I know this has been asked a million times but I'm trying to do the last tweaks and am looking for suggestions.

Toshiba 51" (51H84) TV.
Celeron D 320 (2.4 Ghz)
256 RAM
80 Gb HD
Running KnoppMyth (latest)
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150
MSI GForce FX 5500 card with 256 RAM

Everything is setup and working. I'm using the default XF86Config-4.nvidia file for TV-Out. Currently connecting through S-Video, but may change to DVI -> HDMI Cable.

All my sizing and scanning etc is OK.
Now I would like to tweak the image quality especially the clarity.
It's a little too soft and fuzzy for my liking.

For example, is it possible to upconvert.
My defaults in MythTV are 800x600 but the TV's resolution is 1080i.

What would the modeline be and would that make the difference in clarity?

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Toshiba 51" (51H84) TV.
Celeron D 320 (2.4 Ghz)
256 RAM
80 Gb HD
Running KnoppMyth (R5D1)
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150
MSI GForce FX 5500 card with 256 RAM

Does your Toshiba have VGA or DVI in? Seriously I would go this route if I were you. It sounds like you are trying to drive a 51" display using S-Video or Composite out. You will NEVER get a great image this way no matter what you tweak. I don't think you can get Component out with a 5200 card, at least no with out a converter box from VGA or DVI. I have a 42" Plasma that I drive from the VGA out of my 5200 card. I don't use DVI because I have not bother buying the DVI card for my Panny Plasma, and am very happy with the VGA image. There are other advantages using the VGA or DVI. You can get your screen resolution up much higher then 800x600, and the myth interface will look very clean and sharp. You will need to find a modeline that will work with your display but it will be worth it.

I quick google search of that TV and it looks like you don't have DVI or VGA. You may need to get a VGA to Component box to get any decent image. The other issue you have is SD content is never going to look great blown up on a big hi-res screen like this. Things you can do in Myth would be to check your encoding settings. What resolution and bitrate are you using. Try bumping them up. You can also use the denoise filters and de-interlacing to try and clean things up. Good luck.

S-Video will not support HD, so you are obviously running SD. The low resolutions of SD just don't look that great on a 50 inch tv. It's just a fact. That is what is driving the push for HD. Regular cable looks just fine on a 27 inch or smaller TV, but it looks kinda lousy on a big screen.

Keep in mind that setting the resolution to 800x600 does not increase the resolution of the actual video that you are watching, which is likely around 640x480 or lower. Get yourself HD service through your cable/satellite company and hook your Myth up via an DVI or HDMI cable.

I wish I could help you with the modelines, but I'm not too experienced on the subject.

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Currently running: R5.5, HD5000 x 2, PVR150, Athlon 64 3000+, Chaintech VNF4, 1GB RAM, 2 x 250GB in LVM, MSI NX6200TC -> AA 9A60 -> HDTV

I've only got coax, component (red,green, blue) , s-video, RCA (red, white, yellow), and HDMI

I was guessing a DVI to HDMI may be better.

I know that blowing up the SD video isn't the best but it's worse when using the MythTV box compared to going straight into the tv with coax so I would just like to get it a little closer to that.

I already have Digital Cable so will eventually be hooking that to my PVR-150 via RCA cable so that may help.

I just wanted to make sure I was getting the best image possible before I start playing with all my wiring setup.

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Toshiba 51" (51H84) TV.
Celeron D 320 (2.4 Ghz)
256 RAM
80 Gb HD
Running KnoppMyth (R5D1)
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150
MSI GForce FX 5500 card with 256 RAM

First try dropping the resolution to 640x480.

"Wait" you say, "that will look worse!" Ahh actually the nvidia card always outputs 640x480 on the s-video output. Just they allow it to dynamicaly resample a 800x600 or 1024x768 image to 640x480 on the tv-out. Neet idea for fitting more stuff on the desktop. Bad idea for making a crisp picture. Because mplayer is sampling the picture up and the video card samples it down it gets a bit blury every time.

But a s-video connect will always be messy on a 51 inch display.

Definitely use the HDMI input. HDMI is electrically equivalent to DVI, and will allow you to drive the display at its native resolution of 1920x1080. At best, you'll only get about 480x480 out of an S-Video cable.

I'm running mythtv on a 60" sony grand wega. I agree the tv does a better job of upconverting standard def to the native display than myth does. But mythtv is so convenient I've stuck with it. I'm pretty happy with the quality I'm currently getting.

I'm using the DVI input so, as others have already mentioned, I also recommend using your HDMI input. Experiment with the video filters to improve the picture. I also found the opengl sync necessary to keep playback smooth (at least for me). I'm using the kernel deinterlacer. I had been using the quickdnr filter to cut down on the grainy picture but I just found that my PVR-250 supports its own noise reduction filters and they seem to do a better job and don't hit the cpu. I'm now using the following to set the PVR noise reduction instead of quickdnr:



It will probably take some experimenting and tweaking to get something you are happy with. I also noticed that some channels look much better than others on my analog cable.