TV-Out quality

[Sweep]

Hi there,

been using sagetv now for a couple of days and it's great. One issue though, the quality of the TV-Out.
Video (liveTV or recordings) are great, the main menu is great, but the smaller icons or text in fi the EPG are unreadable.
I'm using a ATI radeon 9200 for my tv-out.

Is there a way to get a better quality on the tv-out ?
Is this better in v2.0 (small tekst in the EPG)?

I'd consider using the tv-out on the pvr350 with v2, but I doubt i'll be able to play divx from my download collection over this ?

any tips would be great ;-)

gr
Sweep

[jptaz]

You can adjust the font size and the number of columns and rows of EPG data that is displayed. I have mine set to 4 rows and 2 columns. This makes the EPG really readable on my 27" TV. This is done by exiting SageTV and editing the sagetvproperties.

See this website on what the properties are
http://sage.tv/developers.html

Hope this helps,
John

[krutaw]

Originally posted by Sweep
Hi there,

been using sagetv now for a couple of days and it's great. One issue though, the quality of the TV-Out.
Video (liveTV or recordings) are great, the main menu is great, but the smaller icons or text in fi the EPG are unreadable.
I'm using a ATI radeon 9200 for my tv-out.

Is there a way to get a better quality on the tv-out ?
Is this better in v2.0 (small tekst in the EPG)?

I'd consider using the tv-out on the pvr350 with v2, but I doubt i'll be able to play divx from my download collection over this ?

any tips would be great ;-)

gr
Sweep

Sweep,

The tv-out on the pvr-350 looks GEORGEOUS from SAGETV 2.0. All be it that I'm having a few problems with it right now, but hey, it's beta.

Anyway, I highly recommend using the tvout on the 350.

[Myth2Sage]

Originally posted by krutaw
Sweep,

The tv-out on the pvr-350 looks GEORGEOUS from SAGETV 2.0. All be it that I'm having a few problems with it right now, but hey, it's beta.

Anyway, I highly recommend using the tvout on the 350.

I'll have to 2nd this.

I have done COMPONENT, I have done S-Video and I have done COMPOSITE and the TV OUT on the PVR-350 blows them all away combined.


M2S

[Sweep]

Great, thanks for the replies.
Maybe pushing it, but divx doesnt play on the pvr-350 out ?

[krutaw]

Originally posted by Sweep
Great, thanks for the replies.
Maybe pushing it, but divx doesnt play on the pvr-350 out ?

I doubt it ,but I will play with it when I get home.

[phatjew]

I have done COMPONENT, I have done S-Video and I have done COMPOSITE and the TV OUT on the PVR-350 blows them all away combined.

Yeah, but you can't play DVDs through the PVR-350, right? Here is a quote and link from an htpcnews forum where this is covered:

"The PVR-350 has a dedicated MPEG2 decoder onboard, it is used to send decoded video directly out the s-video port. The PVR-350 is not a graphics card, it does not have the capabilities to display Windows or other data (such as DivX or XviD), it can only send MPEG1/2 to a TV."

http://myhtpc.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5736

[krutaw]

Originally posted by phatjew
Yeah, but you can't play DVDs through the PVR-350, right? Here is a quote and link from an htpcnews forum where this is covered:

"The PVR-350 has a dedicated MPEG2 decoder onboard, it is used to send decoded video directly out the s-video port. The PVR-350 is not a graphics card, it does not have the capabilities to display Windows or other data (such as DivX or XviD), it can only send MPEG1/2 to a TV."

http://myhtpc.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5736

I'm fairly certian that you can play DVD's at least, but you're probably right about the Divx.

[justme]

I'm fairly certian that you can play DVD's at least, but you're probably right about the Divx.

No Divx for 350 out. The only way to do this in Windows would be to transcode to MPEG2 and then feed the stream to the 350. The processing power required for this would be large and the transcoding would negate any quality gained by using the 350's output.

DVD sort of, but not in any practical sense. You can use some tricks to get the 350 to play the video. The problem is the audio is usually in a format(AC3) that can't be handled by the 350. You could maybe feed the sound out the soundcard but it will be out of sync with the 350's video stream, unless you buffer these streams in some manner before sending them off to each output.

[phatjew]

DVD sort of, but not in any practical sense.

So, those of you extolling the virtues of the 350 for TV, do you switch to another card when viewing DVDs or other stored video, or do you just bypass the HTPC altogether?

[fidget]

Originally posted by phatjew
So, those of you extolling the virtues of the 350 for TV, do you switch to another card when viewing DVDs or other stored video, or do you just bypass the HTPC altogether?

I have a standard DVD player, so I only have to deal with the normal PC video when I watch DivX movies (which is not very often).

[justme]

So, those of you extolling the virtues of the 350 for TV, do you switch to another card when viewing DVDs or other stored video, or do you just bypass the HTPC altogether?

I use my Xbox(modded with XBMP/XBMC) for veiwing DVDs and occasionally for Divx. I rarely watch DVDs in general but I do have alot of Divxs. For Divx, I generally switch to my SageTV boxs videocard's SVHS output since I'm trying to move it all to the Sage HTPC. I would buy an Xcard but the lack of OSD causes it to fail the WAF test. So until Frey is able to empliment an OSD on the Xcard I essentially have 2 HTPCs, the Xbox and SageTV. Either way it beats my videocard hands down.

Keep in mind I don't have a TV with VGA/DVI or even component inputs. The best input my bigscreen has is a SVHS, at least it has 3 of these. If you have a higher quality TV then going with a standard videocard would most likely give the best of both worlds.