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Old 7th Oct 2006, 3:19 pm   #13
tubesrule
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Michigan USA
Posts: 325
Default Re: FotH TV System / Converters Discussion

Wow! You guys get a six hour head start, and look at all the fun I miss ;-)

Kat,
Going back several posts, you presented a well thought out description of each of the systems. I would have to agree with most everything you said. Each system has it's strengths and weaknesses. The stand-alone converters can produce accurate, high quality signals since they are hardware based, but this is also what makes them less flexible. While it is possible to make many firmware images, it's hardly practical to have users constanty flashing their units just to make it do something different.

The PC solution can, only becuase of the excellent work you have done since many of us didn't think this was even possible, provide a converted output with a lot of flexibility as to the actual output and features provided. This can be a huge factor when having all this functionality in one place is desirable, or the abilty to grow and change. This has always been the software solutions advantage over the hardware solution. With an FPGA, this converter is sort of a cross betweem the two with the "hardware" dictated by the firmware.

My comment about using the PC as a video source is based on what I do, and what a few others have relayed to me. It's really not that different than using a commercial DVR which is really just a stripped down computer/hard drive anyway, so the quality would be the same, potentially better in the PC since you could go all the way to full uncompressed recording!

You made a comment that you don't consider your system a standards converter because you can not effectively take an analog input and convert it do to the limitations of MythTV's lack of synchronization. I'm not familiar with the inner workings of MythTV, but if you were clever enough to coerce the graphics card into output other standards, I'll bet you could get this to work as well ;-) I know some graphics cards do have hooks for determining the vertical sync position, so perhaps this is something you could look into.

Regardless of the differences, all the efforts by all the people working on, providing feedback, and using conveters of all types has increased the interest in old telly's. The more people that realize they can have an old set, and not just have it be a piece of furniture in the corner of the room, but actually have it working, and transport them back to their youth, more sets will be save from the crusher!

Keep up the good work!!
Darryl

Not to go OT, but keep in mind that almost all video source available today started as analog somewhere along the chain, so even digital terrestrial or sattelite had to go through an A/D process. Unless it was shot in HD (even then the CCD had to go through an A/D), or is CGI, it was telecined from film. Surprisingly most eposidic television today is still shot on Super 16mm film and telecined before editing in an NLE!
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