Frustrated! Poor Live TV quality (newbie)

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by GbrNole

standard tv MIGHT look anywhere from a tad better to a lot better depending on the power of your pc.

And the quality of your TV Better TVs with better scaler/deinterlacers would leave less room for improvement.

Also, IMO, consider going DVI to the TV (via the HDMI port) that way you won't limit your choice in cards. Although admittedly, with the Geforce 6600 series available with Component output, you pretty much don't have to make any sacrifices any more.

[Hector]

Thanks everyone, I sincerely appreciate the education. I knew my SD signal would look crappy but now I know why. As you say it is amazing how the flaws show up, I could even see the differences between cameras used on Monday Night Football.

The reason I was thinking component is that my TV only has one HDMI input and I was thinking that would best be used by the HD DirecTv box I need. If that's not sensible please let me know.

My pc is a Athlon 2800 I assume that would be fast enough but if not I can upgrade the cpu if I have to. Coming from the pvr-350 I don't even know what ffdshow is but I'll find out. I have the Nvidia encoder that came with my 5200 which also has a DVI connector but I don't know if that card is worthwhile for my tv or not. It's S-vid out stinks on any set but I understand that's very different.

The TV I picked up was a RPTV the Panasonic 47x54. After researching them and watching them at CC/BB ad nausea it was a toss up PQ wise to the Sony 51WS520 but I was able to get a very good price match deal on the panny plus a few other considerations because CC had the list price $100 higher than Panasonic did on their web site. Such atrocities just have to be punished and you can be sure I played that one with much feigned surprise at such an injustice.

peace . . .

[rackley]

Originally Posted by dgeffs

Right now the holy grail to picture quality is a hardware decoder card such as the PVR350 or the Xcard if you want a solution that works out of the box with no funky filters, decoders or tweaking till your blue in the face required. I'm sure others will disagree but I have purchased these and find the output to be far superior to my graphics card (YMMV).

Dale

Agreed. I bought an XCard and the picture quality is FAR FAR FAR superior to anything I could get out of my endless hours spent tweaking the software decoders.

Now if only a major PVR software provider would support it with OSD (hint hint Frey..)

The only products that support it are TVedia and GBPVR. Of them, TVedia is the better one and it's only mediocre.

Ray

[dgeffs]

Originally Posted by rackley

The only products that support it are TVedia and GBPVR. Of them, TVedia is the better one and it's only mediocre.

Ray

I couldn't even get GBPVR to work at all. Tvedia, while mediocre, seems to be very stable and the OSD plus the Xcard is a thing of beauty. We must be on the bleeding edge of this technology. I just managed to get TVedia working in conjunction with my Satellite box and it only took two weeks of fooling around to get XMLTV, TVedia, Girder, PVR350 plus USB-UIRT working in order to change a freakin TV channel. It seems none of this stuff is easy and I feel sorry for those non technical people trying to get any of this to work plus get a good picture on SDTV.

Dale

[Hector]

Agreed. For them the answer is Tivo. All but the simplest of PC solutions are still the domain of the enthusiast.

peace . . .

Originally Posted by dgeffs

It seems none of this stuff is easy and I feel sorry for those non technical people trying to get any of this to work plus get a good picture on SDTV.