Standard Definition TV Looks Better Through the Xbox 360

[Jason Dunn]

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but there's something very interesting that happens when an Xbox 360 plays back standard definition video off a Windows Media Center computer. Locally on the computer it's recorded on, the files are in MPEG2 format. When the Xbox 360 is acting as an extender, I believe the Media Center computer does on-the-fly transcoding to send the video to the Xbox 360 - and I think the compression is WMV or something close to it. It's either the video format, or the scaling that the Xbox 360 is doing, but for standard definition TV, it looks good. I'm just guessing here so someone please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of the details.

Regardless of what it is, the quality of standard definition TV shows viewed through my Xbox 360 is much higher than when I look at the same TV shows on my Motorola PVR. The difference is actually shocking - the Motorola PVR videos look quite bad. It's so bad, in fact, that our Motorola PVR is purely used for high-definition TV recording now, and all standard definition shows are recorded on the Media Center. I'm looking forward to the day when I can use a cable card in my Media Center - and ditch the Motorola PVR completely (it's a piece of junk) - but until that day comes, my standard definition has never looked so good.

[rzanology]

the hardware scaling is crazy on the 360. when im using my 360 as a media center extender, the live tv looks hell of a lot better than just watching tv itself. I've noticed this the a few months back. i often use my 360 to watch the non-high def channels.

[Felix Torres]

I noticed the same thing last week with the downloadable SD content.
To date I've pretty much limited to my movie rentals to HD content but the Aquaman pilot (quite good; CW goofed not picking up the series) looked extremely good. Better than a lot of cable-delivered HD.
I don't expect *all* SD d/l's to look that good (the Silverman freebie didn't) but I'll have to check out other stuff.
Not sure why its doing this but I'n fairly certain its the ANA video scaler in the 360 that is doing it. I've been archiving HD content from my cable box to DVD with my newish DVD recorder and the results I'm getting when played back through 360 are really really good.

You give that l'il white box a decent datastream and it'll give you a really good 1080p output, no question about it.

If Apple does even half as good a job upscaling their H.264 files, Apple TV might have a chance to last out the year. Big if, I know...

[Tim Williamson]

Good to hear recorded TV looks good on standard definition TV's, this has been my plan for a while now.

[Felix Torres]

Good to hear recorded TV looks good on standard definition TV's, this has been my plan for a while now.

Not just on standard definition TVs.
It looks very good all the way up to 1080p.
That's a *lot* of upscaling.

[Jason Dunn]

Good to hear recorded TV looks good on standard definition TV's, this has been my plan for a while now.

Standard definition TV? I don't have one of those, so I couldn't say - I'm sure it does - but my article was about how standard definition TV looked on my HDTV. Guess I should have explained that a bit better. ;-)

[Tim Williamson]

Oh haha, I get it now. :lol:

[bryhawks]

And so WHEN exactly will we be able to record HD through MCE (from cable or satellite) in Canada? Don't know if I have OTA HD but that's not really the point, unless I can get most/all the channels OTA. Is it a matter of Shaw & Bell not supporting CableCard and that's it? Is there any prospect in the near (~1yr) future?

[Jason Dunn]

And so WHEN exactly will we be able to record HD through MCE (from cable or satellite) in Canada? Don't know if I have OTA HD but that's not really the point, unless I can get most/all the channels OTA. Is it a matter of Shaw & Bell not supporting CableCard and that's it? Is there any prospect in the near (~1yr) future?

To tackle your questions in order:

1) Probably not for quite some time. You know how slow things are up here.

2) OTA HD is only available in Canada, from what I understand, in select markets in the Vancouver area. There's something about returning to the era of rabbit ear antennae that I find profoundly disturbing.

3) Yes, it's a matter of Shaw & Bell supporting CableCard - they need to offer it before we can use the hardware. And they might not until we see more TVs on the market in Canada with cablecard support.

All in all, it's ugly for us Canucks. :?