Graphics card TV-Out Quality

DemonOfTheFall

Thinking about whipping up a PC for Media Center 2005 or possibly MythTV soon. Was wondering is there still much of a difference in the quality of the TV-Out between ATI and nVidia cards?

I know that if i go the linux route and use MythTV that ill have to use an nvidia card because ati driver support is pants, but if i decide to use MCE2005 I'd like the best possible quality.

Anyone have any experience with TV-out on their cards? I know for sure that nvidia used to be better but willing to try ati for better value.

thanks

Inspector Gadget

Don't know personally, but I've seen a lot of people praise the TV-out on nVidia cards over the ATi ones.

Gadget

J-blk

TV-out is simply crap... One card maker over another doesn't make much of a difference IMO. I own both an ATI Radeon 9800XT and an Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti 4200 - basically, cards that are only one "generation" apart. They look more or less the same when outputting to the same TV, though I never use TV-out any more - big monitor instead .

DemonOfTheFall

cheers for the input j-blk but a huge CRT is out of the price range

Itd be deadly to have a 30" CRT with VGA input though

J-blk

I don't have a huge CRT...

I have a huge LCD . A 24" Dell 2405FPW running on a DVI connection. Sweet...

BTW, if your TV has an S-Video input, that will improve things bigtime - the composite connection (which most TVs have or SCART with a suitable adapter) kills any quality IMO.

po0k

Tweak the settings, there are some 3rd-party tools available for fiddling.

Also, 19" CRTs are available fairly cheaply, look at secondhand stuff too, or a cheap/2nd hand data projector.

stevenmu

I've been using TV-Out via S-Video to a 32" TV (two different ones) for a few years now. I started with an nVidia GeForce 3 Ti 200 and the quality was very good, upgrade time came and I picked up a 9800Pro and the quality was crap so I returned it and went back to nVidia with a 6800 and the quality is excellent.

RuggieBear

Just got me a Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 220 22" from ebay. Suppossed to be delivered today... Guy based in Wexford....came to just over 100 alltogether

http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5208901911&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

ixoy

I've used a Ti4200 to an S-Video connection in a 32" TV and the quality is pretty damn good bar the occasional flicker near the top. There's also some nice little software that comes with it - to play a .avi/.mpg/.yougettheidea on your TV, you just need to right-click on the file and select the "Play on my TV" option from the popup menu. The file is adjusted to play to the TV and you're still left free to operate your PC as the video clip plays.

voxpop

Im using a geforce 4 mx s-video out and the picture quality is just as good as the ntl signal (analog mind you).
Matrox cards are *supposed* to supply the best tv-out picture, there is also the pvr-350 card with has a dedicated tv-out chipset

DemonOfTheFall

Pity my TV doesnt have S-Video input, Its gonna have to be going through a SCART thingy. Hmmm...

Chalk

if your going s-video to scart,
youll get the black and white tv problem

youll need to go s-video - composite - scart adpater.

most graphics cards will come with the cables to allow this,
but just in case it doesnt
youll have people telling you to buy adapters from america ,
whereas what i listed above will work on any tv.

Mixie

Angry_Penguin wrote:

...there is also the pvr-350 card with has a dedicated tv-out chipset

The output on the 350 needs to be mpeg2 encoded... this means two things, firstly a lot of PVR/HTPC software wont work properly with it (for tv-out, e.g. beyondTV) and secondly there is a lag (for encoding) before the TV reflects your input change (eg press up on a menu, takes a good second for the screen to show you've moved up.. can be very annoying).

If you decide to go with a pvr-350 look at the GB-PBR software... it's free, and it will do the mpeg2 encoding for tv out, but you will still get that lag.

DemonOfTheFall

Cheers for the advice about the black n white problem Chalk. Happened to a friend of mine when she hooked her PC up to her TV. Loads of different people gave her advice on it and told her to try this that and the other but nothing worked. Glad to hear that it's that simple Any idea where she might find those necessary cables ? At the moment I think she just has S-video -> RCA for the SCART

Chalk

maplins do them all.
svideo to composite[rca] is usually about 3 to 4 inches long.
then just plug a regular yellow rca cable into that, then the other end into the scart plug / rca jack on the tv.

DemonOfTheFall

Ok grand. She'd tried the maplins near her but it was tiny crap one and they didn't have any.

Or maybe they did have some but the maplin staff are just useless and didn't know composite from their arse.

Chalk

id go for b

voxpop

you also get that B&W problem if your pvr is outputting the signal in NTSC rather than PAL

My 28" tv doesnt have an s-video in but I was able to pick up an s-video to scart converter for about 10 quid in maplin

DemonOfTheFall

Is that the "as good as NTL" s-video in your earlier post angry_penguin ?
Sounds good enough for me
Tis not a great TV anyway, quite old Phillips, about 25" i think.

voxpop

Is that the "as good as NTL" s-video in your earlier post angry_penguin ?

