[mythtv-users] Confusion about Output Cards.

Jesse Guardiani jesse at wingnet.net
Tue Mar 14 21:30:18 UTC 2006


Nick wrote:
> On 14/03/06, Jesse Guardiani <jesse at wingnet.net> wrote:
>   
>> One more note: SDTV looks fairly bad using software scaling on an HDTV.
>> Usually it's perceived
>> as worse than SDTV on an actual SDTV due to the pixelation. Oh well.
>> DVDs look nice though,
>> and of course HDTV looks great.
>>     
>
> One question about this, as 'HD-ready' 720p panels are now becmoing
> available in the UK - how does scaled DVD video or DVB look when
> displayed on such a LCD/plasma screen? Is it better to use the
> software to do the scaling (ala DScaler on Windows) or use the
> screen's own resizing capabilities? DVB and DVD have very clean video,
> whereas PVR-xx0 captured video is much more noisy, so would you expect
> the same? In other words, would the pixelation observed when playing
> 480 content on a 720 screen be similar to playing 720 content on a
> 1080 screen?
>   

The only difference between an 'HD-ready' TV and an HDTV is the presence 
of an OTA tuner
on the latter, as far as I know. So this discussion probably relates to 
both types of HD TVs.

I'm currently running a 32" LCD via DVI. Resolution is a common 
1360x768. DVDs look excellent,
as do games and MythTV menus. I literally use the TV as a monitor on 
ocassion. There is none of the
blur or distortion one usually experiences with TV out to an SDTV. So 
think of it like a big-a$$ LCD
monitor.

I record my SD content from a PVR 350, same as you. SDTV is 
blocky/grainy/etc when played
back in mythfrontend on the LCD. I'm really not sure why DVDs look so 
much better than SDTV.
My SDTV comes in via satellite, so it's usually not very noisy. They're 
both mpeg-2 and they both
use similar pixel resolutions and bitrates. Since I play back DVDs using 
xine, it makes me wonder
if xine just has a superior mpeg scaling engine. I'll have to check this 
out when I get home tonight.

-- 
Jesse Guardiani
Programmer/Sys Admin
jesse at wingnet.net



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