PVR350 Â TV out quality

[bishop]

Thanks to assistance from a number of people in this forum I understand that I can use GB-PVR and a PVR350 without a monitor and by using the TV out on the PVR350 I can see both GB-PVR on my TV and the subsequent playback. However I recently connected my nvidia graphics card using the tv out and s video to my TV and the output was terible. I understand this is not uncommon due to a number of well documented issues. My question, is anyone currently doing the above using the PVR350 onto a widescreen TV and what is their experience with picture quality of both the TV playback and the GB-PVR interface?

[jquinlan]

Right now any brodcast TV, beside true HDTV with the proper cables, will look terible on a widescreen TV. After the image is stretched to be a widescreen picture and increase in picture size to 40 or 50 inches will make any TV image look bad. Even Microsoft has this problem with thier new MCE 2005. Since you only have a composit video or S-Video in the case of the NVidia card you will not be able to reach the resolution required for a crisp picture on a widescreen TV.

[PVRNewbie]

bishop,

I just setup my GBPVR system with a Hauppauge PVR350 on a Toshiba 51" widescreen TV. I am very pleased with the results. The way I have the screen set to display I lose a little off the top and bottom of the screen, but nothing that I miss. Right now I am only using it to watch shows I have recorded with GBPVR and last night I even tried recording something on low quality and was still pretty impressed with the picture. I am having lockup problems with Live TV on the PVR350 (so are others), just wanted to make sure you knew the whole story before you bought your card. BTW, I got my PVR350 at pcalchemy.com for a sweet 159.99, the best deal I could find anywhere around.

Good luck!
Chad

[bishop]

Thanks PVRNewbie, sounds like you are geeting pretty good results except for the live TV lock up. Do you view the GB-PVR menus on the TV or a monitor. If you view the interface on the TV what is the quality of this? Is it as successful as the TV playback you refer to?

[jquinlan]

I'm not trying to scare you from using a widescreen; I just wanted to let you know the increase in size of the screen can give you a picture you may not expect. You do get use to it and still will appreciate the bigger picture over a picture tube TV.

[bishop]

Thanks jquinlan I appreciate the feedback. It's good to have all the facts.

[Huw]

I am using a 42" plasma wide screen, I found the output from the PVR to be OK, but not perfect by any means, however I now use the DVI output from my old radeon 9600 which is infinately better on the larger screen, funnily enough though I did not get any problems with the 350, no lockups or anything

[PVRNewbie]

bishop,

The GBPVR interface displays fine on the TV, although the picture is not as good as the shows I have recorded. It looks a little different than it does on my PC monitor, not as defined maybe. It think it's great.