DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

I don't know if this is the right place to post this question, but here goes. I recently upgraded from my 5 year old Hitachi 55" LCD Panel (It went out) to the Vizio E65x-C2 65" . After days of arguing and almost a divorce, we finally got the color calibrated and it not looks quite amazing, especially with the Wii U. The problem is when we try to play a DVD on it. There is no easy way to say this, DVDs look like crap on this Vizio. Now on our 55" Hitachi, they looked AMAZING! When we first got the Hitachi and played DVDs on it on our up-scaling Toshiba DVD player, they were so clear and defined that it felt like we were watching a live play or were actually there during the filming. We could see the pores on Frodo's face in Lord of the Rings. That same movie on this Vizio 65' looks awful! It is all full of artifacts and looks like a video that was shot in low light with a bad home video camera. Network over the air broadcast looks ten times better then dvds on this TV. I have tried everything I know of, and it just looks horrible. The Wii U looks awesome on this TV, Netflix pretty good, Broadcast TV looks decent, but high quality DVD look like crap, even on an top of the line upscaling DVD player (I paid $200 for this DVD player. It's not one of those $30 jobs a wally world).

So here is my question. Is the problem the TV size or is this a calibration problem? I know DVD quality video is small for a a 65", but there has to be some reason that it went from eye popping fabulous on a 55" to low light, poor, home video quality on a 65". It's not that much a size difference, just a 19% increase. I have a dvd collection of over 300 dvds. I am not rebuying them all in blueray. Not gonna happen. I'll take this TV back and get a 55' if that is the only solution.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

if you can and haven't already, try tinkering (from the TV) with the resolution of the input the DVD player is hooked up to. Also, try adjusting from the DVD player the output resolution to the TV.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

sounds like you don't have the upscaling turned on somehow from the DVD player.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

The dvd player is connect via HDMI cable and I have adjusted the output to 1080P. It has the options of 480P, 720P, 1080i as well, but those look the same. I have gone through all of the menus on tv and can't find anything that makes a difference.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

An upscaling DVD player that upscales to 1080i only? How old is that player? That's probably a good reason why any DVD may not look all that great. It's not the TV, it's the player and DVD.

EDIT: Nevermind, the player does go to 1080p, I misread that. Still sounds like it's a limitation of the player and DVD. You're upscaling 480p material, it can only look so good., especially on a newer TV.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

But, assuming the tv he replaced was 1080p as well, why would it look so much worse on a new tv set to the same resolution? Shouldn't 1080p be 1080p regardless of the "newness" of the tv?

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

If it all looks the same then it might be the cable. Do you have a different HDMI cable to try?

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

do you have that annoying soap opera effect (aka TruMotion, AutoMotion) turned on (usually the default with new TV's) that is somehow making the limited DVD picture look extra shitty?

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

Is the video calibration stored separately for separate inputs?

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

Yep, that sounds exactly like motion enhancement. Probably since the last time you bought a TV, manufacturers fell in love with this ridiculous 'feature'. And have decided that it must be something you have to look for & actively disable. Rather that just something you can turn on if you want everything to look shitty for some reason.

Though I'm not sure why it only impacts the DVD input, but it is most noticeable with film sourced programming.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

Okay. I tried a new HDMI cable. No effect. I tried different HDMI ports. No effect. I turned off everything under MORE PICTURE on the Vizio including "Film Mode" (Auto optimization when film is detected). No effect. I connected my PC to my Vizio via HDMI and tried playing DVDs from it. No effect.

After much testing I just think there is nothing that can be done. I was able to get the picture to improve to a tolerable quality when I played a widescreen DVD. But full screen DVDs (which 9 out of 10 of my DVDs are) are unwatchable. Widescreen format DVDs are decent, but no where even remotely close to the quality of them played on my old 55" LCD.

