Hi

After several software rebuilds and help from here I finally have a stable,
working media centre.

My only gripe is TV picture quality. Watching it in isolation is fine and
the recorded quality is as good as live TV. But when you compare it to a
direct feed from the digital satelite box you can really notice the loss in
sharpness and slight washout on the colours.

I presume the only way to improve this is to use a better TV tuner. The one
in the box (a Philips Freeline LS2100) just says NVTV.

Before I upgrade to a new 40" LCD HD TV I'd like to do what I can to improve
the picture a bit more.

Any suggestions? (internal cards are half height).

Many thanks

Hi Tony,

What sort of TV are you using currently and how do you connect to it?

i also see a noticable drop in quality between watching TV direct from the
DigiBox over SCART to my standard CRT TV but through the Media Center the
picture goes a bit wishy washy. It is still good enough though.

I think this is due to the S-Video -> SCART conversion and somewhere along
the line the signal deteriorates. If I connect a decent TFT computer monitor
to the DVI output then the picture quality is great again. This means that
prviously recorded TV looks great too.

If I could persuade the missus that we need to spend loadsamoney on a 32"
LCD TV, I'd be laughing!!

"TonyK" wrote:

I'm using a 32" Sony WEGA CRT connected over S-Video going into a SCART
connector but its the same going into the TVs S-Video socket. On an LCD
monitor it looks okay but its only a 15" monitor so it looks sharper anyway.

I'm going to chuck it into a relatives 37" Plasma later this week and have a
look at whats it does on that.

To be honest I've made my mind up and I'm going to get a 42" TV anyway, but
I'd like to improve the MCE if I can.

BTW - My wife was the one pushing for MCE so she could get at pics of the
kids more easily so a new tellys no prob for me ;-)




"lordjeffers" <lordjeffers@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:81D6E637-70C0-473A-8C9A-B401AF470D36@microsoft.com...

I recommend getting a set capable of full 1080i, with a DVI or HDMI
connector. I'm running an old Philips 51" rear projection CRT HDTV at 1080i
and getting a beautiful picture. But I wouldn't buy a new set today...I'd
wait until the end of the year or so and get a Toshiba/Canon SED display.
I've seen them at CES and they're gorgeous. Supposedly cheaper to make than
LCD or Plasma too. First model out will be a 55". Should be in Japan this
summer, US by Christmas, no idea about Europe...

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

"TonyK" <home@hom.e> wrote in message
news:lJudnZTWb83BU5DZRVnytw@eclipse.net.uk...

The decodertv tuenr is what causes that clay - face, funky blocking.
I'd try the ATI 550 TV tuner, They say it has to do with cost but how
come I can go buy an entire TV for the same cost of a TV tuner card and
get a bettter picture. Please charge more and build better hardware for
the MCE boxes. I am curios to see if the existing hardware works better
capturing video from my Digital Cable box. I don't have high hopes but
I would hope if the incoming video is cleaner that it would look better.

There are three factors responsible for TV video routed through an MCE
system to be of poorer quality than when connecting the TV source directly
to a TV.
The first is the very inexpensive real time encoder chip on the tuner cards
that is used to compress the incoming video to MPEG2 DVD format. Networks
and DVD manufacturers use encoders costing many thousands $ of dollars which
can produce much better quality.
The second factor is the quality of the DVD Decoder and the hardware
acceleration capability of the graphics card to de-interlace and apply
motion compensation to the 480i video input and convert it to 480p.
The third factor is the ability of the graphics card to upscale the 480p
video to a decent quality higher resolution such as 720p or 1080i by
creating the additional pixels required for those resolutions from the 480p
video input. Many HDTVs do a better job of this than many PC graphics cards.

"PAPutzback" <phillip_putzback@insightbb.com> wrote in message
news:1141767074.266049.189670@j52g2000cwj.googlegr oups.com...

What is an SED display? I just looked at the Toshiba site and I see
LCD and DLP technologies, but not SED --

On Tue, 7 Mar 2006 14:14:57 -0600, "Dana Cline - MVP"
<dcline@scriptpro.com> wrote:

Here is a Link that tells about SED.
It is not on their Website yet since it is not yet available.

"Clark" <nonworking@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:4dmt02d4hohe72ks5u5ut5ogev9tfutinr@4ax.com...

http://gear.ign.com/articles/679/679235p1.html

"JW" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
news:%23Of3mirQGHA.2156@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...

Basically, SED is sort of like a phosphor display. However, instead of
having one electron gun for the whole screen, you have a tiny one behind
each phosphor dot. It has all the benefits of phosphor - vibrant colors,
black blacks, and fast response time, and it's in a thin flat screen
package. The demos at CES were gorgeous - I was surprised there weren't
puddles of drool on the floor.

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

"Clark" <nonworking@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:4dmt02d4hohe72ks5u5ut5ogev9tfutinr@4ax.com...

Just spotted this on another forum:

http://today.reuters.com/business/ne...oryID=nT343273

"Dana Cline - MVP" <dcline@scriptpro.com> wrote in message
news:e%23d7zprQGHA.3804@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...

That's a major bummer. I love the technology...

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

"JW" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
news:eIBlbfsQGHA.5552@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

Hi,

I have an 40 inch. LG Plasma (max. resolution via DVI connector 1280x1024)
and it works, both for satelite box and dvb-t. Use the DVI input and you will
get a perfect picture. When I am watching a football game, from a sunny
stadium, I almost have to wear sunglases.
--
Ole
Scan-Med


"TonyK" wrote: