Which is the HD-PVR? (widescreen PC recommended)

[mvallevand]

I thought I'd try comparing side-by-side HD-PVR and ATSC (both 1920x1080i) Live TV tonight . I've read that ATSC is the best source and the HD-PVR because it is from QAM which the cable companies compress and then it is encoded as h264 is much worse softer etc. Which do you think is worse left or right?

BTW major credit to sub and NPVR here. I only have a low-end IGP on my PC and I still am actually able to watch side-by side 1080i LiveTV playback on the same machine that is doing the recording.

Martin

[mvallevand]

Ok it was fun, but I guess that was a bad idea too since the forum shrunk them. Attached are the source jpeg files if you are interested.

Martin

[sub]

Yep, its pretty hard to tell the difference between those. I'm not even going to guess. I'm sure I'd get it wrong.

[johnsonx42]

The right side image is ATSC. I agree though, the quality is really, really close.

It depends on the cable company alot. My mother-in-law has HD cable in the next city over from me, and her SD is completely ugly, while the HD channels are pretty nice but nothing compared to the HD I get.

edit: I have to admit, every time I look at those two images I'm torn about which is which. I'm pretty sure the right side is ATSC, but I'm not positive. It's really tough to tell JPEG & scaling artifacts from MPEG-2 artifacts.

[pBS]

that was my guess too..[right=atsc] just because atsc looks a bit grainy, and hdpvr seems like it does a nice job at de-ringing [artifact filtering]..
i like the hdpvr pq bigtime..way cleaner than 'real' atsc [antenna]
but both of those look perfectly acceptable...compared to antenna atsc, both far superior..

[UncleJohnsBand]

I am in agreement......right-side = ATSC.

[mvallevand]

Yes it was the right. It is a hard test to present for sure, for me it was a good experiment, I was using JLH's teeth as my benchmark and as I zoomed I thought they looked sharper on the left. As johnsonx42 wrote, I might really be comparing jpeg at that point. I have been jealous of clear QAM (CableCard ie Ceton, DCR 2650 in the 'States) and HDMI digital capture on the Colossus and today I am not as jealous.

Martin