Alcorn McBride Knowledge Base

As with any digital video system, the output quality depends on the source material, bitrate, output hardware, and display. The following list describes the most common reasons for unacceptable output quality on the DVM/HD: 1. Source material must be of high resolution and low compression. Common HD tape formats such as D5 and HD-CAM work great, but lower resolution sources (such as Betacam, DVC-PRO, etc.) translate to poor HD quality. 2. While 'broadcast' HDTV is transmitted at 19.39 Mb/s, there is a dramatic perceived increase in color accuracy and decrease in motion artifacts when the output bitrate is set higher than 30 Mb/s. For the best output quality on the DVM/HD, always encode at the rated maximum, 50 Mb/s. 3. The video output circuitry on the DVM/HD is superb and very accurately represents the decoded digital signal; however, an analog video signal is only as good as the cable that carries it to the monitor. Make sure that your video cable has a very high frequency cutoff. If possible, measure the bandwidth of your installed cable to ensure that you are passing the best signal possible, with minimum distortion. 4. While digital projectors are extremely popular due to their high brightness and remarkable consistency, most current projectors must 'reformat' an input image for display. Poor output quality from a projector is the most common problem with HD display. Try adjusting the settings on your projector, or changing the input colorspace.