Mailing List Archive

At 11:27 a.m. 7/10/2006, you wrote:
>PS. If anyone has any good MythTV related news let me know and I'll try
>and keep the site up-to-date.

I don't know about news, but I think I'd like a few articles on various things.

Number one being, of course, the TIMELINE for the FreeView thing. We've
been promised things, but there are no hard and fast dates, only
month-estimates. I'd also like a few technical details (all V, or H?
Multiple frequencies? Signal rates?). That's just me.

Number two would be how well various versions of Myth hold up to B1's
errors. My R5C1 Knoppmyth does not like errors at all in it's DVB-S, and
AFAIK there isn't a .20 release of Knoppmyth. How well does
Redhat/Gentoo/Debian Myth .20 setups hold up to these errors? My
Sempron2600 grinds and chugs trying to deal with them on .19-fixes.

As for HDTV, I really don't want it since it's only viewable in this house
on computer monitors, which don't have comfy sofas in front of them and are
only 19", tops.

--
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On 10/7/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> I've cooked up an article attempting to show the differences between the
> existing Analogue broadcasts and what they might expect from the new
> digital platform. I'm more than open to suggestions and corrections, so
> please send me any feedback.
>
> Have a look at http://www.mythtv.co.nz for a link to the article.

Good article, but surely what it boils down to is that non-HDTV
FreeViews channel (i.e. almost certainly all of them so a significant
time) will look approximately the same as Sky Digital does. I think
it'd be worth mentioning that because for a lot of people that's the
simplest way to give them a good idea of what it will be like.

Steve

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Steve Hodge wrote:
> On 10/7/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
>> I've cooked up an article attempting to show the differences between the
>> existing Analogue broadcasts and what they might expect from the new
>> digital platform. I'm more than open to suggestions and corrections, so
>> please send me any feedback.
>>
>> Have a look at http://www.mythtv.co.nz for a link to the article.
>
> Good article, but surely what it boils down to is that non-HDTV
> FreeViews channel (i.e. almost certainly all of them so a significant
> time) will look approximately the same as Sky Digital does. I think
> it'd be worth mentioning that because for a lot of people that's the
> simplest way to give them a good idea of what it will be like.
Actually for the most part unless SkyTV improve their setup FreeView
should look a hell of a lot better than the existing Sky Channels. Most
people I know with Sky actually have a worse picture on TV One / TV 2
than I get on my normal aerial.

Unless Sky starts producing set-top boxes with DVI/HDMI connections the
new FreeView platform is going to look one hell of a lot better on large
HDTV screens. I know this for a fact as I've tried it on a number of
Plasma and LCD units.

One of the biggest complaints I have is from customers who have Sky
Digital and are shocked at how bad the picture looks on a "HDTV Capable"
screen.

Steve
--

Steven Ellis - Technical Director
OpenMedia Limited
email - steven@openmedia.co.nz
sales - sales@openmedia.co.nz
support - support@openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz


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AlanP wrote:
> At 11:27 a.m. 7/10/2006, you wrote:
>> PS. If anyone has any good MythTV related news let me know and I'll try
>> and keep the site up-to-date.
>
> I don't know about news, but I think I'd like a few articles on
> various things.
>
> Number one being, of course, the TIMELINE for the FreeView thing.
> We've been promised things, but there are no hard and fast dates, only
> month-estimates. I'd also like a few technical details (all V, or H?
> Multiple frequencies? Signal rates?). That's just me.
Optus D1 launches in 1 week which will start to set the time lines for
implementation.

Current word is some services by March 2007, but no word on what they
will comprise or if it will be DVB-S or DVB-T. Current assumption is
DVB-S first which is kinda odd as BCL have already got several DVB-T
equipped sites.

TVNZ appears to think it can speak for all of the FreeView consortium
and is busy bullying equipment providers. A recent comment is that they
don't want PVR type units that can record digitally, and intend on
enforcing a digital copy protection system to prevent them from being
used. Only a rumour that I'm still trying to confirm. It appears that
MythTV doesn't notice this signal and still allows programs to be
recorded, isn't that a shame.

