Picture quality not as good as cable box, also a volume control Q.

M

MX-5 Dave

Gawd
Joined
Jan 14, 2007
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568
So I got this machine set up now, and its great, I love it.

The picture quality while using the HTPC just isnt as good as if I am using the cable box directly to the TV. Any ideas?

Its a WinPVR 150 MCE
Im using a GOOD dvi cable (used to use it from the cable box to the TV)
Im using XP media center 2005.


Also, it wont do 16:9 in regular TV through media center or WINTV2000, but if I do cable box to the TV, I can. DVDs play widescreen no problem.


Next question

If I turn the volume up or down using the remote from my tuner card (hauppaugge), it only lowers the volume through the center channel, and the volume remains unchanged on the other 5 speakers. I am using SPDIF optical out on my sound card into my reciever. It does this on 7 channel stereo and in dolby digital mode.










Any ideas? I am a complete noob when it comes to htpcs, so forgive me if this is all basic knowledge.
 
Are you recording things or just watching live TV? What exactly are you tuning, analog cable or OTA? If it's regular broadcast MCE could be geared towards compression and losing some of the quality there. If it's digital or HD it shouldn't be doing any compression and the picture should be perfect.

I'm using the Vista version but if you dig through the settings and configuration there should be a display setup option. That will probably have the option for 4:3 and 16:9. That should help there

The volume i'm not entirely sure on, I guess see if there is a way to lock the volume levels of the various channels.
 
Its cable coming right in out of my cable box.
This is when watching live TV, and its the same quality if you watch recorded video.
But DVDs are crystal clear.



And i am pretty sure I set it for 16:9 but Ill go double check :)
 
Are you using an rf signal from your cable box (channel 3) or an s-vid connection? rf will look crap, but svid should look pretty good.

Also, were you getting hdtv from your cable box to the tv? If so, you're only getting a regular-old SD picture from your htpc which obviously won't look as good.
 
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