[mythtv-users] tv-out quality problems

[Michael T. Dean]

Michael Bochynski wrote:

> My setup is as follows - cable box, LeadTek WinFast TV Deluxe as tuner 
> and ATI Radeon 8500 as TV-Out.
>
> However, My mythtv TV_OUT is significantly worse in terms of picture 
> quality than a direct cable out to TV. My question is whether it is 
> due to ATI card, not fully supported under Linux, or TV tuner, which 
> does software encoding?

Probably configuration.  Could be anything from encoder settings to X 
settings to ATI settings to Myth settings to ...  It's also likely that 
even switching to another output device will not fix the problems.

> I want to replace one of those components, by my question is whether 
> it makes more sense to get PVR-350 (I don't need dual tuners of 500, 
> since I use cable box)  or nice NVIDIA graphics card for better 
> support for linux?

IMHO, the PVR-350 is a waste of money (and I wasted money on one) in 
today's world.  It made sense when 720x480 MPEG-2 decoding strained 
general-purpose CPU's, but any processor that's worth using in a Myth 
box (1GHz or better) will barely notice the effort.  I'm using an NVIDIA 
card (and not using the TV out on my PVR-350) because it has so many 
advantages:
    - OpenGL support
    - Choice of resolution, overscan, etc. (allows you to choose the 
best combination of scaling, size, position, etc. for your needs)
    - Choice of outputs (i.e. built-in TV out, using VGA to a VGA to 
NTSC/PAL converter, using VGA/DVI to a monitor/digital TV, etc.)
    - If you get a 5200 or better, ability to support HDTV when you 
decide to switch
    - Is not a single-purpose device, so it continues to be useful even 
if you stop using Myth.  (OK, I don't think it's possible for someone to 
stop using Myth once they've started, but it's the principal of the matter.)

And only one disadvantage:
    - Does not provide the placebo effect for users, so video quality is 
significantly worse.  ;)  (Which actually means you must learn how to 
configure it for good video quality.  With a PVR-350, you just need to 
learn how to configure it and you get good quality--the PVR-350 is an 
all or nothing configuration because it doesn't give you the options 
that I mentioned as a benefit above, so you can't configure it for 
poor-quality output.)

OK, so the NVIDIA proprietary drivers are the real disadvantage, but 
they're much better than the ATI drivers, so if you've got to pick one, 
NVIDIA's the way to go.

Mike