Well, just a few minutes ago I actually got my mythTV system all setup and running. Video (and TV out), Sound, channel changing using a DirecTV reciever. Quite a long process. Now on to the tweaking period. My first quasi-problem was video quality on live tv. Looking back and fourth between the signal going directly to the TV and what the mythTV box is displaying on the screen the video comming from the mythTV box looks more grainy and low quality then the video going directly to the TV. Is this normal, or is there some kind of a fix / update / filter I could use to get the two signals identical, or at least close?

I am using a Hauppauge PVR 500, 768 Mb Ram, 2.4 Ghz celeron processor, Biostar P4VTB motherboard, and a 250 Gig IDE hard drive. Any ideas?

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Nerd is not a four-letter word. It's a six-figure income.

Depends on your capture settings amoung other things. The recordings from my PVR-250 look pretty good, and there's no real reason thet the PVR-150 and PVR-500 shouldn't be just as good... Also certain bleeding edge versions of the IVTV drivers had some screwiness in this area.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like a drastic difference in video quality, but it is noticible. For example, when watching the scifi channel, you see their logo in the bottom right corner. When looking at it going directly to the tv, the edges are perfectly sharp. Now, when looking at the same signal and logo going through the mythTV box, the edges are a bit fuzzy. Nothing I can't deal with if that's just the way it is going to be, just trying to see if there is anything I could do to get the two pictures to look identical.

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Nerd is not a four-letter word. It's a six-figure income.

How is your DirecTV receiver connected to your PVR500? Hopefully via S-video (best quality connection), hopefully NOT via coax cable with the PVR500 tuned to Channel 3 (worst quality connection).

You might also try the denoise3d filter (you set it in the Playback preferences, in the first screen).

Were you ever able to resolve this problem?

I just bought a 500 because one of my 250 went bad. I have everything working, but I would agree that there is a noticeable image quality difference between the 500 and the 250's. There is also a flicker every now and again with the 500 that is not there with the 250's. All using RF cable input from an amplified distributer.