I'm working on a separate article on the specifics of FreeView, and I'm
open to input and direction for it.
>
> Number two would be how well various versions of Myth hold up to B1's
> errors. My R5C1 Knoppmyth does not like errors at all in it's DVB-S,
> and AFAIK there isn't a .20 release of Knoppmyth. How well does
> Redhat/Gentoo/Debian Myth .20 setups hold up to these errors? My
> Sempron2600 grinds and chugs trying to deal with them on .19-fixes.
There is a 0.20 update for Knoppmyth R5D1, but there are some risks in
using it.

The myPVR baseline is moving to 0.20 soon. Testing is going well but
there are some issues

1. Internal DVD Player isn't as good as xine (nearly but not yet)
2. Some XvMC performance issues
3. Migration of an existing 0.19 environment cleanly to 0.20
4. H246 playback need performance tuning and isn't SMP enabled

MythTV 0.19 and 0.20 work really well with my current DVB-T setup. No
crashes or strange errors for the most part. The major storms last
weekend caused a load of errors that screwed up the signal and crashed
the frontend (too many MPEG errors) but not the backend.

Have you looked at the driver updates and firmware updates for the cards
you are using to try and correct the issue?

>
> As for HDTV, I really don't want it since it's only viewable in this
> house on computer monitors, which don't have comfy sofas in front of
> them and are only 19", tops.
HDTV signal on an normal TV is still way better than SDTV. Plus we can
expect well over 50% of the channels to go anamorphic wide-screen (based
on UK/US/Europe). If you don't have a wide-screen set then you may as
well get a HDTV capable one.

Steve

--
Steven Ellis - Technical Director
OpenMedia Limited
email - steven@openmedia.co.nz
sales - sales@openmedia.co.nz
support - support@openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz


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On Saturday 07 October 2006 11:27, Steven Ellis wrote:
> Getting a lot of questions about the new "FreeView" digital network, and
> there appears to be a lot of confusion amongst consumers. For example
> most people I talk to assume the new network will be either partially or
> 100% HDTV from day one. Nearly all of my existing customers have
> recently bought very expensive HDTVs and are rather annoyed and confused
> when they discover how bad existing TV broadcasts look on them.
>
> I've cooked up an article attempting to show the differences between the
> existing Analogue broadcasts and what they might expect from the new
> digital platform. I'm more than open to suggestions and corrections, so
> please send me any feedback.
>
> Have a look at http://www.mythtv.co.nz for a link to the article.

If I were a complete newbie (and face it there are plenty of them out there) I
might come away thinking:

1. what is optus B1 / Optus D1

2. whats all this interlaced/progressive stuff all about?

Nice article. cheers.

>
> Steve
>
> PS. If anyone has any good MythTV related news let me know and I'll try
> and keep the site up-to-date.

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On 10/7/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> Steve Hodge wrote:
> > Good article, but surely what it boils down to is that non-HDTV
> > FreeViews channel (i.e. almost certainly all of them so a significant
> > time) will look approximately the same as Sky Digital does. I think
> > it'd be worth mentioning that because for a lot of people that's the
> > simplest way to give them a good idea of what it will be like.
>
> Actually for the most part unless SkyTV improve their setup FreeView
> should look a hell of a lot better than the existing Sky Channels. Most
> people I know with Sky actually have a worse picture on TV One / TV 2
> than I get on my normal aerial.

This is certainly never been the case for me. Though One and 2 look
better via DVB-S through MythTV (connected to a plasma via VGA cable)
than via Sky (connected via SVideo). But the technology is the same.
There's no guarentee that FreeView will look any better. You're
assuming that the FreeView partners will do a better job or at least
allocate more bandwidth than Sky do now.

