Disk upgrade & Better Picture

1417 Views 13 Replies 9 Participants Last post by Pugwash, Oct 22, 2007

Telmi

Discussion Starter · Oct 17, 2007

Hi - can anyone tell me if it is possible to improve the Tivo picture definition by changing the disc drives. I did a drive upgrade (2 drives installed) a couple of years ago but now have lcd tv and have seen ebay advert mentioning disc upgrade with Mode "0" drive to upgrade picture too.
Can anyone explain advantages and details plse ?

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Raisltin Majere

· #2 · Oct 17, 2007

You don't need new drive(s) you can do it with your existing drives (unless you need new drives if you see what I mean)

This thread came about after I set mode 0 up on mine, but the title sounds promising

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=286938&highlight=mode+0

Mode 0 does offer a better picture quality, I don't have LCD/Plasma but the difference is certainly noticeable on my CRT.

I think the main con is that you can get white flashes at the bottom of the screen - these don't bother me, in fact I rarely notice them.

I *think* using VBR you can actually gain some disc space, but I'm not bright enough to understand that bit

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RWILTS

· #3 · Oct 17, 2007

Hello,

simply put mode 0 uses a different bit rate to process the signal and can give a better quality picture on HD tv's.

Have a look at Blindlemons web site Tivoheaven it has some good explinations as to what it means and also where you can purchase such a drive!

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Telmi

Discussion Starter · #4 · Oct 17, 2007

Hey, that was quick from you both, thanks for your replies .......

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blindlemon

· #5 · Oct 17, 2007

RWILTS said:
Have a look at Blindlemons web site Tivoheaven it has some good explinations as to what it means and also where you can purchase such a drive!

Thanks for the plug

I haven't updated the info on the site for a while, but with the advent of HD resolutuon LCD TVs I guess I really should. Unfortunately, LCD TVs, because they are fixed pixel displays, need to scale the picture to fit - and this leads to the blocking and smearing that you see with some SD sources, especially TiVo.

However, Mode 0 increases the TiVo's resolution to 720x576 which is the same as a SD DVD, and as the scaler software in the TVs has normally been optimised to give good results with SD DVDs, the same applies to Mode 0 from a TiVo :up:

You can see the difference - a dramatic reduction in blocking and smearing - even on small LCD panels.

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...coolstream

· #6 · Oct 17, 2007

blindlemon said:
Unfortunately, LCD TVs, because they are fixed pixel displays, need to scale the picture to fit - and this leads to the blocking and smearing that you see with some SD sources, especially TiVo.

Does the same problem occur with plasma displays?

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blindlemon

· #7 · Oct 18, 2007

No - plasmas are not fixed pixel devices in the same way as LCDS.

I'm sure somebody cleverer than me can explain the difference in more detail

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...coolstream

· #8 · Oct 18, 2007

Thanks for the quick response. I was sure that it wasn't the case with plasmas and your response has satisfied my curiousity.

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Nebulous

· #9 · Oct 18, 2007

blindlemon said:
No - plasmas are not fixed pixel devices in the same way as LCDS.

Erm.. Actually they are fixed pixel devices, exactly the same as LCDs. Everything else about the way they work is different though.

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blindlemon

· #10 · Oct 18, 2007

That's what I meant by 'in the same way' - the pixels are fixed (like LCDs) but the way they are mapped/addressed is different.

For instance, on my Viera I can go into the service menu and alter the 'overscan' - not something you can do on an LCD

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...coolstream

· #11 · Oct 20, 2007

Playback of a mode0 file streamed from my tivo is not a problem on my 4:3 LCD monitors, but when played back direct from tivo through LCD TV, blockiness is visible. Pausing the picture shows marked noise especially if there are screen captions. Yet if I take the tivo file and convert it to mpeg and play it back on TV, the picture becomes sharp.

I appreciate that in the transcoding to a progressive file, the output would become sharpened, but without laying blame on tivo, it has to be due to the way the picture is output to the TV. (Would an upscaler make the situation better or worse in this scenario?)

One thing I wonder is if it would be possible to configure mode0 to make allowances for output to LCD TV? If it were possible, I wouldn't use it because it would be bound to interfere with the quality of the picture in non-playing scenarios (e.g. video conversion).

I am still curious though if a LCDTV-oriented mode0 would be of benefit for those that simply record and watch.

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Ian_m

· #12 · Oct 22, 2007

...coolstream said:
(Would an upscaler make the situation better or worse in this scenario?)

Yes, why do you think there is an increasing market for Lumagen/Pixel Magic scalers at £800 a go ?

Guy down the road was so disappointed with his £2.5K Sony 46" LCD on standard def pictures he bought a £800 Pixel Magic scaler and the difference is astounding (I have only briefly viewed it but the difference between SD scaled in panel and SD scaled by scaler is quite astounding, though is it worth £800 ???). Still mighty peeved off that the Sony shop was displaying SD pictures through a scaler, though !!

If I ever move from 32" CRT, I will certainly look into scalers....

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cyril

· #13 · Oct 22, 2007

Ian_m said:
Yes, why do you think there is an increasing market for Lumagen/Pixel Magic scalers at £800 a go ?

Guy down the road was so disappointed with his £2.5K Sony 46" LCD on standard def pictures he bought a £800 Pixel Magic scaler and the difference is astounding (I have only briefly viewed it but the difference between SD scaled in panel and SD scaled by scaler is quite astounding, though is it worth £800 ???). Still mighty peeved off that the Sony shop was displaying SD pictures through a scaler, though !!

He should have bought a Fujitsu 58 series! The processing on a Fujitsu is top class. You can further improve the proccessing by adding a scaler later as well .
The next best screen is probably the Pioneer 8G series if you don't count the super expensive Runco,Vidikron and B&O panels.

Click to expand...

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Pugwash

· #14 · Oct 22, 2007

Raisltin Majere said:
I *think* using VBR you can actually gain some disc space, but I'm not bright enough to understand that bit

Variable Bit Rate increases the amount of storage used for those frames that need them (high details/movement) and vastly decreases it for similar and slow moving frames. When encoding video you'd usually use a two-pass system to get it really good, TiVo will guess the best rate as it goes along and probably does a half decent job of it.

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