[mythtv-users] perfect quality TV-out

[Florin Andrei]

I can't seem to find this thing described in the documentation...

What is the list of TV-out hardware supported by MythTV that has perfect
quality?
I.e., direct output of interlaced video is supported, no image resizing
is performed anywhere in the chain between the video file and the TV
screen, etc.

The ASUS Pundit system, which seems to be so popular with MythTV users,
does not have a TV-out chip that supports interlaced video. Therefore,
either deinterlacing should be performed in software, which will feed
pseudo-progressive video to an interlaced display (TV), or don't do
anything but create comb-effect (interlacing) artifacts on the screen.
The quality will be mediocre at best.

I've only found a couple hardware solutions that seem to work. Please
let me know if there are any other.

1. VIA/S3G - as seen in the M10000 boards, supported by the Unichrome
driver
These do seem to support interlaced TV-out. Even so, the driver does not
know the field order, it has to guess it and sometimes it gets it wrong,
therefore creating heavy jitter.
Also, progressive scan does not seem to be supported.

2. Hauppauge WinTV PVR-350
It seems like this is the ideal solution, since it can record/playback
video _as_is_, preserving all parameters (resolution, interlaced fields,
frame rate) at all steps between the video file and the TV screen.

The pcHDTV does not seem to be a solution, since it's a record-only
device.

-- 
Florin Andrei

http://florin.myip.org/