Conventional caps on HDTV's. Decent?? Your opinion please.

[EAO]

For those of you who capture/save TV shows and movies and who have HDTV, I'd like to know....

When you play your high bitrate ( For instance I use a Hauppauge PVR-250. 720 x 480 NTSC 7000 bitrate ) conventional captures (From say Dish Network) that you've burned to DVD on an HDTV set... how do they look?

I know they are not as good as a DVD backup. I know this is somewhat subjective. I have seen retail VHS on HDTV = it sucks. Retail DVD = looks fine.

So what should I expect from my captures?

Or am I going to have to recapture everything again when I finally buy a HDTV TV?

[wwjd]

I capture HD stuff as SD(standard definition) with my PVR250. The quality is a little better than capturing a high quality SD show but not much. I have tried bitrates up to 9.2Mb. The aspect ratio is off so the picture from an HD source is actually smaller. The net is that the better the source the better the capture will look.

In order to get true HD captures you need a capture card that captures HD as HD, a card such as My HD130 for example. Or you will need a DVR that caps HD that you can transfer the HD files to your HDD. Then the problem is how to view these HD files on your TV. You will need either an HTPC or something like a Linkplayer to stream the HD stuff to your HD TV. At the moment you can not burn HD stuff to a DVD and view it as HD by popping it into a stand alone DVD player.

So if I understand your post the net is that buying an HD TV will not help with capturing HD stuff as HD stuff, it IS needed to view HD stuff but not to capture it. To record/capture HD you need something that captures HD as HD. Hence, capturing HD stuff with the PVR250 will result in SD stuff that maybe marginally better in quality than a good SD broadcast.

[EAO]

Hence, capturing HD stuff with the PVR250 will result in SD stuff that maybe marginally better in quality than a good SD broadcast.

Sorry I wasn't too clear.

How does theSD stuff look playing on your HDTV?

Is it acceptable or have you experienced enough quality loss that you are not satisfied watching these captures?

[wwjd]

EAO wrote:

Sorry I wasn't too clear.

How does the SD stuff look playing on your HDTV?

Is it acceptable or have you experienced enough quality loss that you are not satisfied watching these captures?

I have a 50" HDTV and for me SD captures look ok provided I do not zoom it and that I do not watch an HD show just before viewing it. Once I zoom, the picture gets grainier. My HDTV is 2 years old and my understanding is that some of the newer HDTVs do a better job of displaying SD material. For example, HP sells a DLP HDTV with Wobulation. Wobulation is a way to upconvert SD so that it looks crisper, more like it would on a small screen set with a good clean clear signal. There are probably other brands that do this as well.

I have a Linkplayer2, which is a network media player, that upconverts the mepg SD files cap'd with my PVR 250, that I then stream to my HDTV. These are files I have saved to my HDD.

You may want to start looking around for HDTVs that upconvert. I have a feeling that this feature will become standard in the not too distant future.

[EAO]

I have a feeling you're right.

My stuff is stored on DVD so I would imagine I could also get an upconverting DVD player.