[Skram0]

If I could hijack this thread for a second, but staying on topic.
How does the AM21 & HR24 technically work?

One of my locals transmits in 1080i. When I tune my plasma TV to the channel using an antenna, it looks great. But I do see some sort of (bad or lacking deinterlacing?) because the scrolling news text at the bottom of the screen has jaggie lines when it moves. I know it's an issue to view interlaced material on a non-interlaced screen.

When I tune to the channel through DirecTV the quality does look worse, slight compression and color bleed on news graphics, but the text at the bottom scrolls smoothly, even though my HR24 and TV are both in 1080i mode.

Questions:
1) Does the AM21 tune in and output the exact quality as any other OTA tuner?

2) If I were to use an HR24 to record an AM21 local channel, does the HR24 record the exact AM21 OTA output? Or is it a slightly compressed recording?

3) Playing back a recorded AM21 1080i channel, will the HR24 output the same quality just as if it's being watched live through the TV using an OTA antenna, jaggies and all?

TIA if anyone could shed some light on the technical functionality of an AM21 to HR24 to TV.

 

[Skram0]

Depending on the settings you have for the picture output on your HR24, the AM21 should look identical to your tv's OTA picture.

The AM21 sends the signal to your HR24, whereas the local you get through D* might be being converted to MPEG4 and that may be where you are noticing the differences. I can assure you though that the HR24 is recording exactly what the AM21 sends it...

Cool, thank you for the confirmation. It's hard to find this kind of information. All you can do is guess and hope what it's actually doing in the background. Because I do record some shows from Fox, CBS, etc., and I do want the best viewing quality possible. So I am thinking about this upgrade with either of the below indoor/outdoor antennas from Monoprice.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?p_id=7976
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?p_id=4730

But I suppose there are drawbacks. If it's recording exactly what's being broadcast OTA, then I'm sure it'll use more hard drive space. If it does or does not it shouldn't bother me as I keep my recordings slimmed down anyway.