HDTV downsampling or converting?

[Nelson37]

What sorts of devices will accept an HDTV signal and output as S-video, or composite? I am assuming such a converted signal would be of higher quality than Standard Digital Cable.

One poster had a cable box which did this, and he noted the S-video output, while not as good as HDTV, was certainly better than non-HDTV channels. I also wonder if these are using a different source video or are simply broadcast at a higher quality level. What I mean here is whether the S-video was in fact downconverted HDTV or a higher-than-normal quality film broadcast concurrently with the HDTV.

HDTV is a free upgrade on Time-Warner Cable, but neither my TV no ATI card will accept it.

[Ste]

Maybe this could help:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=744375

[Nelson37]

Thanks, sorry I missed your earlier reply. Am surprised there don't seem to be many people interested in this topic, seems a natural.

Anyway, local Time Warner tech says definitely no S-Video output for HD channels, this one knew what a SPDIF was and the difference between Dolby 2.0 and 5.1, so he may be right. No real downside, though, other than rearranging some wires, moving the PC, and wasting an afternoon waiting on the cable guy.

Think I'll go for it soon, it's a free upgrade. Will report back when I have some results. Would also like to hear from anyone already capturing such a signal, problems, techniques, etc.

[Nelson37]

Some updates here.

As usual, the Time-Warner tech was clueless. Just watched an HDTV channel connected to HD display thru S-Video. Looks excellent. Same channel broadcast concurrently on Analog channel, connected thru Coax.

We were able to switch between Analog-SD-Coax, and Digital-HD-SVideo and finally Digital-HD-Component.

Obviously the true HD thru Component was the best. (viewed on a 50" TV). I was more interested in the HD thru SVideo, as I have the equipment to capture that. PQ was much better than the Analog, and seemed significantly sharper than other Digital but non-HD channels. The same program was not on a Digital but non-HD channel. The PQ difference seemed to be much more than the Analog-Coax to Digital-Svideo improvement I have already seen and captured.

Took some doing, but I finally convinced Time-Warner to install the HD box even though I do not own an HD tv. Will advise, also anyone else doing this?

[Perro Grande]

I, too, have Time Warner and can confirm that the HD box *DOES* produce a composite/svideo output of the HD channels down-converted to standard video.

I have found the quality of this output somewhat lacking. I could best describe it as dark and contrasty, relative to the same content broadcast in non-HD mode.

I used my DVD recorder to record some of the programs via this method and, although watchable, the quality was as described above. I have made no further attempts to tweak or tune the process for better quality.

[ktnwin]

Well, to capture HDTV off the air, you need an HDTV tuner box (around 300$ at Circuit City). You need an antenna (UHF) that is strong enough, connect it to the antenna input of the HDTV tuner, and then from HDTV tuner to TV, you can use either S-video or component video (or composite video but this defeats the purpose of HDTV).
Of course, the S-video can be connectect to a capture devide (capture card, VCR, DVD recorder, etc..)
Not all HDTV programs are true HDTV resolution, some of them are analog resolution converted to HDTV resolution so don't expect much from the later.

[phuocle]

Funny that I saw this today. I'm with Cox Cable and they have the same thing with their HD box and last night I did some tests even before reading this thread here today.

Here's what I did and my results:

1. Took the S-VHS output from my HD box and connected to my Pyro A/V link.
2. Connected the composite audio to the Pyro.
3. Tuned to an HD station (PBS HD in my test) and captured as DV (that's what the Pyro outputs it at).
4. Encoded the resulting AVI as an MPEG2 using Canopus ProCoder 1.5.
5. Authored with DVDLab-Pro beta 4.
6. Burned with Nero.

Results: Looks really good, although you see the black bars from the letterboxing. This is done by the HD box as it downsample the HD signal. The sound is excellent, even though it's now stereo - but much much better than stereo from the non HD channels on regular digital cable.

The next thing I did was to take the original captured AVI in Adobe Premiere Pro, cropped the video and expand it to fill a 16x9 screen. Re-encode this new AVI with Canopus ProCoder 1.5 and burned to DVD.

This looks worse than just watching the letterboxed version. Sigh. I had high hopes too, since my TV is a 16:9 monitor. Since the Pyro had component input too, I tried connecting the HD component to it and see if it would at least convert it to DV. No go, although the box did detect it as a digital input but said there was no signal. My preview monitor showed some weird video signal. I didn't have much time to play around with it, but I'll keep playing around with it tonight and will report back.

[unclebud]

I've been using a TW HD box for 5 months and capturing with a Pinnacle AVDV card (4:3). The HD content looks squished in 4:3 but plays back fine on my HD TV. No black bars unless it is in the original playback over the cable. Looks better (on HD set) then the digital cable (4:3) I also record from.
UB