R15 Picture Observations

[bfkidd]

The image is definitely not as clean as the straight satellite signal from a regular receiver. You can tell that the stream is being saved as an mpeg stream to disk and then re-read. It's not much butter than a cheap video input card for a PC. This is somewhat of a disappointment. I'm sure you folks with DVR's for a while don't notice this but it is very noticeable especially in on screen graphics during sporting events.

Note that it isn't my TV or anything because the Guide and all images generated by the box are crystal clear.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet. The recording, decoding process is certainly not loss-less.

Also, on my standard 4:3 TV, The S-Video output image is just slightly moved over to the left. So when you bring up the info display, the first letter of the day is off the screen to the left. With coax or rca that letter is visible. I only have enough adjustment in the TV to just barely get the letter on the screen with S-Video but it is still annoying.

They are sending me another unit but I have a feeling it might not make a difference.

[raott]

The image is definitely not as clean as the straight satellite signal from a regular receiver. You can tell that the stream is being saved as an mpeg stream to disk and then re-read. It's not much butter than a cheap video input card for a PC. This is somewhat of a disappointment. I'm sure you folks with DVR's for a while don't notice this but it is very noticeable especially in on screen graphics during sporting events.

Note that it isn't my TV or anything because the Guide and all images generated by the box are crystal clear.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet. The recording, decoding process is certainly not loss-less.



The signal that is transmitted by D* is already an MPEG stream, you are not losing anything nor is there any additional compression when it gets saved on the hard drive and then re-read.

[Vermonster]

While there may not be any compression/decompression, the recording does have occasional artifacts, drop-outs, etc. that are not present in the original broadcast. These seem to average 1-2 per recorded hour.

I also have noted the left shift. Please report back the new unit they ship you corrects this problem.


VT

[bfkidd]

New unit, same issue. It is most pronounced with S-video.

As far as overscan goes...

If it were an overscan issue then the right side image would be cut off as well. This is not the case. The image is clearly shifted off the left side of the screen.

I don't have an issue seeing the tickers in any of the espn channels which seem to be the widest of any.