picture quality from cable TV to TV Tuner card

[dzachau]

I notice that on my television set all my cable channels come in crystal clear. When running my cable to my TV tuner card (I have used both ATI-AIW and Hauppage Win-TV) some stations have crystal clear pictures, and others are grainy, and still others appear to have wavey lines moving through the picture. What is mysterious to me is that on my TV set none of these picture artificats or poor quality picture exists. Is there any way to get the picture quality for a TV tuner card to match the quality of the picture on a TV set with a signal delivered by cable? Or, is this just a known unfixable problem with the picture on TV tuner cards with cable TV input?

Thanks for your help!

[Krispy Kritter]

Have you tried the pc using the exact same cable from the TV?

You could just have a bad patch cable or low signal level.

[Bodyslide]

Also make sure that the cable going to your TV-Tuner on the PC is not near speaker wires or any power cables. This can cause a loss of signal.

[The_Doman]

Ofourse a badly splitted aerial could be the cause of the problems.
I have tried quite a-lot of TV-cards(BT8x8 based) here. With most of them I had a pretty bad picture when using the internal tuner of those card. That's why am using just a good (stereo)VCR as a tuner for my Tv-cards now. That gives me the best possible picture.

[reboot]

Some capture apps also allow fine tuning of each channel. Sometimes this helps a lot.

[edDV]

I notice that on my television set all my cable channels come in crystal clear. When running my cable to my TV tuner card (I have used both ATI-AIW and Hauppage Win-TV) some stations have crystal clear pictures, and others are grainy, and still others appear to have wavey lines moving through the picture. What is mysterious to me is that on my TV set none of these picture artificats or poor quality picture exists. Is there any way to get the picture quality for a TV tuner card to match the quality of the picture on a TV set with a signal delivered by cable? Or, is this just a known unfixable problem with the picture on TV tuner cards with cable TV input?

Thanks for your help!

Bottom line, computer capture cards use lowest quality $4-9 tuners, cable boxes are optimized and purchased by the hundreds of thousands at a time. Unsubsidized street price equiv would be >$250 for a cable box.

Your experience seems to indicate primarily a cabling problem since some channels come in ok.

If you want to record with the highest quality use S-video and audio (red/White) from the cable box to the PC card. This bypasses the low rent RF TV tuner leaving only the low rent A/D converter to distort the video.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

unless you don't have a cable box
i have cable but no box.....
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=259725

[edDV]

unless you don't have a cable box
i have cable but no box.....
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=259725

Try a vcr tuner and compare. Most will tune all of the analog channels.