[mythtv-users] Recording/live-tv video quality (aka do PVR150 encoders suck?)

[George Mari]

Scott Traurig wrote:
>> From: Dan Christensen <jdc at uwo.ca>
>>
>> Scott,
>>
>> I think you should make a short sample of a recording available to see
>> what others think, since many of us use PVRxxx cards with no discernible
>> loss of quality.
> 
> I'll do this, thanks for the good suggestion. Do you have a suggestion as to
> what might be the best source material? I tend to like things with talking
> heads and static graphics like CNN to do comparisons as the scenes are
> relatively unchanging.
> 

IMHO, fast-moving sports are tend to exercise the hardware more than 
talking heads, and will expose any weaknesses in your capture/playback 
hardware and setup.

I capture from a DirecTV STB over S-video to a PVR-350, and playing back 
to a Standard-Def CRT/Tube TV via a Nvidia 6xxx card, I have tweaked it 
so that playback of auto-racing, my favorite thing to record, is 
indistinguishable from the "live" STB feed.  If I get about 4 feet or 
closer to the screen, I can notice the difference, but beyond that, it's 
good enough for me.

Just mentioning this as it is possible to have excellent quality recordings.