Output to tv delimma

[Crowdx42]

Well I have a delimma with my out put to my tv, I have been switching between the XCard and an Ati Vivo 64 video card for watching tv, I finally have gotta vmr9 working pretty good without tearing BUT my delimma is that the picture is soft compared to the Xcard, the real delimma is that if I sharpen the PVR 250s output to match the Xcard, then the Xcard will be too sharp and I also would think if I outputted to a DVD player the output would be too sharp also.
Another thing I have noticed with the Xcard is that it has much superior audio quality, there is an openness about the sound that does not exist from Sage's native audio (I have used several different sound card, SB Live, onboard audio etc).
My main gripe with the Xcard is that sometimes it refuses to play material and the only way to work around it is to exit Sage and then restart Sage again and then watch the show, having said that, I think this may be an OS setup issue.
Anyone get a happy medium with sharpness of picture vs a hardware decoder? Is it possible to get that sharpness and still output to a dvd without being too sharp?
Patrick