Re: Poor TV Quality - Please help!

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On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 20:11:02 -0700, Hookslide
<Hookslide@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
>Questions:
>1. What decoders do I really need to watch Live TV? Are decoders software
>or hardware? What about codecs?

MCE Decoders are software & it appears that you have a supported one
(Cyberlink). General consensus is that the Nvidia ones are the best quality. A
CODEC is enCODe/DEcode basically the software that compresses & decompresses the
video or audio.

>2. What should I expect if I go coax out of the STB to the coax in on the
>Tuner card?

Even worse picture quality.

>3. Is this a tuner card issue? Is there any way to tweak tuner card
>performance? Should I look to buy a different tuner card? Which one?

It could well be. I have never heard of the Angel card before but I see form
their web site that they support MCE. Hauppauge cards are decent quality & they
have been in the business a few years, well before MCE appeared.

>4. Is there any setting on a video card that will impact TV quality and not
>DVD quality that I may have over looked?

Not that I know of but s-video out from you graphics card gives a poor picture
in any case. Use VGA, DVI or component if possible.

>5. Is this just the nature of MCE on Rear Projection TV?s? or with Direct
>TV?

I have an RPTV & gave up on s-video from the graphics card as the picture was so
poor. I now use an Xbox Media Extender. The Xbox is designed to drive a TV &
gives far better picture quality than any graphics card s-video TV-out that I
have seen.

One way to test your set up is to burn a DVD of a recorded TV show & then play
that back in a standalone player. If the TV tuner is poor then expect the DVD to
be poor quality too.

--
Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur
.

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