Why does my tv tuner suck?

[Neptuna_Fish]

...The visual quality, I mean.

My specs:

XP Pro
Asus P4P800
Pentium 4/2.60/800 FSB/blah,blah...
1 gig RAM
Seagate 120/8MB
ATI All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro/tuner manufactured by Phillips

When I hook up my digital cable line to my regular TV set, the quality is fine.

Another thing I've noticed: The smaller the window for the TV is minimized, the better the quality. But WTF? Who wants to watch tv on their monitor, that is the size of a business card?

[Neptuna_Fish]

Oh, and a rather crucial (possibly) detail that I left out:

Monitor: ViewSonic A90f+

[lordsmurf]

It's not the tuner. It's either user error, subpar wiring, or a combination thereof. Without trying to blame the card, figure out what's wrong.

[Neptuna_Fish]

lol...That's why I bothered to create this thread, Smurf- so I can find out what's up.

[lordsmurf]

lol...That's why I bothered to create this thread, Smurf- so I can find out what's up.

Cool. Well, then, start with your wires.

Also remember the resolution on the tv is 25% the resolution of your computer monitor. So it "sees more" than the tv. You may actually just be seeing the tv in its raw form, the bad stuff normally hidden by the tv is now seen.

[Gazorgan]

If you knew how noisey (RF wise) your computer was you'd never have bought a capture card!!!!!

Having been a Cable TV engineer for years, let me tell you it's a mess. A TV hides a lot of crappy video that a monitor or a computer will really show.

[mastersmurfie]

Just saw this thread...wish it had been around when I first got my AIW...

sometimes the video sucks BAD...brights to bright...colors too colorful...and video tapes through the composite-forget it...

maybe it's my wires (use regular old 3 foot RF wires from local Kmart) to connect the cable to tuner, cause I don't wanna spend $$$ on any different wires...

On the other side, I'm usually quite happy with my captures that are converted to DVD...so...

it it ain't broke, don't fix it...

just a thought

mastersmurfie

[Champion_R]

...The visual quality, I mean.

My specs:

XP Pro
Asus P4P800
Pentium 4/2.60/800 FSB/blah,blah...
1 gig RAM
Seagate 120/8MB
ATI All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro/tuner manufactured by Phillips

When I hook up my digital cable line to my regular TV set, the quality is fine.

Another thing I've noticed: The smaller the window for the TV is minimized, the better the quality. But WTF? Who wants to watch tv on their monitor, that is the size of a business card?

Can you get a tuner card that will process the digital signal in it's raw form?

[Keo]

and video tapes through the composite-forget it...

2 things: agree with what was said about tv hiding alot of the crap from you where a pc shows you all of it. If you have digital cable, expect a huge improvement of course

Tweaking of picture quality is required (either with external software or through your card setup) for video quality.. from color to hue etc.. + tv filters. Can use vdub's tweaking feature and go from there, pretty basic and very nice quality.

My composite works great for captures from vhs or s-vhs, which is what I use 90% of the time, converting movies on tape to avi. The older/crappier the quality of the tape, the more picture tweaking & filtering, but the result is always good. I really don't think it's the wires.

Standard wires that came with the AIW do the job for me, cheap to replace if you lost em. But the k-mart type should do fine.
Really comes down to tweaking again.

As for tv quality, when my tuner USED to work (hehe), i remember the picture was very decent viewed on a pc screen, even better with the tv-out of course.