ATI AIW Radeon: Fuzzy video

[whoha]

Brand new card. Graphics clear, but video seems very low res. For instance, TV from ATI tuner, as fed to my TV thru S-video input, looks about like VHS tape. DVD from computer & thru ATI & S-video looks about like regular network live broadcast. I expected no worse, or very little difference, than my TV's tuner & dedicated DVD. Pix on monitor not so sharp, either.

Do I have a bad card? When I first saw TV, I immediately thought tuner is bad. Then DVD play was weak also. Could this possibly be caused by software...drivers? Anyone had similar experience? Or is your video as sharp as you expected?

Appreciate comments either way.. Thanks



Cheers!

 

[Kodiak]

I have ATI AIW Radeon with 19" Samsung monitor.
DVD is absolute perfection -- clear, sharp, colorful.
TV depends on input and size -- it's about the same as my previoios ATI TV-Wonder, I suppose, maybe a bit better when full-screen.

I don't see how the drivers can affect the issue, but I suppose its always possible...

>> TV from ATI tuner, as fed to my TV thru S-video input

I don't get this... you go from cable, through AIW, through computer, then *watch it on TV again* ? I fail to see the purpose, maybe I misunderstand what you're doing there...

TV/DVD quality on the actual TV isn't gonna be that much greater than regular TV broadcast on most TVs -- the regular broadcast is made to take advantage of ordinary TVs to maximum -- i.e. it looks pretty much as good as it gets... DVD on monitor should look perfect, but on TV -- it depends on TV...

at this point I can't tell whether you actually have a problem, or if you just had unrealistic expectations

 

[whoha]

I appreciate your response, kodiak, and I see how my method of TV watching seems confusing! It's just a "test setup." One of the big selling points of the R-AIW for me was that it could impersonate a TIVO. Before purchase,I suspected that it's failing, compared to an actual TIVO machine, might be that the playback video quality would be inferior to the video going in. Surprise! I don't see much difference. The problem is that the quality going in is so inferior that a faithful reproduction of it isn't worth much.

That's why I have the output from the R-AIW tuner being fed to my TV through the S-video input, etc. Not to watch TV, but to compare the video quality of a cable program as seen through the R-AIW tuner/card to that going directly into the TV set. Live - or recorded - when fed through the AIW they both look about like VHS tape, which looks terrrible in my opinion. I had expected to see little difference (between cable-into-TV-set and cable-into R-AIW).

With no quality increase over VHS tape, there doesn't seem much point in using a more cumbersome recording technique. I suspect there's a problem with my card, though. On to ATI tech support, etc. Thanks again, and I would appreciate any further thoughts you have on this

Cheers!

 

[Guest]

>> One of the big selling points of the R-AIW for me was that it could impersonate a TIVO. Before purchase,I suspected that it's failing, compared to an actual TIVO machine

You were expecting TIVO... so you buy an AIW???

>> That's why I have the output from the R-AIW tuner being fed to my TV through the S-video input, etc. Not to watch TV, but to compare the video quality of a cable program as seen through the R-AIW tuner/card to that going directly into the TV set.

To get a good test of Cable > AIW... use the ATI TV tuner to watch TV on monitor!!