HTPC recorded video quality question

[beefjerky911]

I'm thinking about building a HTPC and have a question about the video quality of recorded material. I used to own a TV tuner a couple years ago and recorded video awhile back and remembered the quality wasn't that great when played back on my monitor. Does the video look better when played back on TV like it would normally look if it came directly from the cable line itself? I'll probably buy the ATI TV Wonder Elite this time around for recording TV feeds. Another related question, does DVD played thru the computer look as sharp as normal dedicated DVD machines?

 

[grimlykindo]

Well I'm not sure about the ATI wonder Elite, but my ATI HDTV Wonder has incredible recorded quality (but 720p+ recordings takes up alot of HD space!).

And yes, DVDs will look the same if not better on my PC (in sig) running with PowerDVD (I forget which version) But the quality will depend on you Monitor and Video card as well.

 

[Todd33]

Quality is worse than normal TV, it's been compressed. You can vary the compression level for quality, but the files will fill your hard drive. I use high-ish compression and then ffdshow to filter and upscale it. It's looks fine. I also re-encode the mpegs into Divx if I want to keep them around. I will re-encode a bunch of my kids cartoons from like 800MB down to 250MB.

 

[IeraseU]

I agree, quality is not as crisp as directly from the TV, but the slight drop off I think is a fairly good trade off you make for the ability to pause/rewind/ live tv, and to time-shift easily.

 

[beefjerky911]

So is the TiVO image quality better? I don't know much about TiVO but it seems like the feed is also compressed.

 

[Todd33]

It's all the same, though the tuner might be better. It might also be less noisy (image noise) than a computer that has other radiating devices and fans. My case fans add image artifacts due to interference.

 

[IeraseU]

The image from Tivo is also compressed (and therefore of similar quality to a HTPC) *unless* it's a DirecTivo in which case it's the uncompressed image from the satellite (this image is identically to what you would get plugging your satellite receiver directly into your TV).