HD-PVR1212 and SD resolutions?

[hexibot43]

I have two STBs. One that only has 480i output even though it is in the form of r-g-b input. And one that has 1080i ouput. If I record with the 480i box I get a very grainy recording. If I use the 1080i box I get a very nice recording. Now this is even if they are both watching the same channel, which is an SD channel. It seems that the HD-PVR doesn't do well at recording lower resolutions? My STB that up converts to 1080i from the same 480i produces a much better end result. Is this just how it is or is there something I can do?

[steveum]

If you are trying to record from a SD STB, I would use an SD analog recording card and the S-Video input. For example, many of the hauppauge cards will handle that quite well (150, 1600, 2250, ...). I don't think they have really optimized the HDPVR for recording SD signals.

[hexibot43]

I would agree with that statement. I guess I'll be getting new card to throw in my box. I was thinking of the pvr-500. But by looking at the part numbers you through out there I can get a digital tuner that has composite / s-video input as well. I'll be checking it out. I was feeling like I was wasting my time getting a strickly analog card. I'll check them out. Thanks!

[mvallevand]

I had no problem recording SD with my HD-PVR, but the default resolution should be bumped up. I found the quality much better at 5MB over a 9MB analog svideo capture. However I gave up on SD because of problems switching resolutions within a recording because I record SD and HD and now I have configured my STB to output everything at 720p.

Martin

[hexibot43]

I have one STB that can't do 720p. So, I broke down and ordered a pvr500 off of ebay today. That will give me one extra tuner just in case. My other STB records beautiful SD using the Hd-pvr, probably because it's resolution is 1080i even though it is showing an SD image. I can't bump the baseline resolution on the one box. I wanted another tuner anyway, and that is better than having to buy another pvr-1212. $50 got me two more tuners for SD, so I'm not going to complain. I'll use the 1212 for the HD box, and the 500 for the SD box. Works for me. Thx