Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

If I try to set the Tivo to 720p it crashes the box when it tests the setting!

Would agree the 90% as good as view versus SA V+, TV (Sony KDL40HX803)tweaks done just cannot get it to be as good (it is better now, was 80% before).

The strange thing still is that the difference between SD and HD is not as much, in so far HD is not as crystal clear as before so seems closer to the "smoothed" SD picture! The SA V+ seemed to show a big difference on my TV except BBC1 in particular whose SD picture seemed to be so well upscaled on the V+ that it looked virtually HD to me (not the case now).

Points to the upscaler hardware in the Tivo just not generating as good a quality feed into you TV.

May be down to firmware implementation since Tivo had to port their software over to the new Cisco box, still think VM should take this as a real issue and investigate.

Anybody from VM here able to feed this back as we are not talking of just a few people here so I think this is worthy of investigation?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I don't think BBC Breakfast is in HD anyway

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

All in all TiVo sounds a right catch

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Snooker should look great, strong colours and fixed camera angle + extremley little mpeg compression. It probably won't be using anywhere near its mux capacity.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

This was posted by a VM staff member on the TiVo Help & Support Forum. I'm no technical wizard, but I assume this forced SD output of 720p is why a lot of people are saying the TiVo PQ for SD broadcasts is "soft" compared to the V+.

Let's hope the development team do extend the output options so users can choose how they want the box to output SD. This is how it should have been set up from the start. A state of the art STB like this should have multiple options that allows the customer to choose something that matches their own preference, not have VM dictate what they think is best for people's TV!

"All I can say is that we've made the decision to upscale where the user has accepted multiple resolution settings including any that are higher than the native output. We have also prioritised 720p output over 1080i for SD channels when it is selected. We don't use 720p over 1080i on HD channels when both are selected because the native output of the HD channel is 1080i, and the two resoultions are generally considered about equal. I don't know why we choose 720p over 1080i for SD channels. I personally (my opinion) prefer 720p to 1080i, and perhaps they chose it because there are fewer pixels to upscale with 720p and TiVo does a better
job with progressive scan (this is just postulation).

While I understand that this may not be the best way of doing things for users whose other devices may do a better job of upscaling content, it will provide the best picture for the average household with an HDTV. As I'm sure you know, if you want to be sure that you get the native output you simply choose only the native video resolution of the channel that you are watching. I will have a word with some of the development team to see whether there is a possibility of expanding the these settings to give the users like yourself more control over video output. "

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

The SA V+ upscaled all SD to 720P/1080i when in HD mode anyway, so I can't see that would make a difference. Presumably people are asking for the option to output SD native and let other devices upscale. I've had a bit of a play with my TV settings, and have got things looking a bit better now. SD still not on a par with the SA V+ for me though.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I have a Panasonic 32" and have to say that I can see no difference between my old SA V+ box and the new Tivo in either SD or HD, the picture is not soft in any way and is as sharp as it has always been.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Thanks for highlighting this, so there may well be an underlying reason why Tivo does not perform as well as a V+ in some cases. I have posted on that forum and have asked Nick to provide feedback from the development team.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

So if I uncheck 720p and just put in 1080i I can get my v+ pic back?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Should do - my output is 1080i on the TiVo.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Probably not.

What you select will be dependent on what the native resolution of your TV is.

If your TVs 1080, then selecting 720 is wrong anyway. You're scaling twice; 576 to 720 in the Tivo and then your TV is scaling 720 to 1080. The fewer times you scale a picture, the better.

It seems that the upscaler chip in the Tivo is not as good as the one in the SA V+, because people who ran the V+ and Tivo at 1080, are getting a worse SD picture on Tivo.

This is strange, because Cisco own SA, so why not stick with a proven scaler chip?

I do find it softer, but I've found that I've got used to it over the last few days, so it's not a massive drawback, but very dissapointing given the excellent SD picture from the SA V+.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Completely false. Your box/tv/setup must have had issues. The SA box being better than Samsung is a myth for picture quality.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

That's opinion not fact

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

The answer I do not know is what did the V+ upscale to for SD channels. Did it upscale (as best as possible) an SD feed to 1080i to the TV or just supply native and let the TV do the upscaling, while Tivo on SD channels (see NickO post on forum) is upscaling to 720p only and then your TV is upscaling again to 1080i as with my TV?

Can anybody post what they believed the V+ did in upscaling SD channels.

I will see what happens on the VM support forum where this issue is at least being fed back to the development team, need the option for Tivo to upscale to 1080i or just provide native feed for the TV to do the upscale to 1080i.

I am also starting to see posts of people cancelling their Tivos and gouing back to V+ becuase of this pictyure issue. VM better watch themselves on this especially if it gets into the press. I could also see Sky taking advantage, if you've been to one of their booths, you may have seen that SD versus HD picture compare demonstration, I could see Sky showing the same for Sky+ and Tivo (as seen by some customers), oops!

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

To be honest I haven't seen any reports of anyone handing TIVO back , apart from one bloke on TIVO community when it first launched.