TV-out questions

[ToonGal]

Current (relevant) H/W:
- PVR 250, rev 16
- ATI Radeon 9600, 128MB DDR, 128-bit
- RCA VCR VR658HF
- JC Penney TV ~'86 (yuck)
- ATI -> S-Video cable -> composite converter -> VCR input -> coax to TV

The JCP TV is of VERY low quality, so I know that to be an issue. Anyway, here's the problem. The picture quality is functional (for the time being), but ANY text is virtually illegible. The SageTV menu buttons have a large enough font to see what is going on, but any smaller text is impossible to read.

General questions:
1) Is it reasonable to expect a (new) TV to display with a quality closer to a monitor than to my current TV, or is expecting to read computer text an unlikelihood? I'm currently using 800x600 to maximize readability, but much happier to go smaller if I could.
2) Is it possible to have TWO TV outputs simultaneously from the computer, so that I can have two video streams? I'm thinking of simultaneous streams during NFL games using PIP to watch both thru Sage.
3) Any TV's to recommend for this? Main luxury desired is PIP, 1 or 2 tuners. The JCP is an old 19" model, but 27" to 32" is my likely target.

Thanks for the help, gang!

[nielm]

Re 1) TV displays are very poor quality. This is not normally noticable when they are displaying blurry (no defined 'edges') moving TV images. When displaying a computer display with sharp edges, this becomes very obvious!

Remeber also that the NTSC tv system only has 2 interlaced sets of 240 lines of resolution, so your 600 lines display resolution has to be converted by the TV-Out encoder of your gfx card, usually by blurring several of the display lines into the screen lines..

This TV out quality varies greatly from gfx card to gfx card, some are better than others at mapping the display lines to TV lines. Using TV-Out you will never get a perfectly crisp image like you would on a computer monitor.

However, in your system what makes it a lot worse is the connection to your TV that you are using. There are significant losses in quality at each step:

• Svideo->composite converter
  -- Using composite will cause the soruce signal to be of lower quality -- S-video is higher quality due to the fact that the luminance (brightness) and chrominance (colour) signals are sent down separate cables, leading to more bandwidth for both.
• Composte->VCR-> UHF modulator in VCR -> UHF modulated broadcast TV signal
  -- a lot more interference, blurring, and loss of detail caused by the limited bandwith (especially for the colour signal) available in the UHF signal. In addition there is possibility of added cross-channel UHF interference masking the signal, and possibilty of sound-on-vision interference, as the sound has to be combined with the video.
• UHF modulated -> TV Tuner -> TV
  Such an old TV may have a poor quality (or just tired) tuner, leading to yet more interference, even before you get to the quality of the TV Tube itself...

A 10 year old TV with composite video input should show you better quality (and not just from your PC but also from your VCR!)
A reasonably modern TV with S-Video input should give you much better quality.
A very modern TV with RGB inputs and the ATI VGA->RGB dongle should give better quality still!
A flatscreen Plasma/LCD with a VGA input 'should' be the best quality (but having never tried it, I cannot say)

Maybe you can borrow a friends portable TV (or take your PC to their house) and connect using composite or S-video input just to see the difference?

Apart from the display improvements, you may also see an improvement in the quality of the sound when playing back videos -- a direct connection allows more detail to be passed to the TV.

(Note, I can read 14pt bold anti-aliased text using 800x600, but I am in PAL TV land which gives me 20% more vertical resolution on my TV anyway!)

2) you can only display one stream at a time with SageTV -- so your PIP would have to be liveTV from one channel (or recorded from your VCR), unless you can run 2 Sage Client instances...
2 TV-outs would need 2 GFX cards, or a configuring the ATI to have multiple desktops (one for the VGA and one for the TV-Out) and get VGA-TV encoder for the VGA output...
It may be easier to just run the 2 SageClients, one in a large window, one in a small window with 'always on top'. How to control both would then be an interesting excercise!

Cant help with 3 (i am on the wrong side of the atlantic!)

[stanger89]

3) What's the budget.

[ToonGal]

@stanger89:
Budget: I'm thinking under $500, but would go to $1000 if necessary. Saving my HDTV money for later when tech is more stable. This is just an office TV until I upgrade the family TV and rotate the others around the house.

Any information at major budget price points appreciated though.

Thanks again as always!

[kny3twalker]

for just over a 1000(1299 but you can probably find it cheaper online), I would consider the WEGA 32" from Sony
it is HDTV capable to 1080i, and Sony is known for incredible picture quality
or if it is just for the office you should be able to get a 27" for 700 to 800

[stanger89]

Originally posted by ToonGal
...later when tech is more stable.

Sorry, had to laugh at that. Back to seriousness. Couple things to look for when searching for a HTPC friendly TV, make sure it has VGA, RGBHV, and/or DVI input, that way you don't need expensive transcoders or the limitations of the ATI dongle. Another thing to look for is something that acknowledges PC compatibility, nearly every HDTV can be driven by a PC, but the ones that don't acknowledge compatiblity will require effort to get the PC to output an HD standard resolution (Powerstrip).

Unfortunately, there generally aren't may good options HDTV wise in the 20-40" range, ~40" RPTVs are about the best value, the 42" Mitsubishi has DVI in and is about $1200, but you could probably get 10% off that if you go to an HT shop (not Ultimate Electronics/BB).

In the directview CRT range, it's very hard to find PC friendly displays. A quick search of the AVS Forum Directview forum revealed that the 2004 line from Panasonic looks interesting. Another thing to look at is the 32" Widescreen Monivision which will actually do 720p. FWIW this is my TV.

Of course, you could always go really big screen

[ToonGal]

Originally posted by stanger89
>>>Originally posted by ToonGal: "...later when tech is more stable."
Sorry, had to laugh at that. Back to seriousness.

While I appreciate the reponse, and the detailed list of options (great stuff!), my curiosity compels me to respond.

Why laugh at "when tech is more stable"? You must not have read my other post, about my HAF PVR mishap. Now, my HTPC is nothing but a project in my office, and still have to rewire the house and do all sorts of other tech things before I can really deploy. The last thing I want to do is buy a state of the art TV for the family room (and inherit a diff house TV) or one for my office, until things are finally spec'd and bought for the house-wide implementation.

Is it that PVR tech is never "stable" and always changing? Don't have a doubt about that, but don't get why you thought I wasn't serious.

In any respect, thanks for the good ideas. Now just have to think about MVP's and other connections I'll have fully deployed.

[stanger89]

Didn't think you weren't serious, and your reasons make perfect sense. Perhaps I've spent a little too much time over at AVS where you see a lot of "Should I buy now, or should I wait 6 months?" questions, where the answer is, "There will always be something better in 6 months, even 6 months from now, if anything tech will just get increasingly more unstable.

But waiting until you have your setup figured out is a very good reason not to go all out. Glad my post gave you something to think about, I'll just comment that I am continually greatful I chose a TV with VGA in, it's really nice to be able to just use Windows standard resolutions if I want.

Good luck with your setup.