I'm in the process of building a mythtv box, and have done some searching on this forum on tv-out quality (best cards to get etc). It seems that results for this are variable, so I'm seeking further clarity.

I'm planning to output to an older Sony 25" (59cm) TV, which has a composite input and one s-video input. The s-video input is currently used by my DVD player.

I plan to use a DVB card in the mythtv box. The system is not very high spec, so I'll probably only be using standard definition TV. Ideally, I'd like to replace the DVD player with the mythtv box.

My questions:

1) will s-video output (via, for example, an nVidia GF4 MX420 or FX5200) of the digital TV signal (standard definition) be comparable to direct input from the current analogue composite signal?

2) will s-video output via the mythtv box when playing a DVD be comparable to the output quality of the standalone DVD player (via s-video)?

Or am I likely to be disappointed on one or both counts?

Both depend at least partially on the card, how picky you are, and how much effort you're willing to put into finetuning. With my current setup I'd say that the output quality of recordings (using bob deinterlacing) tends to be pretty close to direct viewing (a little bit less saturated but also with a bit more detail), and the last time I played a DVD (after switch from 800x600 to 640x480) I was pleasantly surprised by how close it was.

You'll have to get a fellow PAL user to comment on their experiences but in theory the results should be similar if you have a good card (this doesn't mean expensive) and your X modes are close to the native resolution for your TV standard. Also worth noting, for most of the content I'm recording/watching color, sharpness, ... are a bigger deal than motion blur as people commonly complain about in sports.

As always YMMV.

So then the next question - what (in your view) is a 'good card'? Are you happy with your FX5200? If so, does brand matter?

Hi,
Over here in the UK I started out with a generic MX440 (taken from an old PC) and I was able to get apicture on my TV screen with no fiddling to the default XF86Config-4 file that deals with resolutions. In fact, that was the only way I could get it to work on the TV period. If I mucked about with the resolutions or tried to make it more regieon specific it wouldn't play ansd X complained that it couldn't find usable resolutions. So for a few months I put up with a reasonable picture and large black bars down the side of my screen. Mind you - I was watching on a 32" widescreen TV (16:9) and the MX440 was outputting a picture in 4:3. With my XFX Nvidia fx5200 card and a bit of fiddling (see the wiki on setting up a 5200) around I was able to get an excellent picture using a modeline I created using generic PAL resolutions for DVB (720x576) through a modeline generator online.
This is my concocted modeline:

I used this site to create mine http://sh.nu/nvidia/gtf.php but this one is good too: [url]http://xtiming.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/xtiming.pl
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To cut to the chase: IMHO the 5200 is a far superior graphics card, which has the advantage of being able to support a greater and more accurate TV resolution, whereas the MX440 doesn't. I also doubt that the brand of the card matters a great deal as long as it doesn't deviate greatly from the Nvidia refrence design. I'd also get a passively cooled one.

I also currently use s-video to connect my Mythbox to the TV and I would say the experience is comparable to my freeview box and my DVD player. It's certainly no worse.
Hope this helps.