TV out - picture quality

[h8dk97]

Is it common for a graphic's card tvout (Abit R9600XT) picture quality not to be that great? When I'm watching shows through computer and then switch to tv the difference is quite noticible. The picture I'm getting from tvout is dull and not as sharp as the tv. Any ways of improving it?

[Rogue9]

What type of connection is it? S-video, Component, DVI?

Also, what programs and video decoders are you using?

All of these things have a big impact on the picture quality. S-video looked decent enough on my standard definition 27" TV, with my old ATI 9600.

And the picture quality on my HDTV is VERY GOOD with my new GeForce 6600.

[h8dk97]

It's s-video. I'm just using all default options. What decoders would you recommend installing to improve the quality?
Thanks.

[nielm]

graphics cards often have separate color calibration for TV-out -- see the control panel applet/Settings/Advanced, and then look for some kind of display-specific settings.

As for blurryness - this may be tunable (look for flicker filter), but in general TV-out will not be as high quality as VGA.

[h8dk97]

I've tried changing various settings in the graphics card, also installed trial nvidia decoder and ffdshow. Nothing seems to make the picture quality better. When playing DVD the quality is very good but mpeg2 really sucks.

If anyone is using ffdshow, what settings work for you to improve the picture? Or what other decoders could improve it?

[sunray]

I've got the same problem. With DVDs and TV straight from the cable without running through the PVR-250, output looks great, TV captures with the PVR-250 look flat and washed out. I have a ATI 9800 Pro video card and am using the SVideo out with the ATI SVideo to Composite converter. I have TheaterTek installed and am using the NVidia codec the comes with it. I dont have FFDShow installed and Sage 2.28 is at its default settings. I'm using my SDTV for viewing both regular TV fromt the cable and for Sage and TheaterTek's output as my TV has 2 inputs, one coaxial and one composite.

[dZeus]

Nearly all graphics cards will rescale the image and need deinterlacing because of that. So the interlaced capture will go like this:
interlaced video -> deinterlace -> scale -> scale -> tv-out
giving crappy image quality.
PVR350/Xcard/DVD STB/Matrox Purevideo&DVDMAX go like this:
interlaced video (-> scale if needed) -> tv-out
the field data will be retained and the image will look much sharper and smoother.

[blade]

If you're captures are the only thing that looks bad then try adjusting the color and sharpness settings for the capture card. Mine looked a little soft and way to dark until I tweak the settings for my pvr-500's.