Ideal TV capture resolution (width)???

[griffindodd]

What is the ideal width resolution to capture TV at without losing original information or taking too much space (quality setting aside).

a 480x480 capture of 4:3 content is creating a square image from a non square input right? So shouldn't the horizontal pixel count be higher for an NTSC 480 line input? If so, are these greater resolutions already available in the quality settings or would you have to make your own?

It seems to me that an accurate capture of a 4:3 image of 480 vertical lines should be somewhere in the region of 640x480 - or am I missing some important information?

I dont really want to capture TV at 720x480 as it would seem a waste of space for a lesser quality input signal.

Sorry if this is an obvious/noob question.

Joel

[griffindodd]

Can you even configure a new capture setting at 640x480? I didn't see a 640 option in the .ini settings tutorial?

[griffindodd]

Thinking out loud (hopefully it will help others).

640x480 may also be too high of a resolution for an efficient use of the information for a 4:3 ntsc format with 480 lines as I think there is a non-square-to-square pixels issue (the reason why 16:9 is 720x480 pixels even though a true 16:9 ratio would be 854x480 pixels).

So using that reasoning I figured the most efficient capture resolution for a 4:3 image with 480 vertical lines would be 540x480.

Either way, my question still stands, will SageTV accept a custom capture setting of 540x480?

Joel

[griffindodd]

Found this info too,at Cox's web site which does support the idea of capturing digital SDTV broadcasts up to 640x480 but no higher.

What is the difference between DTV, HDTV, and SDTV?
"DTV" is a general reference to Digital Television, as compared to "analog" Television. DTV broadcasts can be either HDTV (high-definition television) or SDTV (standard-definition television). HDTV can broadcast at resolutions typically as high as 1920 by 1080 pixels (2 million pixels), whereas the resolutions of SDTV broadcasts are typically only as high as 640 by 480 pixels (290,000 pixels). In comparison, analog television produces a total of about 210,000 pixels. Broadcasters and cable providers can choose which format of DTV they transmit, and most DTV's and new HDTV set-top boxes will be able to receive the signal regardless of which format is transmitted.

Using this information it would seem that people with Standard Digital TV broadcasts in 4:3 format would make best use of 640x480 pixels (307200) in capture.

And people with analog cable connections would make best use of the existing 480x480 pixels (230400) in capture.

Maybe this is something that can be considered in offering capture options as digital TV users have to either lose original resolution using a 480x480 capture or use 'excessive' resolution with 720x480 to retain original horizontal image resolution.

Although shaving numers like this may seem anal, it would techincally allow for an 11% increase in efficiency against capturing with the 720x480 template as you are using 11% less pixels without losing any of the original maximum resolution of the broadcast.

Joel