Video Asylum

Posted by JDog on July 12, 2002 at 10:39:40

In Reply to: Video switcher ain't gonna upgrade the signal posted by Dalancroft on July 03, 2002 at 10:44:08:

While the convential wisdom is more separated (Component> S-Vid > Composite) signal from the source is better, this is NOT always true. In the case of VHS, the native format of the tape is composite, so the quality of the S-video conversion chipset in the VCR determines the quality of the S-video output. An external up converter such as the Entech CVSI will turn a composite signal into a better S-video source than the VCR itself. In fact, I have tried Tivo, Replay TV, and various VCRs and found that the CVSI S-video converter was superior in all cases.

The flip side would be the case of DVD where the source material is already component. Using a lower quality composite output and reconverting to component will certainly degrade the signal.

The question here is what quality is the up conversion in the RPTV?

I would recommend simply testing to find out what your percieve as the best solution.

Jason