Yep- I have NTL analog now remember so the picture is not super sharp but easily watchable (might annoy some videophiles but good enough for the normal punter). The NTL single is split and goes into the tv and the pvr (mythtv on FC3). The recorded signal comes from the s-video of my gf4 mx card to one of those s-video to scard converters (along with the sound from the soundcard) which is plugged into the spare scart slot of the tv.
Very happy with the quality and can easily watch films/sports without really knowing the difference between recorded and normal tv.

DemonOfTheFall

Sounds the *exact* same as the setup that I aspire to have.

I have the toss-up between Mythtv on FC3, following the excellent guide that some website (whos name i cant remember) has up, or Knoppmyth for ease of setting up. Might go for the FC3 so that it'd be easier to add things like an FTP, VPN, Bittorrent and a webserver to.

voxpop

I tried Knoppmyth, didnt like it, didnt go as smooth as I expected and the guy at http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/ has an execellent guide for setting up mythtv and Fedora, once you get apt-get installed - its plain sailing all the way

From what i remember the only sticking point was setting up xorg to use the gf4 hardware rather than some software emulation. I think its based around using twinview(allows you to display on both monitor and tv at the same time), if you setup to use twinview then you cant use the gf4 hardware. The solution is simple - do not use twinview just set you main display as the tv.

DemonOfTheFall

wilsonet, thats the one. Was reading it yesterday, very thorough. It'd be better if he was using FC4 but i'm sure that guide will be out by the time I end up building this box, which will be either late july or late august.

Going from 0 linux experience (other than having booted knoppix a couple of times) to setting up a box to run myth, a router/caching proxy/firewall, an FTP, bittorrent and hopefully some sort of VPN should be great craic! I think i can look forwards to many a night of banging my head off the wall.

voxpop

Yes, with 0 linux experience - it may take you a little while but you will learn a fair bit and if you are not in a rush to setup your pvr then its a nice little project.
Even without much linux experience the wilsonet guide will prob get you through the majority of the installation and setting up of your pvr. To make things go as smoothly as possible it is prob a good idea to check out some of the mythtv forums and sites to find out what hardware gives problems and what hardware works first time. Getting the right hardware can save an awful lot of time messing with expermental drivers and generally nasty stuff.

DemonOfTheFall

The PVR-500 now has support in the latest stable build of IVTV so I reckon that it's my best bet.
Would I be right in thinking that SB Live! cards + linux = misery ?
I'll probably use a PCI Geforce 4 for TV out so shouldnt be any other driver issues there. Any other hardware incompatibility issues that you've found out about through setting up linux over time ? I don't want to buy something and find that it's useless.

the_syco

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

Anyone have any experience with TV-out on their cards? I know for sure that nvidia used to be better but willing to try ati for better value.

I Use "TV Tool" for tv-out. It works for me. I use an AGP nVidia Geforce 4 Ti4200 for tv-out.
I have the TV-Out cable plugged into a SCART cable, and also left/right speaker cables (which combine into one cable, and then to my speakers headphone jack) connected.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y111/the_syco/TV_Out.jpg

J-blk

DemonOfTheFall - I retract . Seems I'm too harsh on the ol' TV out, based on most peoples' feedback (though I suspect it may be my TV that's crap after all). In any case, I did not mean to steer you in the wrong direction, so apologies.

This is turning out to be a very interesting thread - I'd like to hear how you get on with MythTV, if you end up going that way. XP is getting on my nerves lately and I've been thinking of running my HTPC on Linux instead... Can MythTV work with TV cards that have WDM drivers in Windows or does every card need to be specifically supported? Not trying to hijack your thread, just interested in your potential setup there...

secret_squirrel

The reason that Nvidia cards are considered to have the better TV out for PVR is that the Nvidia TV out chip supports up to 1024x768 whereas the ATI TV out only supports up to 800x600 on the TV.

The reason this become an issue is on widescreen CRT TV's. The native resolution for a CRT Widescreen display is generally 1024x576 (or close). The Nvidia drivers have this as a selectable mode. This means that there are no picture scaling issues with an Nvidia solution that might have a negative effect on image quality.

Note this doesnt apply to LCD and Plasma TV's that have plug and play and appear as 'monitors'. They will generally tell windows their mode and it will be used in VGA mode rather than TV out mode.

Connection Quality : Discounting the digital inputs (DVI/HDMI). The quality guide best -> worst is :

Component (with Prog Scan) -> RGB over Scart -> Scart -> Svideo -> Phono.

