[mythtv-users] TV Picture and DVD playback quality

[Lars Ove Claesson]

Hi, all.

This is kind of a noob-question, but I have searched kind of a lot and
cannot find anything that might give me clues, so I'm asking here in
stead.

I have just set up an installation of MythTV on FC5, with a box
containing

Asus GeForce 7600GS 256MB DDRII Silent
Intel Core Duo T2300 1.66GHz PC667 
Asus N4L-VM DH Motherboard
Pioneer ND-3550 DVD-RW
Hauppauge! WinTV-PVR-500MCE

...basically.

My question is regarding the expected quality of DVD playback and TV
from a HTPC-box like this. I realize that I have not fine-tuned or
tweaked any parameters yet, but the image quality I get is actually very
poor.

I use a digital set-top, and when connecting a SCART directly to my TV
the image is excellent. This box also provides me with RF-signal to use
with my Hauppage, so the signal is good (as verified when connecting RF
directly to my TV). But the image produced by the Hauppage is terrible.
It does not fill the entire TV-screen, and the image is noisy with
blurred edges (yes, I've set PAL). Is this just a matter of fine-tuning
the frequency? Can I at all expect to reach the image quality produced
by the SCART-cable connected directly to my TV from the digital box? 

Second, regarding the DVD playback, how to explain this... the movie
"freezes" for one second, then use the next second to run through those
two seconds in fast forward, then freezes again... over and over. Also,
the image fills the width of the screen, but only about 50% of the
height is used (centered vertically). Could this be just a matter of
tweaking mplayer? The sound seems continuous, though.


Would appreciate some guidelines on how to proceed. And what I might
expect from a correctly tweaked system.


Regards,
Lars