TiVo Community Forums Archives - Awful quality of Live TV

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Awful quality of Live TV
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Posted by: Yodeling

I just got Tivo and I must say I'm very disapointed with it. I was expecting to get lower picture quality on recorded shows, but what I was not expecting is that live TV quality would be decresed as well.

It seems that the unit is compressing the live feed before sending it to my TV. I've compared live cable feed with "live" tivo feed side by side (with PIP). The tivo unit is introducing lots of compression artifacts.

I have digital cable and a large widescreen and this is totally unecceptable. I would like to use Tivo to record shows without compromising my live feed. Is there a way to do this?

Posted by: JimSpence

How do you have the TiVo connected to the TV? Hopefully not with the RF connection.:) And, how is the cable box connected to the TiVo?

Posted by: Yodeling

Cable Box -> Composite -> Tivo -> Composite -> TV

Versus Normally:

Cable Box -> Composite -> TV

Posted by: Robert S

Stand alone TiVoes take an analog input signal and convert it to MPEG-2 for storage on the hard drive. This process is not lossless. The buffer is recorded at the TiVo's top data rate ('Best'). My experience is that there's already so much artefacting on digital cable that anything added by the TiVo on Best or even High can't be complained about.

It sounds like you have things cabled so that you can switch the TV between the TiVo and a direct connection to the STB. In that case, there's nothing stopping you watching the direct connection for live TV and using the TiVo only when you want to use its buffering or recording capabilities (if you leave the TiVo tuned to a cable channel, it'll buffer even if you're not watching its output).

Posted by: ccwf

S-Video from the TiVo to the TV will result in better quality than composite. (Doesn't affect the presence of digital artifacts—just gives you better picture quality.)

S-Video from the cable box to the TiVo will result in better quality than composite except for a few bad cable boxes. Changing this connector might reduce the artifacts slightly.

Make sure your TV is properly calibrated. Most TVs ship with the picture set to be way too sharp, so much so that ringing can be visible. Excessive sharpness will accentuate digital artifacts. So will improper contrast and brightness settings.

Posted by: Yodeling

You all have good points, however they don't help me much. My TV is well calibrated, and my digital cable picture is actually very good quality. I might try S-Video, though I doubt it will improve the picture much since it's caused by compression rather than my connections.

From your replies, it seems that you cannot bypass the tivo compression without having to bypass your cable box as well (my cable box has chanel labels and menus that I frankly cannot live without).

If Tivo had its own tuner, I could run it through a splitter and have tivo on one input and cable box on another. This would be my dream setup. Is there a way to achieve this type of setup? I'm willing to buy additional equipment.

Posted by: ccwf

TiVo has its own tuner, which you can use for unscrambled, analog channels up to 99.

Posted by: Yodeling

Thanks CCWF! I didn't know that. This setup will work for me!