My MCE set up is a Nvidia 5700 connected by an Svideo to Scart Cable to a Panasonic 32" widescreen. Unfortunately the Widescreen mode doesnt work coz the TV is too old. I run in 800x600 and faint moire patterns are visible on the blue MCE background.

voxpop

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

The PVR-500 now has support in the latest stable build of IVTV so I reckon that it's my best bet.
Would I be right in thinking that SB Live! cards + linux = misery ?
I'll probably use a PCI Geforce 4 for TV out so shouldnt be any other driver issues there. Any other hardware incompatibility issues that you've found out about through setting up linux over time ? I don't want to buy something and find that it's useless.

Im using the PVR-250, but anything at or above this would work fine. Be careful with the card you get - as far as i know some versions dont come with an IR reciever and remote, I think mainly the MCE versions but Im not sure.
Im currently using a Sound Blaster® Live!™ 5.1 Digital card without any problems on FC3 (this one

At http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-pvrhwdb.php there is a database of hardware ppl are using mythtv on and how they rate the results, once all your kit is on that and has a decent rating you should be fine.
Also one of the best forums for mythtv. If you get stuck its likely that someone there has had the same problem.

@the_syco
Tv-tool is ok, if you are using the computer as a pc and occasionaly watching tv with it, but its not a pvr.
Mythtv allows you to get an EPG (tv guide), schedule recodings (either once off, or more advance options like: "record this show in this timeslot every week" or "find one episode of this show each week on any channel and record it" and loads more. It will also ignore repeats if you have alread recorded the show. With mythtv you can also pause live tv and basically has most if not all the functionality of sky+/Tivo without the subscription.

@secret_squirrel
I always though the drivers for ATI card were fairly crap for linux - never heard anything about the res but it could also be the case.

I would go for a nvidia card unless there is a real good reason to pick ATI. There has been nvidia support in linux for a long time now and the drivers are very stable.

I gotta say that the playback through my mythtv box is very acceptable - there are very few noticable differences between the ouput of the pvr and the normal ntl signal. The only issue i've noticed is a small black border on the right of the picture- which im sure could be fixed but it hasnt annoyed me enough to fix it

@J-blk
Mythtv runs on Linux, there is no windows version -so whatever windows support there is for a card doesnt really suggest anything about how it will work with mythtv.
Nvidia cards will work with mythtv and I think, ATI and matrox but you're in experimental, no guarantees given, try at your own risk zone with them.

My current setup, that has been running without a hitch for about 4 months now is:
Duron 800 (little slow, was supposed to get have a xp2400 but Seapoint from boards scamed me :mad: )
512mb ram
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB 7200RPM (get the fastest largest drive you can - typically you use 1Gb per hour recorded, so 200GB ~= 200hrs )
Geforce 4 mx
SB live 5.1 digital
hauppauge pvr-250

Total cost : ~€350
VS
Sky+160 (80 hours) - €449 +installation: €75 +€15 per month subscription

Speaks for itself really.

J-blk

Angry_Penguin wrote:

Im using the PVR-250, but anything at or above this would work fine. Be careful with the card you get - as far as i know some versions dont come with an IR reciever and remote, I think mainly the MCE versions but Im not sure.

You're 100% right on this one - the PVR 500 dual tuner that he is considering is one of the MCE versions and ships with no receiver or remote. It is assumed that you are using the MCE remote instead.

Angry_Penguin wrote:

Mythtv runs on Linux, there is no windows version -so whatever windows support there is for a card doesnt really suggest anything about how it will work with mythtv.

I'm aware of the fact MythTV is Linux only (which is about all I know about it ). My question was more meant to be if cards that are based on the WDM model, which is more open ended in Windows, have better or worse chances of working in MythTV than cards that use proprietary drivers, like the Hauppauge PVR series.

I was not under the impression that a Windows Driver Model driver would work in Linux!

Looks like I'll find my answer to that in the links you posted. Thanks.

voxpop

J-blk wrote:

I'm aware of the fact MythTV is Linux only (which is about all I know about it ). My question was more meant to be if cards that are based on the WDM model, which is more open ended in Windows, have better or worse chances of working in MythTV than cards that use proprietary drivers, like the Hauppauge PVR series.

I was not under the impression that a Windows Driver Model driver would work in Linux!

Looks like I'll find my answer to that in the links you posted. Thanks.

I dont think you can make link between windows drivers for a card and that cards functionality in Linux. I know for a fact that the pvr-250 and pvr-350 are very well supported when it comes to linux. Basically for your capture card, make sure it works with ivtv - you can check which card work and which dont on the ivtv wiki