[pvrusb2] HVR-1950 compared to TV Convertor Box

[Roger]

Just a brief note concerning the quality of the HVR-1950/mplayer compared to 
the analog TV convertor boxes.  (Two Channel Masters here).

Using the TV convertor box and watching the 700club on TNB (Ch 4) here, I get 
what looks like signal drop-outs while watching.  (I've got a good antenna up 
20-30' and within 10 miles of the transmitter, but the antenna might be 
off-aimed by a mm or two for Ch 4.  Too much signal strength isn't an issue on 
this channel.)

But, recording using the HVR-1950 and then playing back using mplayer I see no 
stuttering or visible signs of video degradation which would equate to a 
significant signal loss.  However, the mplayer stdout does note some stream 
packet errors.

My conclusion, the TV convertor box doesn't fair well with playing corrupt MPEG 
packets (signal loss) on playback.  Supposedly the FCC has guidelines on the 
supposedly discounted convertor box's playback quality when packets are lost, 
and am unsure if my TV boxes are up-to-snuff on the guidelines.  (I don't think 
many of the boxes were even up-to-snuff.)

Anyways, just posting some FYI, and another very likely benefit of owning a 
computer tuner versus LCD TV or LCD TV based recorder.  I've seen some rumors 
on the WWW with LCD DTV tuner problems as well.  Since LCD TV's are not cheap, 
you'd expect to not have these trivial problems.

-- 
Roger
http://rogerx.freeshell.org/