Discreet resolution??? (1 Viewer)

[dan dj]

Newbie question: what exactly is discreet resolution and when should i tweek it in powerstrip? my plasma looks terrible when it is fed via my tuner card and i am trying to figure out where the problem is? thanks for your help in advance.

 

[ChuckSolo]

Actually, we need more information to really help you. What brand of Plasma and how big is it, are you talking about cable, satellite or over the air channels? How do DVDs look? How do Hi-Def channels look? Is it all the channels or just some channels? If you got a 46"+ Plasma screen and are feeding it standard channels you can be sure that via cable MOST STD don't look as good as one thinks they should. While they may look good on say a 27-36" TV, they look absolutely bad on any screen larger. This is the fault of the broadcaster and could sometimes be that the signal to the tuner card could be stronger. Call the service provider, i.e,. cable company, satellite company, etc and have them check the signal. Don't expect STD channels to look as sharp and clear as they did on a smallish, tube TV though, it ain't gonna happen.

 

[dan dj]

Thanks for your response! I have a 42" zenith plasma screen (ed) I am running from a standard def dish pro setup box via coax. My dvd's look great. The display when connected to the setup box is more than acceptable. it's only when it is sent thru the computer and then to the monitor it gets the horizonal lines and noise rolling in the display. All the channels look the same as far as the noise or distortion go. I tried different coax cables different power sources different refresh and resolution selections and it does not seem to be worse or better.

 

[ChuckSolo]

Being an IT professional, it sounds like the video card in the PC is having issues with the display and/or the feed. Try getting a card with more RAM and see how that works.

 

[dan dj]

so would you suspect the video card over the tuner card. is there anyway to know for sure rathar than just start replacing parts?

 

[ChuckSolo]

From your post, I understood the video card to be the tuner card. So what you are saying is that you have 2 cards, one is a dedicated video card, and the other is a sole, separate TV tuner card with no ties to the video card. There are video cards that incorporate a TV tuner in them and some of them even have DVI/HDMI connections built in. That would indicate that the TV tuner card is at fault.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

1) Have you tried the PC output to a different display other than the TV (a monitor for example)-- does the same interference happen?

2) How are you connecting from the dish to the pc? What is the input card on the PC you're using? What is the program you are using to display the image?

3) Have you tried connecting a DIFFERENT source to the PC input card... such as your DVD player? If the Dish is coming Svideo into the PC, you should try swapping the DVD player for the dish tuner and running the same svideo from the DVD player and tell me what happens. Then try the DVD player with a different input, like composite.

4) How does the desktop image look over the plasma: does it look correct or is it distorted and noisy as well?

-V

 

[dan dj]

thanks chuck. i do have 2 separate cards.
Vince: i have not tried to output to another display but when i use the tv as computer monitor like when i am typing this post. it looks great. i play dvd's in the disk drive built in the computer and that looks fantastic.
i am connecting to the dish via coax between the setup box and the tuner card and vga from the video card to the vga port of the tv.
the program that handles the tv function is windows media center xp. this computer came with a remote that operates as a tv remote and handles some computer commands as well. It is difficultt to use another type of cable to connect the computer to the monitor because the computer it hss no composite or dvi ports. it does have an s video but i am told the vga is superior to that. perhaps the tuner or video card is just inferior. i dont have a problem shelling out a couple hundred bucks for a card if it fixes the problem. but i sure would like to avoid buying a card and still have the same problem. thanks dan

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Well, if the desktop image looks good, it's not the video card or the settings.

Given your situation, it is either the tuner input card or the coax cable between the card and the box. Does the tuner have any different inputs other than the rf/coax input? Does it have a composite or Svideo jack? If so, have you tried using those to connect the satellite instead?

It actually sounds like the tuner card is tuning incorrectly: I assume you have to set it to channel 3 or 4 to get the signal from the sat box--- however some computer tuner applications allow you to use different freq (for example Dscaler can work on just about any tuner system from any country)-- so it is possible that while you tuner might need to look at 61.25mhz for channel 3 it is looking at 62.5mhz and getting weird signal as a result.

Regardless- the coax connection is the lowest quality anyway- since you're using your DBS box to tune channels- you should really try to connect it to the PC's card using composite or svideo.

-V

 

[dan dj]

thanks again. for some reason i have tried running it through the svideo and i do not get an image at all. i also tried different coax cablee with no change. maybe the card is bad?? As far adjusting the frequency of the card i will call gateway and see if that is possible. if i have to replace this card, would you recommmend an all in wonder card??

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

I think the All in wonder cards are garbage- I dunno if they work with media center but they don't work with descaler.

I would double check the svideo issue- there is likely some configuration setting somewhere to select the Svideo input on the card (i dont use media center, so I know nothing about what application is uses for video input).

Also, the tuner freq issue I mentioned is usually a problem with software- not something you have to change on hardware. It usually is just the wrong video system chosen in the tuner application.

-V

 

[dan dj]

Another card i heard about is the MDP-120 MyHD PCI TV Tuner. Have you heard of it? Some of the cards that i research seem to indicated that they display and record "over the air" hdtv only. Does that make sense? It would seem pretty useless to have a hd card that could not display cable or satellite hdtv. Perhaps I am misinterpeting the specs? At any rate it looks like I need to upgrade my tuner do you have any recommendations and will the upgraded tuner require an upgraded video card. (sorry to be requiring so much of your time)

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

It would need to support QAM for cable-- although don't quote me on this: I don't think such a card exists. I know it would be impossible to use a tuner card for HD tuning from Satellite as SAT providers use their own encrypted methods--- so again no "tuner" card exists for using a pc with sat feed.

However you do have solutions to simply feed video from a tuner into the PC. I dunno what the solutions are for analog HD at this point (if there are any) as I haven't been keeping up on the cutting edge too much lately. I know analog HD input is serious hardware and still expensive in the pro side--- but there have been HD input solutions using digital signal over firewire or sdi.

But last I checked the only kind of tuner card availabel for PC was ATSC (over the air) tuners.


I would suggest checking out the HTPC area over at AVS (avsforum.com)-- ANYTHING that is happening in media/pc integration is covered over there with extensive info.

-V

 

[dan dj]

will do