Good quality digital, BAD analog

[john5126]

I'm running BTV 3.5.1 with 2 PVR250s. Any channel recorded from the digital PVR250 is good, while channels recorded from the analog 250 isn't so good, especially channel 4. Anyone know why this might be?

[Webbo]

Is it possible to provide a screenshot of the "bad" picture?

I suspect that the problem is being caused by a less than 100% perfect signal. The MPEG2 encoding process does not cope well with snow or other interference and even a small amount that would be considered fine for watching normally will seriously degrade the recording quality in BTV or any other PVR system.

It might be worth considering putting a signal booster in place before the PVR-250 if you don't already have one to see if this will clean up the signal.

[john5126]

I'm using Radio Shack "gold" splitters. Are there better ones to be had? I'm also using a Motorola signal amp. From the cable into the house, its split one to the modem, the other to the splits to the PC. The amp is right after the split and before the PC. But if its a bad signal or hardware, why is the digital card ok and not the analog?

[DonK]

A better question to ask is what he's saying by digital and analog...

As far as I knew the PVR250 is an analog tv tuner card... period...

I'm going to assume he's saying he's got one pvr250 fed by a digital tuner box, and the other is straight bare cable... in which case I'd be inclined to say it's signal strength/quality/interference on the bare cable in that's the problem here.

[Bilar Crais]

Originally Posted by john5126

I'm using Radio Shack "gold" splitters. Are there better ones to be had? I'm also using a Motorola signal amp. From the cable into the house, its split one to the modem, the other to the splits to the PC. The amp is right after the split and before the PC. But if its a bad signal or hardware, why is the digital card ok and not the analog?

The amp should be placed before the splitters...preferably right where it comes into the house.

There ARE better splitters to be had. Splitters available to the general public are generally lossy, and don't even fully cover the required Ghz spectrum.
My cable company came in and replaced (free of charge) all of the splitters in the house that I thought were quality goods. I don't remember the exact bandwidth that was quoted, but the difference in Ghz covered between consumer stuff and the cable company's stuff was substantial. The improvement in signal quality by upgrading the splitters was rewarding. If you don't already have RG6 cable installed instead of RG59/u, it might pay to scrap the old stuff and put in the best RG6 that your budget will allow.

[john5126]

I just bought a splitter from Radio Shack thats 5-1100mhz. Will that cover it?

[Bilar Crais]

Originally Posted by john5126

I just bought a splitter from Radio Shack thats 5-1100mhz. Will that cover it?

This link will show you exactly the splitters that my provider installed...they are good for 2050Ghz.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

[WeatherB]

Radio Shack sells something similar to the eBay link which goes from 5MHz - 2GHz. That should be more than enough bandwidth. I've got one and it is really nice and heavy duty. Did cost me 22.99 CAN though.

I read somewhere that most providers don't even use more than 1 GHz.

[DonK]

If you're going to split a line for digital cable boxes, *always* use 1ghz or more on the splitter, the standard 900mhz splitters are ok for just bare cable, but the boxes need 1ghz, this is what I was told directly by a professional installer. He also recommended the same 4 way HDTV-compatible splitter/amp that Radio Shack sells for 50 bucks. I have a 900mhz splitter that my boxes refuse to work behind, but the HDTV compatible one they work with fine.

Splitters I've found that work great even for regular cable and digital cable are the DSS sattelite splitters that are simply a 1ghz splitter instead of the standard 900mhz