HD resolution for recording

[Beckler]

Tried searching but didn't find anything about this.

Using WatchHDTV, it shows the current resolution as 1920x1088. But when I record, the video size is only 704x480. Same thing happens when I tried MMC. How do I record in full resolution? Thanks.

[Crisler]

I would love to hear the answer to this as well. I have a friend that just got a mediacenter PC and he wants to record and playback HD. How do I set him up?

[grog]

WatchHDTV and MCE2005 "Media Center" both use 704x480 for recording of all HD content.

Good news is MMC can maintain the full resolution.
This is one case where MMC does have an advantage over both WatchHDTV and MCE2005 "Media Center".

Just set MMC PVR to record in native.
After recording use the ATI Library to convert the movie to "HD MPEG2" format.

[ATImeShifter]

I thought that MMC couldn't display or record OTA HD content, and was limited to only OTA and cable analog signals. How do you get MMC to display and record HD?

[Steve N]

Hopefully Grog will get back with a more complete answer, but the HDTV Wonder uses MMC, so MMC must support HD. I think the problem is more certain cards like the 650 not working in MMC for other reasons.

[hdtval21]

Hey grog, I thought you would know better... WatchHDTV always records in full resolution. And you can do transport stream recording too now.

Beckler- what is telling you that the resolution is 704x480? Does WatchHDTVPlay report that? WMP? VLC? Some players don't report the correct resolution of an HD dvr-ms file. It can depend on the player and decoders used.

And MMC is for the HDTV Wonder- they used to have a DTV part that was separate from TV(analog part of cards), but eventually put all into TV. The 650 uses CMC, but WatchHDTV supports that as well.

[ATImeShifter]

Yeah, I came across this after I posted my comment. How odd, and unfortunate. Had MMC supported my 650, I might well have stuck with it and avoided CMC, which turned out to be even worse than MMC when it came down to useful functionality as opposed to look and feel. It constantly forgets scheduled recordings--something that MMC almost never did--and keeps having problems locking onto a signal. Looks nice but works like crap. Yech.

It's about to be a moot point though as I just got MCE and am about to install it. Goodbye MMC & CMC!!!