Which do you think has the better comb filter; my HLN467 TV or my HDVR2 DirecTivo PVR (1 Viewer)

[Luke_Y]

Which do you think has the better comb filter; my HLN467 TV or my HDVR2 DirecTivo PVR?

If the PVR has the better comb filter (doubtful?) I understand it would be best to use the S-Vid out. But...

If the TV has a better comb filter wouldn't it be better to feed it a composite signal from the PVR and let the better comb filter in the TV convert to S-Vid.

 

[StephenL]

A comb filter separates the chrominance (color) and luminance (brightness) portions of a composite video signal. If the signals are seperate to begin with (which is the case with your satelite receiver connected via S-Video) there is no need for a comb filter.

If you could only buy your beer and milk mixed together in one container (composite beverage), you would want a good filter to seperate them. If you could get your beer and milk in seperate containers, why in the world would you want to combine them? Just to show off your fancy filter?

 

[Luke_Y]

If the signals are seperate to begin with (which is the case with your satelite receiver connected via S-Video) there is no need for a comb filter.

So the satellite receiver doesn't use a comb filter to produce an s-vid signal? How did the signals get separate? Can you elaborate for me.

Not arguing at all, just trying to understand.

 

[Stephen Tu]

The signals are separate to begin with. DirecTV is transmitting digital video over the satellite. Digital video has 3 components - a luminance, black & white signal (Y), and 2 color difference signals (Cr, Cb). The satellite receiver decodes this and combines the color difference signals, so now you have two signals, Y & C, which is what S-video uses. A comb filter only comes into play if you further combine the Y & C into a single composite video signal; the comb filter reseparates them.

The "deciding which component has better comb filter" only applies to sources that work with composite video, e.g. laserdisc, or the analog channels on a cable box. It has no relevance when you are using digital video.

 

[Luke_Y]

Thanks for the explanation. I think I understand now.

The reason I was interested and perhaps confused was the seemingly large number of posts here and at AVS where people are stating that they are finding a better picture on the Standard definition channels using composite or even RF coax connections as opposed to the S-Video. Most of the posts were pertaining to the Samsung DLP sets. I assumed that it would be a comb filter issue but now I see that no, thats not the reason.