[mythtv-users] Poor PVR-150 Composite Video Capture

[Brian Wood]

On Friday 28 August 2009 10:21:59 Mache Creeger wrote:
> I split the analog SD composite video and audio output with from my
> Comcast Motorola SD STB four ways with a distribution amplifier. The
> SD composite video viewed directly on the SD TV is great, but pretty
> poor when viewed on myth via my WinTV PVR-150.
>
> Video from the same cable feed via the PVR-150's analog tuner is
> excellent. Given that I have swapped the PVR-150's composite video
> cable and switched composite video ports on the distribution
> amplifier and determined that neither is the problem, I believe this
> is a software issue. What suggestions do any of you have to fix this
> problem.
>
> I am running Fedora 10, myth 0.21.212
>
> # uname -r
> 2.6.27.30-170.2.82.fc10.i686
> # rpm -qa | grep ivtv
> ivtv-firmware-20080701-18.noarch
> ivtv-utils-1.3.0-1.fc10.i386
> # rpm -qa | grep mythtv-backend
> mythtv-backend-0.21-212.fc10.i386

The default settings for a PVR are not good. You should be running a 
resolution of 720x480 (DVD resolution) at a decent bitrate. This results in 
about 2.2GB per hour. Check your recording profile(s).

There are many parameters you can tweak for the PVR cards, but using DVD 
resolution gives me pretty good results with PVR-150s using the defaults for 
everything else.

-- 
Brian Wood
beww at beww.org