> Unless Sky starts producing set-top boxes with DVI/HDMI connections the
> new FreeView platform is going to look one hell of a lot better on large
> HDTV screens. I know this for a fact as I've tried it on a number of
> Plasma and LCD units.

Have you tried Sky with component out? That should be pretty similar
in quality to DVI. The limiting factor becomes the signal pretty
quickly, rather than the connector.

> One of the biggest complaints I have is from customers who have Sky
> Digital and are shocked at how bad the picture looks on a "HDTV Capable"
> screen.

Well, that's because they've been over sold. "HDTV Capable" doesn't
mean a set is going to magically make an SD signal look like an HD
signal. An SD signal is never going to compare well with the HD and
DVD demos you see in the store for HDTV sets. And FreeView is still an
SD signal. It's DVD quality at best.

Steve

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Steve Hodge wrote:
> On 10/7/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
>> Steve Hodge wrote:
>> > Good article, but surely what it boils down to is that non-HDTV
>> > FreeViews channel (i.e. almost certainly all of them so a significant
>> > time) will look approximately the same as Sky Digital does. I think
>> > it'd be worth mentioning that because for a lot of people that's the
>> > simplest way to give them a good idea of what it will be like.
>>
>> Actually for the most part unless SkyTV improve their setup FreeView
>> should look a hell of a lot better than the existing Sky Channels. Most
>> people I know with Sky actually have a worse picture on TV One / TV 2
>> than I get on my normal aerial.
>
> This is certainly never been the case for me. Though One and 2 look
> better via DVB-S through MythTV (connected to a plasma via VGA cable)
> than via Sky (connected via SVideo). But the technology is the same.
> There's no guarentee that FreeView will look any better. You're
> assuming that the FreeView partners will do a better job or at least
> allocate more bandwidth than Sky do now.
Technology is the same, but the bit-rates are way different.

1. Sky doesn't use 720x576 for all of its channels (or at least they didn't)
2. What is Sky's average bit rate vs FreeView ? FreeView appears to be
around 4.8Mb
3. Sky only does anamorphic wide-screen on selected channels (at present).
4. Not all Sky boxes have component - I agree it is a lot better, but
not as good as DVI/HDMI/VGA
5. I don't know anyone who even realises you can feed a Sky box over
component, never mind actually doing it.
6. Can you record component ? I don't know of any reasonably priced
capture cards that can do component.

What size and type of screen are you viewing on. A standard CRT up to
32" is very forgiving of SkyTV. Once you move onto LCD and Plasma at
40"+ the difference is huge.
>
>> Unless Sky starts producing set-top boxes with DVI/HDMI connections the
>> new FreeView platform is going to look one hell of a lot better on large
>> HDTV screens. I know this for a fact as I've tried it on a number of
>> Plasma and LCD units.
>
> Have you tried Sky with component out? That should be pretty similar
> in quality to DVI. The limiting factor becomes the signal pretty
> quickly, rather than the connector.
TV One over component from a Sky Box isn't as clear as TV One from
FreeView over DVI/VGA/HDMI. In fact it isn't even close on a good HD screen.
>
>> One of the biggest complaints I have is from customers who have Sky
>> Digital and are shocked at how bad the picture looks on a "HDTV Capable"
>> screen.
>
> Well, that's because they've been over sold. "HDTV Capable" doesn't
> mean a set is going to magically make an SD signal look like an HD
> signal. An SD signal is never going to compare well with the HD and
> DVD demos you see in the store for HDTV sets. And FreeView is still an
> SD signal. It's DVD quality at best.
The bit rate on the wide-screen test channel is usually pretty damn
high, way above normal DVD bit rates.

Mind due in the UK the primary reason for Freeview take it is content
rather than quality. If they don't have additional content then the pick
up will be very slow.

