that whatever 
the tuner does to the signal it receives would then have to be reversed 
with some form of very expensive modulator or other equipment.

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 Jim Morton