Questions regarding front end/back end

[hondaman]

Please correct me if I'm wrong in anything im about to say:

Live tv is a playback of a recording. A hauppage 250, even though the audio from the DTV reciever goes into the back of the 250 card, still uses your sound card to determine the audio quality of the sound. A better sound card will reveal better audio in live tv.

On the front end, the live tv playback is only as good as the hardware capturing it on the backend, whether it be sound or video, regardless of how good your equipment is on the front end.

Is this true? Am I understanding this right?

[Kilrsat]

A better sound card will not change sound quality when using a hardware encoder or a software encoder with integrated audio.

Playback quality can vary substantially between video decoders, but for the most part the recording settings set a limit as to how good you can get it.

[hondaman]

Ah, k. So with the 250 card I have, it really makes no difference what sound card I'm using?

[Kilrsat]

The audio for the recording is handled completely by your tv tuner card, so no matter what sound card you have the recording will be the same.

There can still exist slight variations during playback (such as the people that swear their mp3s sound better with one card over another) but I doubt that there will be any real, measurable, noticable difference.

[fanbanlo]

there Should be some noticable difference, comparing onboard soundcard with a good Audigy2 or above, when equipped with decent speakers.

[tscales]

Originally Posted by fanbanlo

there Should be some noticable difference, comparing onboard soundcard with a good Audigy2 or above, when equipped with decent speakers.

Depends on the integrated audio. Any machine in the last year or so would have pretty darn good integrated audio. Heck, the new Dells have 7.1 integrated.

Tom

[fanbanlo]

... more channels doesn't mean good.

every ALCxxx are pretty bad compare to Audigy2 or above.