Not so good video quality

[Andawyr]

First, some background info:

I purchased BTV4 a few months back (since upgraded to 4.2), and happily ran it in my primary system (LCD display, Radeon X800 GTO video, cable input to a MCE500 card) - the quality was very good. Crisp, bright colors.

Last week I bought a Shuttle barebones system, stuck the 500MCE card in it with a Radeon X1300 video card - and the output quality just isn't that good. In fact, it's maybe even worse than cable (how's that possible?) The image quality is, for lack of a better term, soft. I've played around with the settings for the card and for BTV to no avail. Media Player 10 with a DVD shows the same poor quality, so I'm starting to think that the video card ain't so hot. I've tried different s-video cables, both with the same results.

I would expect that a DVD should have same quality as my Satellite feed - the difference between it and cable is astonishing. But the DVD has the same washed out, soft image as cable.

Is there anything else I should be looking at before I swap out the video card for something else?

[Bigbird999]

Have you tried playing your recorded files back on your primary system? What is the quality? Playback old file recorded on your primary on your Shuttle and see the quality? What are you using for a display on your Shuttle system? Using overlay or 3D?

First, rule out a recording issue. There should not be much difference in PQ from those two video cards. My bet is that you have a setting problem in either/both BTV and the video card.

BB