Picture Quality?????

[blade]

Originally Posted by jayrbrown77

So what are your suggestions? I take it from Blades comments, the Coaxial should be replaced, and a signal amp should be installed. The coaxial is split into three feeds (1 cox dvr, 2 sage dvr ). Maybe I should have Cox do this. They may need to replace from the pole.

I'm no expert and can only speak from my own experience, but the first thing I would do is see how the quality is with the built in tuner (assuming it has one). If it looks like garbage then IMO the first thing you should do is work on improving the incoming signal. If it's crap going in you can't expect much coming out. Once you get an acceptable picture from the built in tuner then focus on tweaking the HTPC. BTW I've found my PVR500s are more sensitive to noise and weak signal than the built in tuner in my HD sets. I ended up needing a signal amp, but my cable has 6 splits. If I didn't have to split it so many times I would have been fine without one.

S-video from a video card to my HD set is awful. DVI or component with my 6600gt and purevideo decoder looks just as good and sometimes better than the built in tuner.

I'm sure you'll read plenty of horror stories about how SD is unacceptable on a HDTV, but personally I've found it to be just as good or better and I know many others find it acceptable. Stanger posted earlier tonight in another post that he's running SD on his projector. If he can get acceptable quality with SD on a 110" screen I think there is a little hope for those of us with more modest setups.

[jayrbrown77]

What do you guys recommend for a signal amp

[jayrbrown77]

I ended up returning the Sony 40 inch display. I had cox come over, and they said the video quality was fine, but was suprised on how bad the quality was. They said if I had bad quality, that the image would be layered. I'm not totally sure if he is correct on that. Cox also mentioned that with these newer TV's they have been seeing problems like this. Something to do with the TV sensitivity.

Basically, there was blocking (pixelation) around objects, even in HD (but a little). So you couldn't watch TV from 3 feet away or 5 feet away. You would have to watch TV from 12 feet away.

So now, I'm in the market for a new LCD TV. Not sure if I should go with a 32 inch displayr or a 40 inch display.

What TV's do people suggest?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jayrbrown77

I ended up returning the Sony 40 inch display. I had cox come over, and they said the video quality was fine, but was suprised on how bad the quality was. They said if I had bad quality, that the image would be layered. I'm not totally sure if he is correct on that. Cox also mentioned that with these newer TV's they have been seeing problems like this. Something to do with the TV sensitivity.

First question, were you using a cable box?

Second question, was the picture actually breaking up (black/green boxes, boxes from other pictures, etc) or just blocking?

Basically, there was blocking (pixelation) around objects, even in HD (but a little). So you couldn't watch TV from 3 feet away or 5 feet away. You would have to watch TV from 12 feet away.

Sounds about like typical, bit-starved digital cable.

So now, I'm in the market for a new LCD TV. Not sure if I should go with a 32 inch displayr or a 40 inch display.

What TV's do people suggest?

I don't think a different TV is going to help you.

[jayrbrown77]

For the COX DVR, I was using the Cox Digital DVR box, but for sage I was just using the extended cable.

I've been basing the picture quality on the Cox DVR box.

The picture was blocking.

Well, consumer reports gives the Samsung 40 inch LNS4092D a good review with SD as well with HD. It is a 720p. I've also read that from people who have rear projection LCD's, that the HD and SD quality are better than the LCD's, although you have that view angle problem. The plasma's seem to have a better video quality as well. Although with the plasma I'm worried about burned images, although I hear that this is not such a problem with the new Plasma technology (pixel orbiting, etc).

Thoughts

[MattJohnson20]

For me Direct cable feed: 10
MVP: 9
HTPC: 8

To revive a previous comment:

Originally Posted by blade

I haven't used S-video much, but what little I have has looked like garbage. If you're using a SDTV you'd get much better quality from something like the MVP than a video card. . .

I have just "upgraded" to a full-fledged HTPC. I was previsously running Sage from our desktop (Athlon 2000+; 768MB RAM) and using an MVP in the other room on our TV (36" Toshiba SDTV). I have been disappointed with the picure quality and was surprised to find that the MVP had better PQ my current setup:

MB: Asus M2NPV-VM
Video: Using onboard GeForce 6150 through S-Video o/p; Purevideo decoders; VRM9
Ram: 1GB (512x2 Crucial)
Sound: SPDIF passthrough to Onkyo receiver

I am very happy with the increased features, responsiveness and speed of the new setup. The PQ suffers a bit especially with high speed video such as sports. My current setup frees up resources on the desktop (previously had conflicts with Cisco VPN for work). Overall, I thought the PQ would be equivalent to the MVP (which was pretty much like direct cable feed).

I don't think there are many other tweaks to increase the quality. It's definitely acceptable, but overall I was surprised that the full machine could not handle the video output as well as the MVP.

[aedgington]

I think a lot of it depends on your display, size and res, as previously discussed.

Our main TV is a 65" Toshiba RP HDTV. DVDs are stunning. Our direct cable is SD only, and still very, very good. Obviously some channels suck, but comparing apples to apples (channel-wise), our HTPC is only a 6.5-7 (if direct is a 10).

We're using a Radeon 9800 Pro w/ component.

Obviously scaling is an issue. I've tried multiple codecs, some a bit better, some a bit worse, but I'd say our luck with codecs only affects the PQ +/- 1 (on that 10 scale). I'm not willing to pony up for another vid card because I know I'll still have to overcome the scaling of digitial picture vs. analog.

Our 37" Phillips HD LCD bedroom TV is similar. The color depth/saturation is not great, but that's a Radeon 9600 Pro. Quite frankly, we don't watch that set enough to warrant jacking with it. Plus the HTPC driving that one is a stealth install in a closet running headless and that's just a pain to get down & mess with.

On the other hand, PQ on our 27" Toshiba CRT is great. Both with HTPC and with MVP.

So, HTPC results are like any other input. The bigger your TV, the better your input better be. That's been our experience.