Bad plasma picture

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denhigh

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Aug 30, 2005
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Apologies if this repeats a previous post. I recently upgraded to a HR10-250 HDDVR receiver and got a new Panasonic plasma HDTV. The HD channels come in spectacular, but all other channels are awful. There is a large amount of pixelation around the edges and any detailed or moving objects or on-screen graphics. Football games in particular are pretty much unwatchable. I have tried HDMI, s-video, and component hookups, all with similar results. Some people (circuit city) have told me this is an inherent problem with the up-conversion and there is nothing that can be done about it. I have talked to other people with the same setup who have no such problems. Hooking the same receiver to a regular CRT TV gives a perfectly good picture. Anyway, my question is could this be a problem with the DirecTV signal or receiver? The satellite shows 85-90% signal strength so that should be fine. I am kind of at a loss and on the verge of returning the TV.
 
What it is, is that SD is a much lower resolution, so the tv converts it to a higer resolution as best as it can, which can look like crap, it is like taking a 100x100 gif picture, and scaling it up to 640x400, it will be blocky.

Disclaimer:
I myself have no HD tv, but I beleive there should be some option to scale-down a SD signal to the normal SD resolution, the issue there is while the picture should look better, you will have black bars on top and bottom and each side. I may be in error in one or more of these points, someone with more clue may wish to chime in with the corrections.
 
denhigh said:
Apologies if this repeats a previous post. I recently upgraded to a HR10-250 HDDVR receiver and got a new Panasonic plasma HDTV. The HD channels come in spectacular, but all other channels are awful. There is a large amount of pixelation around the edges and any detailed or moving objects or on-screen graphics. Football games in particular are pretty much unwatchable. I have tried HDMI, s-video, and component hookups, all with similar results. Some people (circuit city) have told me this is an inherent problem with the up-conversion and there is nothing that can be done about it. I have talked to other people with the same setup who have no such problems. Hooking the same receiver to a regular CRT TV gives a perfectly good picture. Anyway, my question is could this be a problem with the DirecTV signal or receiver? The satellite shows 85-90% signal strength so that should be fine. I am kind of at a loss and on the verge of returning the TV.


Here are two possible solutions:

(1) Try using the HDMI or Component Cables for HD only and use either S-Video or regular coax for the SD programming and see if this helps.

(2) When watching SD programming try toggling the resolution settings on the HD Tivo between 480P, 480I, 720P and 1080I and see if this improves the quality of the SD picture.

We have a Panasonic 34" widescreen and get very good pictures on both HD and SD from our HD Tivo.

Hope this helps and good luck!
 
I have a 42' Plasma as well and same issue. Have dealt with the crappy quality for so long i'm used to it. The HD is awesome, but everything in SD sucks. So I feel your pain. Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done about it. I just go in my bedroom and watch a regular CRT when I wanna watch SD. I had Dish before D* and same result. One day they'll get their act together, hopefully when mpg4 shows up... good luck
 
It's too bad either the HD Tivo or the TV itself doesnt' have an option to pillar-box the 4:3 content.

Even on my RP DLP, 4:3 SD stretch looks like crap. I've grown accustom to it now :(.
 
Shawn95GT said:
It's too bad either the HD Tivo or the TV itself doesnt' have an option to pillar-box the 4:3 content.

Even on my RP DLP, 4:3 SD stretch looks like crap. I've grown accustom to it now :(.
You do not have to stretch 4:3 content on an HDtivo. You can toggle between the two formats.
 
vurbano said:
You do not have to stretch 4:3 content on an HDtivo. You can toggle between the two formats.
I wonder if their plasmas are equally jaggy if they pillar box the picture then.

Shawn
 
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