[mythtv-users] Tweaking setup for PAL (uk)

[Matt Lovett]

Hi all,

I've got myth up and running - bit of a steep learning curve, but well
worth it! I'm now trying to tweak some good capture settings.

I'm using a TV tuner card based on the saa7143 chip. (With 2.6 kernel
that comes in as a V4L2 device, and works fine - though I did have to
use v4lctl to turn the sound on, which seems odd because xawtv seems
to turn it on and off automatically, but myth doesn't. Is that
normal?)

I'm recording and playing PAL-I (UK), using an 800x600 display on a TV.

The max capture rate I can get is 720 x 576, and that stretches the
image (i.e. it's not 4:3) but looks quite good. I'm encoding straight
to MPEG4 as I go (Athlon XP 1800 has no trouble recording and playing
back at the same time).

Questions:

Is it worth putting any filters onto the initial capture? Given it's
PAL I'm guessing deinterlace is a good idea, but I'm not sure how to
set it up.

Is it worth scaling back the capture rate to get a 4:3 ratio? What
rates do UK people tend to use?

The MPEG4 encode has at least 4 'make it better' buttons that I could
press, including 2 that sound like they'll help with interlaced
signals. Which do UK people tend to choose?

I know I could fiddle with the settings to get somewhere with this,
but they must be quite common new-PAL-user info... perhaps we can get
some consensus and feed the info back into the docs? (The docs are a
good start, but don't mention PAL much)

Thanks in advance!

Matt