Steve

--
Steven Ellis - Technical Director
OpenMedia Limited
email - steven@openmedia.co.nz
sales - sales@openmedia.co.nz
support - support@openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz


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Nick Rout wrote:
> On Saturday 07 October 2006 11:27, Steven Ellis wrote:
>
>> Getting a lot of questions about the new "FreeView" digital network, and
>> there appears to be a lot of confusion amongst consumers. For example
>> most people I talk to assume the new network will be either partially or
>> 100% HDTV from day one. Nearly all of my existing customers have
>> recently bought very expensive HDTVs and are rather annoyed and confused
>> when they discover how bad existing TV broadcasts look on them.
>>
>> I've cooked up an article attempting to show the differences between the
>> existing Analogue broadcasts and what they might expect from the new
>> digital platform. I'm more than open to suggestions and corrections, so
>> please send me any feedback.
>>
>> Have a look at http://www.mythtv.co.nz for a link to the article.
>>
>
> If I were a complete newbie (and face it there are plenty of them out there) I
> might come away thinking:
>
> 1. what is optus B1 / Optus D1
>
Good point.
> 2. whats all this interlaced/progressive stuff all about?
>
Hence the references at the end of the article. That subject needs a
whole article on its own to explain :)

> Nice article. cheers.
>
>
Thanks for the feedback.. Appreciated.

Steve

--
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OpenMedia Limited
email - steven@openmedia.co.nz
sales - sales@openmedia.co.nz
support - support@openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz


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> 4. Not all Sky boxes have component - I agree it is a lot better, but
> not as good as DVI/HDMI/VGA
> 5. I don't know anyone who even realises you can feed a Sky box over
> component, never mind actually doing it.

I looked into this recently when a friend got a receiver that switches
component. According to geekzone forusm posts, you can get a SCART->3
RCA cable and have your decoder output RGB. However, most TVs want YUV
component input? Is there a more effective answer than $150 of active
conversion along the way?

It got put in the 'too hard' basket, and we ended up getting
SCART->svideo. This had its own set of problems, because the cable at
Jaycar was svideo->SCART, and SCART uses different pins for input and
output. Same with the cable at DSE (which wasn't even on their
website). The only answer was to buy a SCART adapter, which has a
little "Input/Output" switch on top, and a svideo-svideo cable.

(Thankfully, when I got Sky, the installer gave me a SCART->svideo cable
and I didn't have to worry about any of this!)

Craig

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>(Thankfully, when I got Sky, the installer gave me a SCART->svideo cable
and I didn't have to worry about any of this!)

Sky do have decoders available with Svideo outputs.
When I found out, I rang up and said I wanted a new decoder with Svideo
output,
They sent someone around and only charged me $25 to replace it with a brand
spanking new decoder with Svideo.

I was quite happy.

I have noticed a marginal increase in quality with Svideo, nothing major,
just a slightly crisper image, still not as good a DVB though.

Cheers
Toby


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On 10/8/2006, "Craig Box" <craig@dubculture.co.nz> wrote:



>> 4. Not all Sky boxes have component - I agree it is a lot better, but

>> not as good as DVI/HDMI/VGA

>> 5. I don't know anyone who even realises you can feed a Sky box over

>> component, never mind actually doing it.

>

>I looked into this recently when a friend got a receiver that switches

>component. According to geekzone forusm posts, you can get a SCART->3

>RCA cable and have your decoder output RGB. However, most TVs want YUV

>component input?



more accurately they want YPbPr input, which according to wikipedia is

not precisely the same thing as YUV.



>Is there a more effective answer than $150 of active

>conversion along the way?



From my reading of the same forums, "no"



>

>It got put in the 'too hard' basket, and we ended up getting

>SCART->svideo. This had its own set of problems, because the cable at

>Jaycar was svideo->SCART, and SCART uses different pins for input and

>output. Same with the cable at DSE (which wasn't even on their

>website). The only answer was to buy a SCART adapter, which has a

>little "Input/Output" switch on top, and a svideo-svideo cable.

>



hmmm scart fart. For a "standard" there are suprprisingly many options

with scart.

