Quality of Tivo recordings and Amazon Unbox/VOD video quality better than Tivo?

[keltraine]

Hi guys, so I've searched and read every thread on Amazon Unbox (guess I should call it VOD now) and no one's ever mentioned this, which I find interesting/weird:

What I mean is that, I'm consistently impressed and amazed at the high video quality of the Amazon VOD new season tv show downloads (I know they're only SD currently, not HD, but even so they look really good!), and I'm kind of wondering why no one ever mentions that, and was wondering if anyone had any thoughts as to why exactly they look so good. To put it another way, it made me wonder why the stuff I record on my tivo doesn't look as good as these dl'ed ones, and why that was...

Specifically (and a slight tangent first, but I think it relates) this came up b/c I was comparing SD shows recorded on my Tivo S2DT to my Time Warner Motorola DCT3416 HD Cable DVR. Shows like Eureka (they don't have HD SciFi network yet in my area, so it is SD) still looked a lot better on the cable box in SD than on the S2. Fyi, I have cable going directly into the Tivo (so it's analog; no cable box in the way) and the S2 is using s-video vs. component for the Motorola to my Sony WEGA XBR 36" CRT, so I thought it might just be the input difference I was seeing, but now I don't think it is...more on that below.

So then Tivo started advertising the new fall shows available early through Amazon VOD dl, mostly only NBC stuff (which they did last year too). So I dl'ed shows like Journeyman, Chuck and My Own Worst Enemy etc to my S2, and I'm just amazed at the quality of the recording! In fact, the quality is so good it's *almost* as good as watching the same show recorded in HD on my cable box! Ok, before the flames start, it's not AS good, but it's definitely a LOT better than the quality of the analog recordings I currently have on my S2. And to my last point above, these dl'ed Amazon shows are on the same s-video input that the shows recorded from cable didn't look so hot on, so that pretty much eliminates the input method as being an issue, right?

So what's going on here exactly? Is it just a matter of the picture I'm getting from the cable company sucks? Or is it the analog->digital conversion that's happening on the S2 and loss of data? Or is it the encoding mechanism the S2 is using (I believe it's mpeg2 right)? Anyone know what format the Amazon stuff (for tv shows, not movies btw) is in? Hmm, so here's the question: If I got a HD Tivo w/ cable cards that were able to get a digital signal for a SD channel (like the SciFi network) and I compared an episode of a show on my S2 to one recorded on the S3, would the S3 be a lot better? And what exactly would that be due to?

I guess what I'm asking is, is it just a matter of the source, or the conversion, or how the information is being stored that's an issue? Thoughts and discussion on the subject are much appreciated! Cheers.

Keltraine

P.S. Oh, and I know people have been complaining about *movie* quality with Amazon VOD; I've seen plenty of those posts and I can't speak to it too much; but I've dl'ed a couple movies over the pasts two years with the service, and they've all been come through with no issues, and with the same level of quality I've seen with the dl'ed tv shows. I was just surprised that the video quality of the shows was so high...I would record the same episode on the S2 through cable and compare, and there was just no comparison! Hence my post now. Thanks guys.

P.P.S. Oh, and yes, my S2 is on "Best" recording quality! ;P

[mdbundy]

My cable company here broadcasts several channels both in digital and in analog -- the digital channels are typically better (MUCH better) than the analog channels. I might be imagining it, but I think it's even more noticeable now that I have an HD set. So my bet would be that it's simply a matter of analog vs. digitial.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I also think that the powers that be may be purposefully degrading SD content... Even before I switched to HD, I noticed that NFL broadcasts were HORRIBLE to the point of being unwatchable, but when you'd watch the recap on ESPN, it would be pristine.

[mgc2372]

You are right about the picture quality on the amazon downloads.It almost looks HD but it does download in 480i on my series 2 tivo.I'm pretty sure that whatever picture quality you record from broadcast tv doesn't matter,because you are downloading the video direct from the internet.I run my tivo through a motorola cable box using composite cables.I can say that broadcast digital channels look tons better than broadcast analog channels.

[keltraine]

mgc2372: Thanks for the reply! Good to get confirmation that I'm not the only one who thinks that Amazon quality is that good too! And yeah, I figured it dl'ed in 480i too (and I totally agree, yeah, the setting for program recording quality on the Tivo shouldn't matter for that) but it's interesting that 480i quality stuff using s-video (or in your case *composite* even) cables can look that good b/c the original source is a lot better! Wonder if Amazon is just using HD originals to make their dls...

Hmm, I guess it's the same as the guy who said (dwit in the "Will Lifetime Box work in Feb 2009" thread in the Tivo Help Center) that he recorded OTA HD with a digital->analog converter box and displayed it on his series 2 tivo (which doesn't do HD) and used s-video to his HD plasma tv and that it looked even better than SD digital cable on his TivoHD!

So that really goes to the point mdbundy is making: it's about the source since his digital looks way better than his analog. So that brings up the 6 million dollar question: is there any way to get digital broadcasts of analog channels? I'm getting a TivoHD and am going to be annoyed if quality on certain cable channels is lower b/c of that...or are stuck with analog until the cable co gets rid of it for digital? Just wondering...