Re: Picture quality
- From: "Peter Near [MCE MVP]" <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 13:12:08 -0400
Scott:
I continue to recommend the Hauppauge cards, they are the best value overall (price, support, hardware). Only in the case where someone is willing to sacrifice some of these items for picture quality do I recommend the ATI.
I don't have any information I can share with you about future versions of MCE. The XBox 360 has been announced and will include the extender functionality. Based on the fact that the HP Extender has better picture quality than the XBox (newer hardware components) I can guess that the XBox 360 will deliver better picture quality than the current XBox as well. Kind of circular logic I know, but if HP can make a good looking picture then surely Microsoft can too given the chance to work with new hardware.
At this point, I'm not sure there's much more you can do to improve the picture quality on your setup. I mentioned the ATI because it might help, but personally I don't think that the amount of improvement you'd see is worth the extra cost.
Pete
Scott Micale wrote:
Peter,
I just bought this card and everyone said get the Hauppauge. Now you are saying the ATI is better. I really don't want to have to switch cards. You mentioned there might be an upgrade to MCE coming out. How soon may that happen? Would it fix any of these problems I am having?
"Peter Near [MCE MVP]" <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:eYbSRczdFHA.1036@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Scott:
This came up on another thread as well recently. Unfortunately, your DirecTivo has somewhat of an unfair advantage over MCE. It gets the digital signal from the satellite and records it straight to disk. Directv will not allow the digital signal to leave their box, so the only option for MCE is to take an analog feed.
MCE takes an analog feed off of SVideo from the Directv box. It then encodes it to digital in order to write it to the hard drive. Then is decodes it to analog again to to allow it to be displayed on your TV. This accounts for the quality difference between the two.
Primarily responsible for the quality in your setup is the Hauppauge PVR-500, which is a decent card. I've noticed some blocky issues when playing back Hauppauge video over the XBox. In my tests, the ATI TV Wonder Elite performed somewhat better using the XBox extender.
http://www.thenears.com/?p=98
Cheers, Pete
Scott Micale wrote:
I just finished setting up my MCE and am wondering about my picture quality versus my DirecTV Tivo box. I have a Hughes GAEB0A receiver hooked to my MCE with a Gateway 15" LCD attached to it. The picture quality is ok, but not really clear like my Tivo box that is connected to my 57" Toshiba Widescreen Projection TV. On my TV I have my XBox connected to hit using the XBox Extender. The picture there using the xbox extender is not clear either, like when I switch inputs to my Tivo box. What would cause this and is there anyway to clear it up? On My MCE I am connected to the Hughes receiver via the S-Video port and have my coax coming into the receiver from the dish. I have a AIW 8500DV graphic card (Which I know is not on the MCE compatibility list) and a Hauppauge Win-TV PVR 500MCE Tuner. I was thinking about bringing my Tivo box up and hooking it to my MCE and see if that makes a difference. I am not sure it will. Any help or ideas on this would be great.
Thanks
.
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