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Nick Rout wrote:
>
> On 10/8/2006, "Craig Box" <craig@dubculture.co.nz> wrote:

>>It got put in the 'too hard' basket, and we ended up getting
>
>>SCART->svideo. This had its own set of problems, because the cable at
>
>>Jaycar was svideo->SCART, and SCART uses different pins for input and
>
>>output. Same with the cable at DSE (which wasn't even on their
>
>>website). The only answer was to buy a SCART adapter, which has a
>
>>little "Input/Output" switch on top, and a svideo-svideo cable.
>
>>
>
>
>
> hmmm scart fart. For a "standard" there are suprprisingly many options
>
> with scart.
>

Scart works really well when it is a fully wired scart at both ends. Its
always fun and games when you are trying to break out a scart connection.

Steve

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On 10/7/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> Steve Hodge wrote:
> > This is certainly never been the case for me. Though One and 2 look
> > better via DVB-S through MythTV (connected to a plasma via VGA cable)
> > than via Sky (connected via SVideo). But the technology is the same.
> > There's no guarentee that FreeView will look any better. You're
> > assuming that the FreeView partners will do a better job or at least
> > allocate more bandwidth than Sky do now.
>
> Technology is the same, but the bit-rates are way different.

Incidentally, do you think Sky decoders will be able to pick up the
FreeView channels? Technically they should be able to, right?

> 1. Sky doesn't use 720x576 for all of its channels (or at least they didn't)

That's poor. Which channels, do you know?

> 2. What is Sky's average bit rate vs FreeView ? FreeView appears to be
> around 4.8Mb
> 3. Sky only does anamorphic wide-screen on selected channels (at present).

Is FreeView going to be entirely widescreen?

> 4. Not all Sky boxes have component - I agree it is a lot better, but
> not as good as DVI/HDMI/VGA

SCART RGB should be all but indistinguishable from VGA. The only
difference is that VGA has separate horizontal and vertical sync
signals and SCART RGB has a combined sync signal. Certainly my
plasma's manual lists SCART RGB as being as good as DVI-D and VGA, and
better than component.

> 5. I don't know anyone who even realises you can feed a Sky box over
> component, never mind actually doing it.

I don't know anyone doing it, but I have seen the odd mention here and
there. Part of the problem is that it's not a component signal as I
thought and not many TVs have full SCART input (at least not many CRT
TVs). However, if people can't be bothered getting the best signal out
of their existing equipment, that says a lot to me about how much they
care about video quality.

Another issue, at least for me, is that you can't set one of the SCART
outputs to RGB and have the other SCART output on S-Video. The best
you can do is one RGB and one composite or both S-Video. The S-Video
connection to my Myth box is far more important than having RGB to the
TV for the very occassional time I watch that way.

Incidentally, according to their website the MySky decoder does do
component out as well as RGB.

> 6. Can you record component ? I don't know of any reasonably priced
> capture cards that can do component.

I don't know of any either. It's useless for MythTV, I agree. But my
argument is that the difference between Sky Digital and FreeView won't
be that great - i.e. that Sky Digital (on the major channels if you
like) is a reasonable approximation of what FreeView will have to
offer for the average person. It could be as good as DVD quality, but
we won't know until we get it. For MythTV, I agree that FreeView will
be a significant improvement.

> What size and type of screen are you viewing on. A standard CRT up to
> 32" is very forgiving of SkyTV. Once you move onto LCD and Plasma at
> 40"+ the difference is huge.

I'm using a 42" plasma. It's a low end one (852x480) so it's not an
HDTV display. I agree that Sky Digital doesn't look that flash, but
there is no way it is worse than broadcast.

I got a SCART cable and did some testing today. DVB-S through MythTV
is definitely softer than Sky->TV using either S-Video or RGB. This is
quite likely due to the settings on my Myth box. Unfortunately I can't
do a side by side comparison of Sky's S-Video and RGB outputs (due to
the above mentioned limitations). I also have no way of viewing the
TVNZ's DVB-S output except via MythTV.

