[mythtv-users] Questionable capture quality from a PVR-250

[Andrew Dodd]

Quoting brentfisher at shaw.ca:


> 
> 1. Is it actually possible to get captured video with a PVR-250 that
> rivals/exceeds the output from my TV's tuner?
Probably depends on the TV's tuner.

In my case, I can say *yes*, but dependent on the input signal.  I've mentioned
before I use OTA broadcast.  Some channels have good quality, some channels are
crap.

The PVR-x50 (and every PC-based tuner I have ever tried) does NOT deal well with
high amounts of noise being recorded.  My 350 absolutely hates WWOR and WPIX out
of NYC, but those are extremely noisy channels.  ONLY my Panasonic VCR feeding
the downstairs 27" TV does well on these signals.  Every PC-based tuner I've
used hates these particular channels, so does every other TV in the house.  :)

In the case of WNBC 4 out of NYC, where the signal quality is excellent, my 350
with light application of DNR (dnr_mode=3, dnr_spatial=6, dnr_temporal=12), the
quality exceeds watching TV directly when tuned via a Panasonic VCR if I burn
the video to DVD and play it back using a Rowa DVD-3610.

You mention that your quality is good when using xine to play DVDs- have you
tried playing back the recorded MPEG using xine?

Also, you may or may not need to manually tweak the
brightness/contrast/finetune/etc. per channel.  (On most channels I do.  On WNBC
I run the defaults.)

> 3. Is it possible that my card just isn't very good?
Maybe.

As to my recording settings:
720x480, DVD stream type, 7000 kbps avg bitrate, 7900 max bitrate.  See above
dnr settings for WNBC.  (Tweak these as appropriate.)