Feneant

I bought a Panasonic 50 inch rear projection LCD TV yesterday and it looks amazing for most things such as DVD's. One thing I however notice is that some tv shows like the Simpsons or Seinfeld reruns, they look awful! If anything, you can see artifacts all over the screen which makes it look as it I was watching them on the computer... Some channels / shows however look fabulous. I'm using an Svideo cable with the satellite, would that make a difference, it doesn't have component out on it. (I do not have an high definition satellite- waiting on Expressvu to offer an HD PVR.)

DVD Josh

HDTVs tend to make bad source material look worse since it usually upscales the signal to 480p. It's one of the reasons that I refuse to watch SDTV on my HDTV.

bboisvert

Well, it could be several things...

1. Does the panny have auto settings to 'improve' picture? If so, turn those off. I find that these things introduce tons of artifacts.

2. Ultimately, though, I'm sure a big part of the issue is that you are sending a standard-def signal through a (relatively) poor-quality connection. Your high-def TV is just highlighting the weakness of the image resolution.

Red Dog

That's why I made sure I got an HDTV which provided decent SD pictures, since I still watch a lot of SD programming.

Do you watch SD programming in full screen (stretch) mode or regular. I avoid full screen for SD programming. Also, how close are you to the TV?

Spiky

With my new TV, SD looked horrible at first. Really horrible. The halos had halos. I started fiddling around and found a preset in the TV that actually looks good. Soft, but good. Colors are a little off, but half the time the source is so bad I couldn't tell you what they are supposed to look like, anyway.

Spiky

Svideo is not poor quality for satellite signals, it is the correct connection. It can actually look better than component or digital connections if the sat box has poor upconversion. The poor quality is just in the source. Most shows are barely 240i, even if they are sent via a 480i signal. Upconverting them to 720p is not great. (I'm assuming that's the TV's native, here)

brainee

Yep, the hidden cost of HDTV -- it makes you realize how crappy the picture quality of everything else is!

Feneant

Looks like I'll be buying a high def satellite, thanks for the answer. As for the settings, I do have a question, I have normal, full, zoom and another... normal is a square with huge black marks, full is stretched, zoom is obvious and the other appears to be widescreen. Actually, normal appears to be native resolution, but the black bars... can I expect them to burn in on an LCD projection tv? Or is that plasma, I have to read the manual I think but it's not like they'll say 'this tv burns in so watch out'... is burn in something I can expect if I have a lot of black bars on top or sides?

Thanks for the answers!

DVD Josh

Black bars you don't have much to worry about, it's the solid white images and grey bars that are an issue. But keep your brightness and contrast down, and you won't have an issue.

brainee

Here's a stupid question: If grey bars burn in, and black bars don't, why aren't black bars used all the time? On my set, using TWC, all "regular" channels are displayed with grey bars. When watching SD programming on a HD channel (or DVDs that are different from 16:9 AR) I get black bars.

X

Grey bars approximate the average TV picture and will burn-in (wear) at about the same rate as the picture.

Therefore there won't be much of a noticeable difference between the area that has the bars and the picture. If the bar portion didn't wear at all you would eventually see a big difference in that area when the screen is filled.

j123vt_99

wow.. i was just about to make the same post... i bought a 51h84 toshiba and noticed a similar thing.. watching the basketball game in HD and noticed periodically the screen would get a tiny bit pixelated.. i don't think my father who was watching it with me noticed... any suggestions?

bboisvert

Toshiba TVs have SVM (Scan Velocity Modulation) -- one of those auto settings I mentioned that is supposed to 'improve' the picture. I find that that this doesn't improve anything... it boosts the contrast and sharpness, so the picture will look good on the showroom floors to newbies, but it also distorts the brightness and geometry, and introduces artifacts into the picture (especially for standard def signals).

Toshiba is even "kind" enough to make this setting automatic, and not give you a logical or explained way to disable. The good news is that you can disable it yourself on all inputs by doing your settings within "Movie" mode. Movie mode does not use SVM, so starting there, entering your settings, and saving (for each input) will get rid of SVM. I think you'll find that everything looks much better after removing this annoying feature.

cajun_junky

I am still stuck with a 4:3 Toshiba 55" until I decide to pull the trigger. Anyway, this thread reminds me of some of the problems that we will face in the HD world to come. Now there is not alot of HD content available and alot of people I have talked to (including posts in this and other forums) talk about how SD looks bad on a HD tv. It seems to me that even after we finally move to HD for all content there will still be alot of material that is in SD content. Even if most older stuff can be upgraded to HD we will still face the various aspect ratios and notorious black bars.

Does this seem to bother anyone else? Don't get me wrong, I think HD will be leaps and bounds better than what we have now.

Spiky

LCD doesn't burn in, that isn't a problem. Plasma can.

High-def satellite won't improve your SD picture, and most TV is still SD.

Spiky

DVDs look great, watch more movies. Seriously, the HD rollout is taking so long (by design) that the "bleeding edge" has already lasted for what, 5 years. And will continue for a couple more. It isn't so much the price of the units now, it is the ever-changing specs and connections and the limited programming.

I just read a post from a guy at another forum, he said he just turned off the HD package from D*. Not because of the limited channels (only 4), but because he's seen everything they are showing. In a couple months I imagine he'll look at adding it again if the programming changes.

Mike Lowrey

For this very reason, would an EDTV be better than an full HD model? In that an EDTV doesn't have as much interpolation to do to convert lower resolution sources into the higher resolutions of HD.

renaldow

I have a 42" plasma EDTV, and DVDs look outstanding. SD still looks like crap. I chose EDTV over HDTV for some of the reasons mentioned above. Namely, there's not enough content available to make HDTV compelling right now. In a few years I'll upgrade to HD when it becomes more of the norm, and for right now ED fits my needs best.

EDTV's are an odd beast. Regardless of specs, they are leaps above SD, and very close to HD. Mine is a Zenith, I bought this model because whenever I've seen it on a showroom floor hooked up to HD content it has looked better than a lot of the lower end HD plasmas.

Spiky

Lots of people have made that choice. Hence the popularity of 42" plasmas and PJs like the 4805 and X1. You have to understand all the ins and outs these days and make your own choice. I chose 720p, HD is amazing, DVD is excellent, SDTV is...um...really big and at least watchable.

Mike Lowrey

I saw a couple of these plasma EDTVs on display in a local appliance store. They had better image quality than the HD models they had set up. One was a Sony 42" and the other a Hitachi, I think. The Sony had slightly better contrast.

Spiky

That probably indicates they were showing a lesser signal (which looks better on the lesser TV) or there was a calibration issue. Maybe both.