The TV seems to struggle with color too. As a photographer, correct color is all about white balance. I can find no way to find a correct white on this TV. Skin tones on people either look really orange or blown out. I think I just need to take this Vizio back to walmart. Everyone says that Vizio has improved, but I think not.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

I have 2, and I think they suck (that's another story as to why I have, I used to have 3). But - you need to calibrate the settings to fine tune the white balance. Google your model and settings and use some recommended settings to adjust the colors, beyond the simple color bar. After I did that, the colors looked a lot better, as does the overall white balance.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

I had a similar issue with a 46" Dynex HDTV except Blu-ray looked like crap too. Even computer animated films, which usually appear the brightest & sharpest, looked grainy and pixelated. DVD looks quite bad even from 7-8 feet away.

I bought a Sony 40" and there was a huge improvement in the picture using the same Blu-ray player and HDMI cable as the Dynex.

Neither TV is calibrated other than using the colour bars.

Oddly enough, standard-def cable on the Dynex looks a little unfocused but at least it doesn't appear pixelated.

I think it comes down to the fact that the Sony is a better TV.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

It's the fact that you got an E-Series VISIO. The D & E are pretty worthless. M is the bottom rung you should consider with them. P & Reference are amazing TVs.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

So you don't have a BD player, just an upscaling DVD player?

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

I thought that DVDs were 480i? When I plug anything into my HDTV (including old RCA jacks for my old analog game systems), it tells me 1080/60p, presumably through a scaler, obviously. It does it for streaming apps too, which I kind of wish it would run at 24p.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

For nearly the same price, I'd order this today instead and return the one you got.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-UN60JS...+UN60JS7000+60

Samsung UN60JS7000 60-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV (2015 Model)

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

I see your TV has a component input on it. Do you have component outputs on your Toshiba? If you have a set of C cables lying around, try this. This might bypass some HDMI quirk going on and if see an instance better picture, then you'll know it's the HDMI handshake issue.

Check these settings:

1) Picture Mode (set this to VIVID and see what happens)

2) From the PICTURE MODE menu, find the MORE PICTURE sub-menu. Find FILM MODE. Toggle the on/off selection to see if you see any changes in the image quality/behavior. GAMMA is also in this menu and you might select a brighter output.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

This confuses me. You say 9 out of 10 of your DVDs are FULL screen? As in 4:3 aspect ratio?? Do you have the aspect ratio set correctly on your DVD player and on your TV for the respective input? Both should be set at 16:9.

Maybe he was into buying full-screen discs back when the market was its peak.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

Very good point! I bet that's the problem right there.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

Don't know where the OP lives but if he's close to me I'll fix it. I had a Vizio which was horrible for other reasons but DVDs didn't look horrible on it.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

Especially if you zoom the 4:3 image to fill the 16:9 frame.

Imagine how good "Outland" on DVD would look :D

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

Rtings.com review of the new P series Vizio says they have poor upscaling performance. Maybe that's a trend with older model Vizios as well.

Re: DVDs look horrible on new 65" Vizio HDTV. Why?
 

Could viewing distance be the problem (or at least part of the problem)? His new TV is 10" bigger than the old one, after all, and is, presumably, the same distance from the couch as the old one.

I know when I was comparing TVs in a store, I looked at a 52" and a 55" for my living room, and took my own gear to the store with me (upscaling Oppo blu-ray player and test DVDs), then measured off the viewing distance I'd be experiencing at home (from where the TV is to where the sofa is), and stepped back to that point.

Doing all that, the 52" set gave a MUCH better picture than the 55". You wouldn't think three diagonal inches would make a big difference, but at that size, I started seeing compression artifacts on the bigger TV. And yes, I was smart enough to put both sets in "game" mode, so all the image processing was turned off.

It's a fact that if viewing distance remains constant, then the bigger you go in screen size, the more flaws you'll see in your standard-definition material. A very high-quality upscaler (like the expensive ones found in Oppo players) can make a world of difference, but even then, a scaler can only do so much.