Bad DirecTV Picture On HDTV

[ccorson97]

OK, maybe I am just looking at this wrong, maybe somebody can straighten me out. I bought an HDTV last week and hooked it up to my DirecTV system (NOT the HD DirecTV). It is a CRT HDTV, which I have seen shows non-HD programs the best.

Honestly, the DirecTV picture was not that great. I thought at first it was the TV (and Circuit City actually brought out another one) - but the second TV looked the same.

I then hooked up an off-air antenna and brought in my locals (the digital stations that carry HD programming from time to time). These look unbelievably good - even the non-HD (digital) stations look fantastic.

Now, I thought that DirecTV was all digital, so what's the difference? I certainly know that nothing will look as good as the HD programs, but what the heck am I missing?

Thinking about calling DirecTV, but I don't want to sound like an idiot. Do I have to upgrade to the DirecTV HD? Are the standard channels on those receivers any better?

Man, if anyone can steer me in the right direction, I would really appreciate it.

 

[dragon002]

what IRD do you have and what connections did you use?

 

[ShadowEKU]

What size TV?

it its over 30" then basicly you are amplifying the size of the compressed images (think of it like zooming in on a 1 megapixel picture) it starts looking worse the bigger you get....

basicly most SD looks bad on HD.... However you may get a better picture if you watch SD channels through the Svideo input on the TV.

 

[ccorson97]

I have the HDVR2 DirecTIVO and the standard round dish. It comes into the house and hits a splitter to send cable to two other TV's.

I have two connections coming into the HDVR2 and connect it to an Denon AVR-1705 AV Receiver with an S-Video cable. The AV receiver is connected to the TV with component video cables. I get the same crappy picture when I take the S-Video from the HDVR2 straight to the TV.

My signal strength is always in the low 90's.

 

[ccorson97]

What size TV?

It's a Hitachi 51" CRT Projection TV with HDTV tuner

 

[dragon002]

try by-passing the A/V system and see how it looks on the video side.

 

[ccorson97]

I have done that (take S-Video straight to the TV) and it looks the same. But what's the difference between a digital station (non-HD program) from the off-air antenna and the SD channels I get from my DirecTV dish?

 

[CRendall]

The difference is the show from a digital channel OTA is upconverting the SD signal and sends it out over the air, which will be either a 720p or 1080i signal. The SD channels you get from DirecTV are 480i.

In other words, you local digital OTA is going to look a lot better because there are more lines of resolution. The SD channels on a HD set aren't going to look good when you have bigger screen, basically anything over 30".

 

[ccorson97]

So, if I upgrade to the DirecTV HD Receiver, will that help the picture on the non-HD channels? I am willing to shell out the $$$ if that's what it takes.

Seems that they don't offer much HD programs now, but if it helps all the other channels look better, i'll do it in a heartbeat.

BTW, thanks everybody for helping the newbie figure this crap out.

 

[dfergie]

Actually the non HD channels will stay about the same. You can get your set calibrated or at the least get the Avia disc to help you calibrate your set for the optimum settings...

 

[ccorson97]

The difference is the show from a digital channel OTA is upconverting the SD signal and sends it out over the air, which will be either a 720p or 1080i signal. The SD channels you get from DirecTV are 480i.
In other words, you local digital OTA is going to look a lot better because there are more lines of resolution. The SD channels on a HD set aren't going to look good when you have bigger screen, basically anything over 30".

Now this makes sense!!! So does the DirecTV HD Receiver broadcast in 720 or 1080i? If so, the SD channels should look better, right?

 

[lovswr]

Now this makes sense!!! So does the DirecTV HD Receiver broadcast in 720 or 1080i? If so, the SD channels should look better, right?

You can set the H10 to output the native signal as is, which means, if it receives 1081 it will pass 1081 or if it receieves 480i it will pass 4801 for example. Or you can set it to pass say 720p (again for examole) all the time. I have a Sony 42" A10 (as this is a 3 chip LCD projection set it is natively a 720 device) & I keep the H10 set to output 1080i (I find a slightly better picture this way) all the time.

As far as image quality, as mentioned above get DVD-Essetials or Avia or even a regular DVD that has the THX Optimizer in the setup (such as something like Star Wars Episode III or the Special Edition of Gladiator) &b follow the instruction.

After doing the above you should see a noticeable & immeidate improvement with SD (& HD will be better as well ). However, as also mentioned above, D* (as well as E* & just about every other national carrier except for Verizon in areas that have Fiber to the home) compresses SD (& HD, but that's a whole *nother kettle of fish) & at this point you just have to kinda get used to it.

 

[Tonedeaf]

Upconverting a 480i signal from the sat to an HD box to 1080i or 720p won't make the 480i look any better. GIGO (garbage in, garbage out).

 

[ccorson97]

Thanks for everyone's info. So here's my question....

If the satellite is sending a compressed 480i signal, then how is their HD ever going to improve? Is the thought they will eventually send better signals from the satellite?

I guess I don't understand how the HD channels would look better if the send the signals from the satellite in 480i?

 

[Sean Mota]

ccorson97,

there are two issues at hand. SD channels sent by D* at 480i over-compressed and HD sent at 1280x1080i (HD Lite, on 1080i channels) and 1280x720p (on 720p channels). Set your HDTIVO to the native resolution of your HDTV. The 1280x1080i channels will never look as good your OTA HD channels. There's no way around this. DirecTv is overcompressing the HD channels as well --- and so we call them HD LITE.