EyeTV Hybrid pixelation with Shaw TV

[benfyshe]

I have had some difficulty getting "digital quality". It is very pixelated.

My TV provider is Shaw and I have a digital terminal- DCT700

My computer is a 24" iMac 3.06 GHz 2GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

When I connect my cable from the wall into the digital terminal and then a regular TV, the quality is digital. However, when I connect to the USB eyeTV hybrid device, the quality is like looking through a kaleidoscope...VERY frustrating. I have followed all suggestions from the Elgato website without any positive results.

The problem may be the fact that the digital terminal video output goes to channel 4 and this registers as an "analogue" channel in the eyeTV program. Do I need to somehow change the output to a digital channel? I cannot find any way of doing this.

ANY help is much appreciated. Sorry if I left out important information. I will be checking this thread quite frequently because if I cannot resolve this issue, I'm returning the damn thing.

Thank you.

[adiabatic]

The DCT700 can not output a digital signal... it has two analog outputs (RF modulated and composite). What is sounds like you've done (because you're mentioning Channel 4) is connect the analog RF modulated output to your capture device.

The eyeTV hybrid only accepts a digital signal as clear (unencrypted) QAM which is not offered by Shaw (other than a few random channels in some markets*) or via an antenna. If you're thinking you can use the DCT700 as a decoder that will pass a digital signal to the capture device you're incorrect. You will be able to view your DCT700's digital channels, of course, but they're coming out of the box as an analog signal.

The only way I know of to get a Shaw digital signal into a capture device is via the firewire outputs on the HDTV boxes.

How you are connecting the devices should give a usable picture though. I can't really troubleshoot from here why it looks so poor. Note that of the options you have to connect the DCT700 to the eyeTV hybrid the composite video (yellow jack) will give better picture quality (unless Shaw has s-video then that's the best choice).

*there may be some digital channels that Shaw provides that are viewable with a 3rd party digital tuner but it's certainly not many (because the cable box is needed to authorize any channels that the user pays for i.e., Tier 3).

[benfyshe]

Thank you for that detailed response...I was fearing something along those lines.

I don't get why the advertise it as digital though. It's even called a digital terminal.

I've tried using the cable out and video out...both produce the same pixelated video, which is unaffected by any configuration within the software preferences...I've wasted my money essentially.

What makes no sense is I went through a troubleshoot with Elgato's (the maker of EyeTV Hybrid) staff and they told me to return it after we exhausted many different options. I even sent them a link that describes my digital terminal. Odd they didn't use the same explanation you provided.

Thanks again. I guess I'll see if I can return it for a refund.

[tkyoshi]

Originally Posted by benfyshe

Thank you for that detailed response...I was fearing something along those lines.

I don't get why the advertise it as digital though. It's even called a digital terminal.

I've tried using the cable out and video out...both produce the same pixelated video, which is unaffected by any configuration within the software preferences...I've wasted my money essentially.

What makes no sense is I went through a troubleshoot with Elgato's (the maker of EyeTV Hybrid) staff and they told me to return it after we exhausted many different options. I even sent them a link that describes my digital terminal. Odd they didn't use the same explanation you provided.

Thanks again. I guess I'll see if I can return it for a refund.

It is correct, the cable box receives it's signal digitally, that is what Digital Cable refers to. The problem is Computers are high resolution devices. SD is not high resolution (i.e. HD) so naturally it will look like poop on the computer. There are devices like ATi's TV Wonder 600 series that do a pretty good job of filtering/smoothing and sharpening an SD input signal.

It might be a problem with the way the EyeTV device scales the input signal.

The Digital Terminal takes the Digital Signal which is 1's and 0's and converts it to Analog so your TV can display it. That is the function of the terminal as TV's are not able to decode the signal on their own (there are access control reasons but we won't touch on that here). An example is if you plugged your TV into the cable outlet you should be able to get up to Channel 60 because Shaw still transmits Analog TV, however anything above 60 is strictly Digital and your TV will not be able to view those channels without the Digital Terminal which will receive and decode the signal and output it into an analog signal which your TV can understand.

adiabatic is talking about the EyeTV's ability to receive a pure digital signal, however it can only receive unencrypted channels. So only channels that are wide in the open, as Shaw's business is providing TV they obviously do not leave their channels unencrypted or else anyone with a Digital Tuner could view programming without paying for it. Again, basically the box recieves a digital signal, and decodes it so you can view the channels you subscribed to. The Digital technology is just how the box receives it's programming, digital provides a more consistant signal and is more efficient than analog tv which is why they will eventually shut off analog.

[adiabatic]

Originally Posted by tkyoshi

It might be a problem with the way the EyeTV device scales the input signal.

Yeah, there is more than one factor at play here because the OP should get something useable (but still not digitally perfect).

Before buying a DCT-3416 for its PVR abilities I used to capture the s-video output of a DCT-24(something) with a Hauppauge PVR-250 capture card. The results were pretty good. Some of those captures are still (ahem) available on the internet.

[benfyshe]

Thanks guys....I'll just return it.