[mythtv-users] Video Quality
Adam Biskobing
tv at badmoon.com
Thu Mar 11 16:54:37 EST 2004
It is also very dependant on the signal coming in. Originally I had my
PVR-250 connected to a coax cable connection. When I moved I got
DirecTV and connected up via an s-video cable, and my picture
dramatically improved. My MythTV box now looks better than my Tivo.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org
> [mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Alan Snyder
> Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 3:17 PM
> To: 'Discussion about mythtv'
> Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] Video Quality
>
>
> > >
> > > With a dirt-cheap bt878 capture card, generic
> > > GEForce-2 video card, and mid-90's 27" TV, with myth doing
> > MPEG-4 at
> > > 640x480, 2200kbps, the difference between live TV through myth and
> > > live TV off the cable is noticable but not bothersome. The CNN
> > > "crawl" is a little jumpy. There's some loss of detail in the
> > > highlights (I think that might be a bt878 chipset issue).
> Up close
> > > (closer than I watch), some blockiness is present
> > (replacing the less
> > > noticable noise in an analog picture). Football can seem
> harder to
> > > follow, probably because of the limitations of the compression
> > > settings to handle the frame-to-frame changes in content. But
> > > overall, the difference is similar to the difference
> between a good
> > > cable signal and an "OK" cable signal. I do notice that
> for certain
> > > channels where the cable signal is weaker, the noise in the
> > > original results in more artifacts in the processed video.
> > > This is most likely because the compression scheme needs to
> > > deal with all that extra "information."
> >
> > Before I go through and do this I need to be clear on this
> > one- is watching sports not very good through mythtv? If I
> > am watching hockey or football on a large TV, having the
> > ability to pause live TV would cause large amounts of
> > distortion? How noticeable is the difference between a
> > recording and live TV when watching sports? Thanks for any
> > information.
>
> Since I posted this, I should respond. My expectation is
> that if I had a faster CPU and could go to the 3000kbps
> range, these artifacts of the compression scheme would go
> away. At some point, the difference between the original and
> the compressed copy becomes indistinguishable.
>
> People who have PVR-250's can tell you whether the card
> essentially gets to the quality of a well-encoded DVD movie.
> I would *guess* that it can. I also expect from my
> experience with my 1 GHz system that a 2 GHz system would
> probably make my results indistinguishable from the original.
>
> Others have pointed out one (probably not the only one :))
> shortcoming of my original comments: The filters provide an
> opportunity to
> *improve* the picture. You cannot recover lost information. But
> that doesn't mean that certain filters won't make it *look*
> better than the original.
>
>
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