What's your Quality Setting?

[Mysticle31]

So what quality setting are you all using? I was running Beyond TV on an actual old TV with a monitor out. I've upgraded to two Mitsubishi Diamond Pro CRT Monitors and now the quality of TV is very noticeable. Wasn't bad on the real TV.

What are you all running? What MPEG-2 Quality?

[Fickey]

I'm no videophile, and I currently watch everything on my PC from two SD tuners. My default is Fair, mostly to save space as I don't showsqueeze. Some pixelization, but good enough for newscasts & most stuff I watch & delete. Anything I care about or plan to burn is Good DVD Ready.

[mlomker]

I always use the highest DVD-ready setting. In my area I have to use a digital cable box into my capture card because analog reception is dreadful. It really does vary, though, because my father's analog reception is gorgeous (his cable company uses a fiber backbone).

[Mamba]

I use either "Better" or "Best". "Best" looks the nicest but "Better" is a little more stream-friendly for my Link system in regard to FF/RW functions. "Best" is much preferred if I'll be watching the show on the bigscreen.

[Mysticle31]

Alright, Thanks guys. Does anyone have any experience with the Hauppauge tweaker?

[tvgk]

I use a variable bitrate of 4700, Max=9000. Gives me good quality and I can fit about 2 hours on a DVD without transcoding.
I have some experience with the Hauppauge tweaker, but prefer Christweak, as there are more options.

[ClamsTheCat]

Highest quality for me. Nothing but the best...SD video

[Bigbird999]

I just watch and delete so space isn't a concern. I have found the best for my crappy SD TV is CBR 8776 (leaves 224 for audio) for a total of 9000 which is the max DVD compliant mpeg 2 bit rate. One hour is 4.0 GB. I edited my DVD best quality to to these values and set it as the default quality. On the odd occasion I want to burn a movie to DVD I reencode to a bit rate that will fit on a single layer DVD. If I want to archive it I convert to divx/xvid with avi.NET.

BB

[Mysticle31]

Has anyone had any problems with video being too dark?

[rjbeals]

7000 CBR Mpeg2. 7224 total size with audio.

1800 KBS Divx Showsqueeze.

My options are to showsqueeze everything & delete original. Also for some reason if I go to 8000 CBR Mpeg or any VBR settings, I get dropped frames and the screen flickers bright green sporaticaly.

But I'm happy with these settings. I've spliced the cable as it comes into the house. 1/2 to my computer / 1/2 to the other end of the house. From my computer it's spit again - 1/2 to modom, 1/2 to capture card. The other end of the house is split like 3 times so the cable is routed to the living room, guest room & my bedroom.

but I'm happy w/ the quality I'm getting. I download whole series like boston legal / curb your enthusiasm (don't tell) from bit-torrents which were captured at high-def, & encoded xvid and the quality is fantastic for a very small file size. I tried to achieve that, but w/o high def it's impossible.

[mcr10]

I am still using ver. 4.3. Had to roll back from 4.4 or 4.5 due to several issues that could not be resolved.
Quality on SD tv recording to "Good". Squeezing over-night to VHS and wmv. Never had satisfactory results with divx.
Great picture and sound.
Wife is happy so everyone is happy.

[tscales]

Quality, we don't need no stinkin' quality.

HD all the way....

[rjbeals]

All you guys capturing in HD are using a HD antenna mounted on the roof of your house - right?

Or are you coming out from a HD Digital Cable box?

[tscales]

Only antenna is supported.

I have an antenna in my attic.

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by rjbeals

All you guys capturing in HD are using a HD antenna mounted on the roof of your house - right?

Or are you coming out from a HD Digital Cable box?

using Fonceur's plugin BTV-Externinator, i record cable QAM.....2-3mbps SD from QAM cable blows away 12mbps analog recordings with a PVR-USB2

i use a SiliconDust HDHomeRun dual digital tuner.....have a 2nd unit and am waiting for Fonceur's enhancements to make it capable of supporting more than on HDHR.