What's the TV Out solution?

[Grasshopper]

I've been waiting patiently for my Dish contract to expire so that I can return to cable (long story). In the meantime, I've been gathering information on HTPC's and Sage in order to replace my DishPVR, which has become a household necessity. Until recently, my plan was to put a couple of PVR-250's in an existing machine to function as a server, and build a small client box with DVD but no onboard PVR card for the family room.

But I've been occasionally browsing this forum, and I'm noticing that the TV output quality of the PVR-350 is being touted increasingly frequently. Now, this is not an ideal solution for me, since I can't use it to play DVD's (that's my understanding). But I would like a high quality TV Out solution (standard def, composite input, no HD for now). What are my options? The XCard doesn't do the Sage OSD, the 350 doesn't do DVD's, and I have the impression that standard video cards don't produce high quality output. Is there anything rumored to be coming out in the next couple of months that I should know about? What's the best product for my application?

Thanks for your thoughtful replies.

[TunaBoo]

You should look at a normal video card before going crazy over it... it looks as good as tivo.

[krutaw]

Originally posted by TunaBoo
You should look at a normal video card before going crazy over it... it looks as good as tivo.

I completely disagree. The video output on the PVR-350 is *FAR* superiour to any of the multitude of video cards that I bought to try and get the picture just right. Now it not only looks better than a TiVo, it looks almost as good as my dvd player.

[kny3twalker]

you can output DVD with 350 using a sound card for audio output and 350 for video output
I think you have to rip the DVD first then rename to mpeg
anyone reading this correct me if I am wrong
also you may need to delay the audio in the setup of SageTV

[phenixdragon]

Originally posted by krutaw
I completely disagree. The video output on the PVR-350 is *FAR* superiour to any of the multitude of video cards that I bought to try and get the picture just right. Now it not only looks better than a TiVo, it looks almost as good as my dvd player.

I will have to also totally disagree with this one. The 350 card looks just as good as my IGP Radeon 9100. I wouldn’t think of going back to the 350 since now I don’t need a 2nd monitor in my living room to view Windows.

I do believe the only way to get your answer is to test it out. Everyone will see things slightly different and depending on your hardware, HTPC and TV.

nVidia and ATI should be releasing video cards with hardware decoding so even if you notice a difference I would suggest going with a video card that is decent and then upgrade it to one of the newer ones later this year.

[mlbdude]

The big difference will be whether or not you need to deinterlace. When outputting to HDTV people will generally take advantage of the better displays and do deinterlacing and image scaling.

When sending out via Svideo to a standard def TV with an ATI or nVidia you have to deinterlace even though the TV is expecting an interlaced signal. Doing this degrades the image quality no matter what. A 350 or XCard will output a proper signal so that deinterlacing is not necessary so that quality loss step is skipped.

There is a big convenience factor though with using an ATI or nVidia, so you have to judge whether or not the slight loss in quality is worth it.

[AndyS]

So are you guys saying that it's not possible to get a 'true' interlaced 480i NTSC-standard TV signal from a Video card? That's a real shame because it certainly limits what I'll be able to do with my PVR (I'd like it to be a multi-media center capable of playing DVDs and CDs, along with pictures and of course TV).

I totally understand that this is a subjective issue, and that trying both options is the only way to truly understand which solution is best. I'd hope however that others have already done this and that I'd see some of those results on this forum. So - any other opinions from those of you who have tried both solutions?

Andy.

[stanger89]

Originally posted by AndyS
So are you guys saying that it's not possible to get a 'true' interlaced 480i NTSC-standard TV signal from a Video card?

No, it's perfectly possible to get an NTSC standard singnal from the TV out of a standard video card. The discussion above is that since PCs are inherently non-interlaced (progressive), the video is deinterlaced and probably scaled before being re-interlaced to be sent out the TV out of a video card. The PVR 350 and Xcard eliminate the unnecessary deinterlacing/scaling done before output.

Most of the debate here is to what extent the the extra deinterlacing degrades picture quality. If the deinterlacing is done very well, it should be little, if deinterlacing is done poorly, the difference could be huge.

[TunaBoo]

Look at a normal video card (somewhat decent, not ATI) output to a TV. For any sane person, it is perfectly acceptable.

[Scriber]

FWIW, your post and the responses made me go back and check-out Sage using my 8500DV vs. my 350 (its been awhile). I also tried using MCE 2004 too for kicks. I have to completely agree with Krutaw -- the 350's PQ is superior. There are definite drawbacks though - HW compatibility issues, need another display for the desktop (I use the TV out in my 8500DV for the desktop since my TV has 2 inputs) etc. While this can be worked around, the 350’s own audio out is nice too.

OTOH, I have no doubt that a newer VC may do a better job than my 8500dv. In fact, I've debated getting a newer card for better tv-out PQ (if there are any). Also, phenixdragon's note regarding the ATI/NV HW decoding is interesting and a good one. I wonder about the cost though....

[sub]

I must agree, both the PVR350 and XCard have a much better picture quality than any video card with TV out I've seen. ,,,,,,,.lmknjjsdf (that last bit was comments on the subject from my cat)

[krutaw]

Originally posted by Scriber
OTOH, I have no doubt that a newer VC may do a better job than my 8500dv. In fact, I've debated getting a newer card for better tv-out PQ (if there are any). Also, phenixdragon's note regarding the ATI/NV HW decoding is interesting and a good one. I wonder about the cost though....

That's a notion I hadn't even thought of until now. We know that the PVR-350 costs somewhere around $180ish... It's kind of up in the air as far as which video card to buy, and how much it's going to cost. I mean, some of the newer cards are upwards of $300.00. Considering that the PQ is quite nice for $180ish, I think I will stick with that until a clear winner comes out on the videocard market and has had time to come down in price.

I will, however, concede the fact that the HW compatibility has been a complete pain in my side over the last few months. The PVR-350 is indeed tempormental, but what isn't when it comes to homebrew PVR solutions anymore?

[TunaBoo]

You are over-estimating the cost of newer video cards.

You don't need a $300 video card. Those cards always have lower budget brothers with less/slower ram and a slower clocked GPU, both of which you don't care about for tv-out.

Not to mention all the flexability you gain (get to use a real dvd player, open up winamp with girder etc.), and all the crash nightmares the 350 gives...

My life is too short to spend it rebooting my computer because the 350 crashed it again.

(if sage support was 100% for the 350 and it worked 100% of the time, it would be a VERY different story).

[mlbdude]

For me it is just not worth using the TV out of it. I don't like having to switch inputs for DivX or DVD's.

With my system tuned other than the slight deinterlace blend I get exactly what I get on my 350 and that is something only noticeable if you see them next to each other and look really close.

[TunaBoo]

Originally posted by mlbdude

With my system tuned other than the slight deinterlace blend I get exactly what I get on my 350 and that is something only noticeable if you see them next to each other and look really close.

I can't really notice this blend, but I prolly have it a little bit I know it can be solved with a proper deinterlacer though... its sad if no software driver gets it right yet.

[Scriber]

Originally posted by TunaBoo
(if sage support was 100% for the 350 and it worked 100% of the time, it would be a VERY different story).

With the right HW it damn near is

I think all have good points though. I should have noted I don't use Sage to watch DVDs.

It is a bit astonishing to me though that Sage + 8500DV + NVDVD decoder are so inferior to your setups.