[mythtv-users] Specs

[Jarod C. Wilson]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Thursday 08 January 2004 13:55, Joseph A. Caputo wrote:
>
> On Thursday 08 January 2004 10:31, Curtis Wood wrote:
>
> > On the quality of the 350's tv out... How would it compare to an
> > AT8500 -> connected to a 57" hitachi hdtv (widescreen) via DVI
> > (720x480)? The only thing that sux about this setup is that the
> > sharpness can be a big factor, and its at least 2x less sharp through
> > a 250... Also since Im asking - I have a Sb Audigy (v1), but cant get
> > to the AC3 pass through goodies, because I can only use the audio
> > from the encoded stream - does anyone know a way around this? Would
> > the 350 be anybetter?
>
> Well, first off I've never actually *seen* a PVR-350; just going by
> other people's reports.  I'd imagine if you have an HDTV with DVI-in,
> then the best quality would be via DVI-out if you have it;

Exactly -- the PVR-350's TV-Out is the best picture quality you can get if 
you're limited to S-Video (or less) for input to your TV. If you have a 
high-def, progressive-scan way in which you can feed your TV, it'll be 
superior. DVI is the best option, followed by VGA and Component Video. Of 
course, you need to have everything set up correctly...

> however,
> you're still bound by the quality of your incoming signal + your codec
> parameters.  When you say it's "2x less sharp through a 250", compared
> to what?

Yeah, that statement needs a little clarification...

> Live television tuned through your HDTV?  Well, that would
> make sense since the 250/350 is not an HDTV tuner, so you're capturing
> at standard NTSC resolution (SVHS quality, at best).

For the record, the picture quality of my PVR-250 recordings in right on par 
with the picture quality of NTSC channels fed off my cable box (Motorola 
DCT-5100) to my HDTV (via component video). Obviously though, it can't touch 
the picture quality of the HD channels fed off the cable box...

> If you have an
> HDTV set, you might want to consider a pcHDTV card, which has hardware
> compression & can receive HDTV stream over the air.

Very important to note that it won't work with cable HDTV programming.

> Check elsewhere
> for the availability of cards that can receive HDTV over cable; I don't
> think there are any available in the U.S.

Not yet, no.

> Also, keep in mind that your
> CPU requirements will go up if you want to decode & play full
> HDTV-resolution streams

WAAAY up.

> (the pcHDTV will encode, but not decode AFAIK).

Correct, the pcHDTV does not decode. Actually, it doesn't even encode. It 
simply dumps the HDTV signal's mpeg2-transport stream to disk.

> The PVR-350 won't help in the decoding for that, because AFAIK it will
> only decode up to DVD-resolution (720x480 or whatever).

Correct.

- -- 
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE

Got a question? Read this first...
     http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
MythTV, Fedora Core & ATrpms documentation:
     http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/
MythTV Searchable Mailing List Archive
     http://www.gossamer-threads.com/archive/MythTV_C2/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE//dk+ln8CX+oYdJURAkb+AKC20PSo5OhoGDas+Qj/PEOv35ACtgCgt+8p
OrwJRUZ3yKAZTja2rJIQzgQ=
=ojHK
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----