Optimizing the VP50 - MLB-TV interface

This is a somewhat specialized thread for how to set up a PC with a VP50 (or VP30 I guess) to get the best picture from the soon-to-be-available MLB-TV premium channel.

Some background: Many baseball fans have viewed the MLB Extra Innings package over cable or satellite the past few years and have been able to see most of the baseball games in the country over a series of 10 different channels. Typically these were about 2mbps SD quality. In order to make more money (basically), MLB is moving the MLB EI package exclusively to DirectTV satellite, leaving cable users in the lurch. The only option for many of us is MLB-TVpremium, which is an internet video offering.

Parameters of MLB-TV:

bit rate: 698 kbps
picture size: 512 x 384 pixels
aspect ratio: 4:3
video codec: Windows Media Video 9
audio coden: Windows Media Audio 9.1 (48kbps, 44khz, stereo, 1-pass CBR)


What I propose for this thread is discussion of how best to set up both the PC parameters and the VP50/VP30 to get the best possible picture from the limited quality transmission available to us.

A sample of the transmission quality can be found at

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/subscriptions...m.jsp?c_id=mlb

(click on "see 700k demo")

i have yet to hook my pc up to my vp50 but i guess the first questions i have are:

1. shouldn't the pc be set to output the native resolution of the video stream
(512x384) so that the vp50 can do all of the processing?

2. can the vp50 accept that rate?

3. can the pc provide ouput over dvi at that rate?

hi josh,

any recommendations then on what to have the pc output to the vp50 so the pc does the least harm and/or lets the vp50 do the best possible job?

i am guessing that if the pc has to scale, going to 640x480 is less so better?