Pace Twin or Fusion PVRT100?

[Skiddins]

I currently own a Pace Twin which I have had for exactly 1 month, I like most things about it although there is very slight ghosting on the TV channels (due to the signal? I thought DTV was suppossed to get rid of such things :-(

I have had most of the problems described in this forum here at least once during my ownership.

Has anyone got the Fusion PVRT100 (the equivalent to the Twin) and what are their experiences of it? Would it be worth getting my money back and getting the Fusion.

I understand that the software issue is an ever evolving process, but if this stuff is meant to compete with SKY it has a long way to go, the EPG looks crap and is infuriatingly slow, god help us when it comes to 7 day guides.

I like the improved sound, almost everything being widescreen, except for most US shows, which I find interesting as they seem to have taken up digital and TIVO much quicker than us. 4:3 TV's still massively out sell widescreens over there.....not so advanced huh ;-)

Skiddins

 

[Starburst]

The Fusion FVRT100 hasn't been released yet so it has yet to be compared directly under noraml useage with the Twin however you would expect a product released a year later to perform better


You'll find that the majority of US network shows are now produced with High Definition in mind which means 16:9 and DD5.1 audio as well. SKY1 only recently switched to using 16:9 material where the option existed since they were still using older broadcasting suites which were not capable of anything but plain 4:3 material. This same technical limitation will be present in the majority of UK broadcasters and therefore they will only purchase 4:3 prints even when the widescreen version exists.
The US market doesn't have the near 50% import taxes on TV's that Europe inflicts on the far east products so we in the UK have never had cheap large screen displays. The Americans could afford to indulge in monster 4:3 projections sets while we still considered 28" to be big and that mentality of bigger is better is hard to break. Try explaining widescreen to someone not technically minded and you will always run into the argument that the picture is not as high

 

[barkeral]

Originally posted by Skiddins
I currently own a Pace Twin which I have had for exactly 1 month, I like most things about it although there is very slight ghosting on the TV channels (due to the signal? I thought DTV was suppossed to get rid of such things :-(

Skiddins

I had this ghosting issue for a while - it's not the fault of the Twin, but of your scart lead. The scart on the TV outputs video and, if your scart lead is not well shielded, can interfere with the incoming signal. The slight delay between the input and output signals accounts for the ghosting.

There are two solutions to this: 1) get a better scart lead; 2) disconnect the video out from your scart lead at the TV end.

 

[Skiddins]

I have a decent IXOS SCART lead.

Would the modification you mention, require the cutting of the connection physically at the end of the cable.

My TV has a lot of options to change the 'outputs' from the various signals but it doesn't have a disable or similar.

I have tried every combination I can.

I have noticed that the slight ghosting also exists in the TV menus.

Skiddins

 

[idhutt]

I had ghosting from my Pace box that would show when I was watching a DVD through my other SCART. I was using an S-video only IXOS cable on the DVD side of things, but still use the cheapie from Pace to connect the twin to the TV. The IXOS developed a fault [broken internally], so I have replaced it with another SCART. I will check tonight if the problem persists with the new cable - I normally turn the twin off when I watch a DVD because of this problem.

-Ian

 

[barkeral]

When I was looking at this I read this website. If you look at the "problems" section at the bottom it says

You sometimes get problems with connecting a SCART lead to a TV set where the CVBS output interferes with the CVBS input (often when the TV is forced to SCART by pin 8, the set still outputs the original tuner video signal from pin 20), if the lead isn't sufficiently well screened this can give rise to picture problems. Easiest solution is to disconnect pin 20 at the TV end of the SCART lead, this doesn't cause any problems as it's not normal practice to record the output of your TV.

In my case I introduced (for other reasons) a SCART switch box between the Twin and the TV which broke the Video return path to the Twin - thus fixing the problem. I later removed the switch box and, using a different SCART lead, found no ghosting problems.

 

[Skiddins]

I have tried directly connecting a decent SCART straight to the TV from the Pace without getting rid of the problem, I also have a switcher etc. in between at the moment.

I might try cutting the wires on an old standard SCART cable (I'm not ruining my £35 IXOS)

Skiddins

 

[Skiddins]

Right, I've tried disconnecting pins 19 & 20 (one at a time) on an old SCART cable and plugging the modified end into the TV.
removing pin 20 stopped the video signal (I have the Pace set to transmit RGB) and pin 19 made no difference.

I have noticed that turning down the 'Sharpness' setting on my TV has helped, It's an older Sony widescreen, and when I tried the box at my work, on an even older Sony 4:3 it didn't seem to suffer the problem anywhere near as much, or maybe that was just the settings on the TV being rubbish and the problem not standing out as much.

Barkeral, the link you gave didn't work unfortunately.

Skiddins