OK, so I own a Tivo but wanted to jump into the myth fun. Bought the cheapest but reasonable parts from newegg (see below). I've tweaked the following settings below so far but for whatever reason when watching the TV (especially compared to my TIVO) the quality is not that great. It feels like we're watching compressed video on the TV screen. I've tried adjusting the brightness of the card etc, but that doesn't seem to help much.

I can't tell if the problem is in my video card or the PVR-150. I'm not yet sure how to send the video out through the PVR-150 so I haven't been able to narrow it down. Thoughts on fixing this compressed video like experience?

Settings I've adjusted so far.
/etc/X11/XF86Config-4
Option "TVOverScan" "0.8"
Option "UseEdidDpi" "FALSE"
Option "DPI" "100 x 100"
Option "NoLogo" "True"

/etc/modprobe.conf
options ivtv tuner=50
options ivtv tuner=55


14-141-037 VGA BIOSTAR GF6200TC V6202TL16 R 1 $38.99 $38.99
15-116-633 HAUPPAUGE WinTV-PVR-150 274 1 $59.99 $59.99
17-159-045 @PSU COOLMAX|V-400 RT 1 $19.99 $19.99
19-103-535 CPU AMD|A64 3200+ 2.0G 939 512K R 1 $66.99 $66.99
13-130-491 MB MSI K8N Neo4-F NF4 939 1 $64.99 $64.99
11-190-087 CASE ATHENATECH|A3701BB BK RT 1 $59.99 $59.99
27-106-013 DVD BURN LITEON|SHW-160P6S-04 BK R 1 $30.99 $30.99
20-145-477 MEM 256Mx2|COR VS512MBKIT400C3 R 1 $64.99 $64.99
15-116-625 HAUPPAUGE WINTV-PVR-150 1045 RT 1 $89.99 $89.99
22-152-031 HD 250G|SAMG 7K 8M ATA133 SP2514N 1 $69.99 $69.99

Ok, need some more detail:

What type of TV are you using?
How is it connected (S--Video, DVI, VGA, component, etc...)?
What modeline is X using to drive the tv?

How are your capture profiles configured? (Under Settings>TV>Recording Profiles)

It sounds like the problem could be one of two things:

1) Your capture profiles are set to record at 480x480 (which is the default, I believe) and you're trying to display that on a reasonably high res display. The solution here is to up the capture resolution to 720x480 and maybe bump the bitrate up a bit.
2) You've connected your display in a sub-optimal manner or are driving it with a less than ideal modeline. For example, my JVC DILA is optimal at 1080i, but will accept VGA (640x480). Of course, the picture doesn't look as good...

Copy some of the recordings to a computer with a monitor and play them there. If they still look bad then the problem is with the recording. Otherwise the problem is you video out (modeline, connection method, etc).

Hi, thanks for the replies. I am putting it into a Sony XBR 32 inch TV. Exporting it out via SVIDEO, although I have tried composit with the convert they supplied with the card and it's no better. The TV itself is about 10 years old but works good still and Tivo works fine with it. I have played with modelines (up and down), bitrate (all the way up) and nvidia settings and no matter what it still seems like I'm watching a compressed TV show. Is it the PVR-150 or is it the video card? When I transfer a show for whatever reason I can't get the mpeg video to play back properly on any of my computers, perhaps I don't have the right codec installed. When I plug my computer monitor into the video card the picture appears compressed there as well. Is there an easy way for me to redirect the output through the PCR 150 Svideo out to see if that eliminates the video card? I'm thinking this is probably the video card's fault.

Is the DefaultColorDepth in XF86Config-4 set to 24 (0r 32)?

Looks like it is set to 16.

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultColorDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection

I tried both 24 and 32. 32 doesn't seem to work, X won't start but 24 does. Might be a little improvement but the picture is still dark and grainy like I'm watching a compressed video. If I could just make it brighter and more vivid it might become as good as Tivo but adjusting the nvidia adapter settings don't give me the brightness in the picture that seems to be lacking.

Unless you didn't include all the subsection "Display" subsections, you're missing one you need, namely, 16 (or 24). I would change DefaultColorDepth to 24, get rid of all other subsections but one, make sure that one's depth is 24. Not sure if this is relevant to S-video out or not, but it is worth a try.

Yeah, I don't know this one's weird. I can't imagine my Tivo Tuner is better than the PVR-150 or the new video card I purchased.

I'm going with ceenvee703 here. Looks like you've only got 1 and 4 bit color depths defined. Try replacing your Screen section with this:

When you're running the nvidia-settings, turn the "Digital Vibrance" all the way down (that hosed me for a while).

Out of curiosity, how's a DVD look when you watch one?

Download media player classic or VLC to play the mythtv .mpg recordings on another computer.

Also, when comparing to TiVo, keep in mind that the S-video output from your video card won't show your MPEG recordings with the proper interlacing (the TiVo maintains the interlacing).

You can use Bob deinterlacing to improve the situation.

I didn't mention it because the problem you're describing isn't an interlacing issue, but once you hopefully get things working, you may notice the difference since you're comparing to a TiVo.

I'm helping kpdillon out with this issue and just wanted to confirm that we're able to download and play back captured .mpegs with Media Player Classic, and they look fine. So, it looks like the issue is with the tv-out settings.

Would anyone be able to point us to an XF86Config-4 file for a nVidia 6200 outputting via S-Video that they're happy using, and that we can work off of? Or would posting the XF86Config-4 file be more useful?

Thanks in advance!

First, did you update the XF86Config-4 file as suggested by MisoSoup777 above, using only that one SubSection "Display" section and deleting all others?

Secondly, keep in mind there are multiple config files in /etc/X11/ ... ONLY /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 is the one in use, though, so make sure you're editing the right one.

If those two don't solve it, yeah, post the whole file.