Hi,
I have just bought a Sony Vaio RC202 with Media Centre and I have problems
with the video quality

The video source is a Satellite (Sky) box and I am using a Scart output from
the box and either S-Video or Composite into the PC tuner card. The signal
from the Satellite is crystal clear if I connect directly STB and TV, but if
I go via the PC Media Centre the output is very bad..lots of blue, almost
like an old VHS tape.

On the other hand, when I watch some of the sample videos even in HD, the
quality is perfect, so I am assuming that the Video card output is working
fine. I should however point out that for some reason I can only see the
image on the TV if I connect VGA (PC) to DVI (TV), but nothing if I use the
DVI output from the Video card. Additionally, I can't get the 16:9 format,
and the video seems to show only in 3:4 (which to be honest is the original
aspect ratio of the satellite signal).

I find it strange that, while I can import video on the PC using 1394 at
perfect quality, there are difficulties in connecting a live video signal.
Maybe there are cards outthere with an RGB/Scart or DVI input? But I am not
sure this is the problem.

Can anyone help?

thanks

I would suspect your tuner card, or its drivers. Since you're coming in via
sVideo or composite from the STB, you'll probably never get as good a signal
as in the demo videos. One thing that might help would be to use high
quality (and short) cables from the STB to the tuner.

As for the graphics card output, which card do you have, and which version
of the drivers? Generally if you connect to the DVI output, the card should
recognize there's a TV there and enable the signal. However, you might be
able to enable that output from within the drivers dialog.

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

"Il Principe" <IlPrincipe@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:02D5B5E4-952B-4F00-945D-DECF4268FF52@microsoft.com...

thanks Dana for your reply.

I am using brand new cables and have tried both S-video and Composite, but
the quality is the same, i.e. very bad. Once again, if I connect the very
same cables to the TV instead of the MCE PC, the quality I see is almost
perfect, so I am assuming STB output and cables are fine. Which leaves us
with the Tuner.

I have a AverMedia Hybrid TV Tuner Card, A16C (DVB-T, Pal/Secam/FM).

The graphic card is Nvidia 6600 and it has two outputs, one VGA and one DVI.
The TV input is DVI. The image works when I use the VGA output into the DVI
input (and the PC recognise the TV), but nothing if I use the DVI output into
the DVI input

Thanks for you help.



"Dana Cline - MVP" wrote:

The tuner is the problem since the MCE tuner cards have inexpensive realtime
MPEG2 endcoder chips on them and all iniputs get compressed and encoded
causing a loss in PQ since these encoder chips can in no way match the
encoder systems used by networks or DVD manufacturers which cost thousands
of $. NVIDIA has claimed that its new inhouse designed encoder chip used in
the new NVIDIA DualTV card is bettern than the others currently on the
market but I have seen no independend tests to confirm this yet. At least
digital TV such as that received OTA with an HDTV card does not suffer from
this problem since the signals are already encoded by the networks.
There is no solution for MCE till Cable Cards tuners and satellite card
tuners are introduced with or after the release of Vista.

"Il Principe" <IlPrincipe@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:16815156-6B74-41DA-AE5D-D409307A1B45@microsoft.com...

thanks very much JW.

Your answer is useful but discouraging in the content, as it basically means
that MCE system is only good for OTA signals and not for
Satellite/Cable...which in the UK means 10mn people cannot really get a
decent picture out of their PC. What is the point for selling the remote
sensor with the whole pack of instruction on how to connect STB to Media
Center? Question for Microsoft, really!

One last attempt: Is there any way to use the 1394 port (Firewire) as video
input and let the PC do all the necessary encoding, if necessary.

Also, what is the point of encoding anyway? Could the PC not simply spit out
the signal back in its native form during live viewing and only encode when
recording is needed (which is less time sensitive and the lower processing
power can take all the time its needs to convert?)

In fact, combining my two points above: can I use the 1394 as video input in
pass-through mode, back to the TV (no loss of quality), and let the encoding
start when recording/pause and other functions?

thanks for the help again...hopefully, my questions are also going to be
useful to the rest of the Satellite/Cable community (Funny enough, MCE asks
if the input is Satellite or Cable, why so, if quality is lowered?)..

"JW" wrote:

Well at least in the UK you can get DVB-T which is lot better than we in the
US can get with SD TV.
Someone else will have to answer about Firwire AFAIK it is posssilbe just
not with MCE.
For many people the video on their PC monitor is satisfactory it is with the
larger screens that the encoding problem is really evident.
AFAIK there are no plans to implement any sort of passthrough mode with MCE.
I believe some tuner cards have this capability when using their own TV
application instead of using MCE.

"Il Principe" <IlPrincipe@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6D902097-52EE-4168-A519-22478438829A@microsoft.com...

I have seen some posts which I believe were from Nigel that there is one
brand of DVB-S card that looks to MCE like it is a DVB-T card and is
therfore usable with MCE.

"Il Principe" <IlPrincipe@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6D902097-52EE-4168-A519-22478438829A@microsoft.com...

Well, I don't know anything about your tuner card so can't comment
there...well, one comment maybe...do you have an antenna hooked up to the FM
antenna connector? If so, remove it and see if that improves your video
signal.

I have an nVidia 6600GT and it has no problems seeing my DVI connected TV.
Not sure why yours won't...which manufacturer built your board?

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

"Il Principe" <IlPrincipe@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:16815156-6B74-41DA-AE5D-D409307A1B45@microsoft.com...

Thanks JW, Dana for your reply

So, the situation is:

the Video card works fine, because all other videos stored in the PC and DVD
work perfect.

the signal from the satellite arrives ok to the PC tuner card and then it
gets degraded by the low speed/low power Encoding that the card has to
perform and hence the output is low quality.

But then the question is: if the problem is with the encoding speed, it does
not really matter thatn the signal comes from a satellite box, as the same
problem would be encountered with a direct OTA signal.

If that's right, does it mean that the combination MCE/Tuner card ALWAYS
gives a bad output, no matter what the input is? So, what is the whole point
of having MCE anyway?


"Dana Cline - MVP" wrote:

Well, to me the whole point of Media Center is to record and watch TV...at
least that's its primary use in my household. Now that I fixed the problem I
had with my FM antenna, all channels come in great. Then again, I'm coming
in direct from analog cable, so there's no STB in the picture. Visibly, the
channels thru Media Center are a bit worse off than the same channels direct
from the cable, but they're not that bad. Maybe you have a bad tuner card
with a solder short or something...

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

"Il Principe" <IlPrincipe@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:50A1F31E-2654-4B39-B9F9-1D527527B89A@microsoft.com...

Yes, the same problem happens with a normal OTA Analog trasmission or cable
connected to the antenna connection of the cards. If you have a combo card
it can only the DVB-T tuner can be used and since all digital broadcasts are
allready encoded there is no problem.
"Il Principe" <IlPrincipe@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:50A1F31E-2654-4B39-B9F9-1D527527B89A@microsoft.com...