Yea, the quality is about the same, maybe even tiny bit better than in other two. The first clip might be tiny bit lower quality than the two others. What I think we see is just variation in the TV broadcasts. They aren't always sent at same quality settings, and especially since these 3 samples are from different channels. (altho, in first clip it might be that it was really recorded with different settings, with SP)
But I did compare the last clip to another clip from M6. It was captured by Olympio and it was captured from the same show (Jour J) some time ago (the latest Alizée clip). Olympio's clip is sharper, so I think the DVD recorder really does something to this clip. aFrenchie's clip seems to be streched in horizontal direction few pixels. That would explains the softness I told earlier. I don't know if the streching is caused by the recorder or was the image streched before broadcasting for some reason.
But anyways, the quality as good as it can get with this recorder I believe. And it's still good quality. It's not direct stream but well I guess better can't be done without capture card on PC.
But I'd say that when aFrenchie's should use this XP setting when recording. Since the file size is quite acceptable, it's exactly what I'd execpt it to be.
Also I noticed now, while going through it in VirtualDub, that there was interlace pattern in some parts of the video (I didn't notice earlier because ffdshow had deinterlace filter on). Could be possible that the dvd recorder makes (not perfect) deinterlacing before re-encoding it and that causes some softening, too, with that tiny strech that I mentioned already.
Here is two frames, one from aFrenchie's vid and one from Olympio's vid. Both from same channel and program, so I'd expect to see similar quality in them. These just to show what the recorder does to the image. It's not big difference, especially in moving image, but it exists. Especially notice left and right edge where the black starts. In Olympio's capture it is perfectly sharp as you'd expect it to be in digital image with high bitrate. aFrenchie's vid shows there clear softening that I'd say is caused by re-encoding.
But anyways, like I already said, the video is quite good quality overall. And since we solved the audio problem, too, I think we have nothing to worry about. I really wait to see the recorder in action.
Btw aFrenchie, what did they say about Jennifer Aniston ? And was there bigger clip of her ? And you don't happen to have it all on tape ?