> The bit rate on the wide-screen test channel is usually pretty damn
> high, way above normal DVD bit rates.

How high? Unless it's much higher than the 4800 kbit/s you mentioned
earlier I doubt there will be many people who will be able to tell the
difference between that and DVD.

Certainly TVNZ Wide via MythTV does not look as good as DVD on my
system, though that could be the fault of my MythTV setup.

Steve

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Steve Hodge wrote:
> On 10/7/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
>> Steve Hodge wrote:
>> > This is certainly never been the case for me. Though One and 2 look
>> > better via DVB-S through MythTV (connected to a plasma via VGA cable)
>> > than via Sky (connected via SVideo). But the technology is the same.
>> > There's no guarentee that FreeView will look any better. You're
>> > assuming that the FreeView partners will do a better job or at least
>> > allocate more bandwidth than Sky do now.
>>
>> Technology is the same, but the bit-rates are way different.
>
> Incidentally, do you think Sky decoders will be able to pick up the
> FreeView channels? Technically they should be able to, right?

They will only pick them up if Sky decides to enable them.

>
>> 1. Sky doesn't use 720x576 for all of its channels (or at least they
>> didn't)
>
> That's poor. Which channels, do you know?

Sorry no. It did used to be quite a number of the channels

>
>> 2. What is Sky's average bit rate vs FreeView ? FreeView appears to be
>> around 4.8Mb
>> 3. Sky only does anamorphic wide-screen on selected channels (at
>> present).
>
> Is FreeView going to be entirely widescreen?

Don't know. Only confirmed widescreen channel is TV3 at this stage

>
>> 4. Not all Sky boxes have component - I agree it is a lot better, but
>> not as good as DVI/HDMI/VGA
>
> SCART RGB should be all but indistinguishable from VGA. The only
> difference is that VGA has separate horizontal and vertical sync
> signals and SCART RGB has a combined sync signal. Certainly my
> plasma's manual lists SCART RGB as being as good as DVI-D and VGA, and
> better than component.

Most people's older CRT TVs don't support RGB over scart. Plus DVI-D is
better than VGA.

>> 5. I don't know anyone who even realises you can feed a Sky box over
>> component, never mind actually doing it.
>
> I don't know anyone doing it, but I have seen the odd mention here and
> there. Part of the problem is that it's not a component signal as I
> thought and not many TVs have full SCART input (at least not many CRT
> TVs). However, if people can't be bothered getting the best signal out
> of their existing equipment, that says a lot to me about how much they
> care about video quality.
>
> Another issue, at least for me, is that you can't set one of the SCART
> outputs to RGB and have the other SCART output on S-Video. The best
> you can do is one RGB and one composite or both S-Video. The S-Video
> connection to my Myth box is far more important than having RGB to the
> TV for the very occassional time I watch that way.
>
> Incidentally, according to their website the MySky decoder does do
> component out as well as RGB.

Yes a lot of people with big screens have switched to MySky because of the
component out.

>> 6. Can you record component ? I don't know of any reasonably priced
>> capture cards that can do component.
>
> I don't know of any either. It's useless for MythTV, I agree. But my
> argument is that the difference between Sky Digital and FreeView won't
> be that great - i.e. that Sky Digital (on the major channels if you
> like) is a reasonable approximation of what FreeView will have to
> offer for the average person. It could be as good as DVD quality, but
> we won't know until we get it. For MythTV, I agree that FreeView will
> be a significant improvement.
>
>> What size and type of screen are you viewing on. A standard CRT up to
>> 32" is very forgiving of SkyTV. Once you move onto LCD and Plasma at
>> 40"+ the difference is huge.
>
> I'm using a 42" plasma. It's a low end one (852x480) so it's not an
> HDTV display. I agree that Sky Digital doesn't look that flash, but
> there is no way it is worse than broadcast.
>
> I got a SCART cable and did some testing today. DVB-S through MythTV
> is definitely softer than Sky->TV using either S-Video or RGB. This is
> quite likely due to the settings on my Myth box. Unfortunately I can't
> do a side by side comparison of Sky's S-Video and RGB outputs (due to
> the above mentioned limitations). I also have no way of viewing the
> TVNZ's DVB-S output except via MythTV.

I've done a comparison on a large HD plasma and Sky over SVideo or
Composite compared with FreeView over DVI/HDMI is majorly different
quality wise.

Also Sky over SVideo/Composite on TV1/2 compared with an analogue aerial
is also a lot worse on a really large screen if they have a good
terrestrial signal. Sky's signal really shows up the MPEG artifacts a lot
more.

>> The bit rate on the wide-screen test channel is usually pretty damn
>> high, way above normal DVD bit rates.
>
> How high? Unless it's much higher than the 4800 kbit/s you mentioned
> earlier I doubt there will be many people who will be able to tell the
> difference between that and DVD.
>
> Certainly TVNZ Wide via MythTV does not look as good as DVD on my
> system, though that could be the fault of my MythTV setup.

How are you feeding the DVD vs the MythTV box. Also play a DVD on the
MythTV box and compare that with TVNZ Wide. I find that the Stargate SG1
episodes on TVNZ wide are better than my DVD copies when played on the
same hardware.

Steve

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On 10/9/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> Plus DVI-D is better than VGA.

Yes, though in practice it's very hard to tell the difference. I've
got an LCD monitor that I use with both VGA and DVI-D with (switching
between several times a day) and I doubt I could accurately pick
between them.

> > Certainly TVNZ Wide via MythTV does not look as good as DVD on my
> > system, though that could be the fault of my MythTV setup.
>
> How are you feeding the DVD vs the MythTV box.

I'm not, that's why I say it could be the fault of the MythTV setup
(on the DVB-S side). I'm still watching DVD's via a Sony player
connected to the TV via component, which is very good quality-wise.

> Also play a DVD on the
> MythTV box and compare that with TVNZ Wide. I find that the Stargate SG1
> episodes on TVNZ wide are better than my DVD copies when played on the
> same hardware.

I'll give it a go once I've upgraded to 0.20. I'd like to use MythTV
for DVDs and will if the quality is reasonable (doesn't have to be as
good as our separate player, but needs to be fairly close).

Steve

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Steve Hodge wrote:
>
> I'll give it a go once I've upgraded to 0.20. I'd like to use MythTV
> for DVDs and will if the quality is reasonable (doesn't have to be as
> good as our separate player, but needs to be fairly close).

I have a good Philips DVD player, and my MythTV DVD playback using Xine
is as good if not better now i've tuned the TV Output.

The Internal player is still a little too buggy for me.

--
Steven Ellis - Technical Director
OpenMedia Limited
email - steven@openmedia.co.nz
sales - sales@openmedia.co.nz
support - support@openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz


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Toby Mills wrote:
>>(Thankfully, when I got Sky, the installer gave me a SCART->svideo cable
> and I didn't have to worry about any of this!)
>
> Sky do have decoders available with Svideo outputs.
> When I found out, I rang up and said I wanted a new decoder with Svideo
> output,
> They sent someone around and only charged me $25 to replace it with a
> brand
> spanking new decoder with Svideo.
>
> I was quite happy.
>
> I have noticed a marginal increase in quality with Svideo, nothing major,
> just a slightly crisper image, still not as good a DVB though.

What make/model is your old unit VS the new one?

Steve


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> What make/model is your old unit VS the new one?

Both were pace units, can't remember the old model but just the standard
pace decoder that sky have, I'll have to have a look at the model of the new
one but it used the same lirc profile and remote so I just dropped it in and
changed to Svideo on my PVR150.

Cheers
Toby


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