Composite Versus Coaxial Quality

[owensdj]

I'm getting an analog video capture card that has both a composite and a coaxial(for cable TV) input. Which of these has better video quality? Thanks.

 

[Falloutboy]

they both have thier uses if you capturing from a digital cable box or a satalight box then use composit if you are capturing from analog cable use the coaxial

 

[rbV5]

The coax feed from an antennae or analog cable connection prior to any splitters would be the highest quality. Composite (rca) would be your last choice to use given a choice.

 

[Falloutboy]

you would only want to use the coax if your using it for antennae or analog cable you wouldn't want to use the coaxial out of a digital cable box or a satalight box,l the composit would give you much better quality in this case.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Falloutboy
you would only want to use the coax if your using it for antennae or analog cable you wouldn't want to use the coaxial out of a digital cable box or a satalight box,l the composit would give you much better quality in this case.

The quality between the coax and composite output of my digital cable box is not noticeably different viewed on my bigscreen, there is virtually no difference between them. S-video is not an option unless you spring for the HD box from Comcast(which I have refused to do so far). I use the composite feed to my AIW since the tuner already uses the coax prior to the box for analog cable, and coax for the onboard tuner for my 55" display.

There is a much bigger difference between the analog cable PQ (much better) and the digital cable PQ ( noticably worse on most channels that you can compare directly) than there is between the coax and composite output of the decoder box.

 

[owensdj]

rbV5, that's interesting. With my digital cable box the digital channels have a far better picture quality than the analog channels. It's like watching a better TV when I switch from an analog to a digital channel. I have Charter cable.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: owensdj
rbV5, that's interesting. With my digital cable box the digital channels have a far better picture quality than the analog channels. It's like watching a better TV when I switch from an analog to a digital channel. I have Charter cable.

It depends on how much compression the cable company applies to the digital channels -- more compression = less bandwidth required per channel, but a crappier picture. Comcast uses a lot of bandwidth for their Internet service and their "On-Demand" video-on-demand services (plus the 8 million sports and PPV channels), so they compresses the hell out of everything. Although I have to say my broadband service is REALLY fast, so I can live with slightly crummier picture quality.