DIRECTV SD Service on CRT HDTV

[texasbrit]

Sat, cable etc will never look as good as OTA - they receive the OTA signal and then compress it so it's bound to be worse....
The sat and cable companies don't really care about SD. Most SD customers are using old CRT TVs, and are not really concerned with picture quality.
You are probably the only person in the USA who cares about the problem...

 

[texasbrit]

Just FYI> Your TV might be converting 480i to 480p.
I saw the following in a 2005 (!) post.
Quote:
CRT sets usually display 480p and 1080i natively - as the line scan rates are almost identical (and thus the tubes can easily accommodate both without having to have a wide range of line scan rates) The vertical field/frame refresh rates are the same for all standards.

Line scan for:
1080/60i = 1125x30 = 33.75kHz
480/60p = 525x60 = 31.5kHz
480/60i = 525x30 = 15.75kHz
720/60p = 750x60 = 45kHz
(assuming 30Hz rather than 29.97, and assuming the standard 1125, 750 and 525 total line counts for 1080, 720 and 480 active standards!)

As you can see 1080/60i and 480/60p are very close, but 480i and 720p are all a lot different. Thus most CRT sets display 1080i and 480p natively - but have to scale or de-interlace 720p and 480i

 

[ejb1980]

Just FYI> Your TV might be converting 480i to 480p.
I saw the following in a 2005 (!) post.
Quote:
CRT sets usually display 480p and 1080i natively - as the line scan rates are almost identical (and thus the tubes can easily accommodate both without having to have a wide range of line scan rates) The vertical field/frame refresh rates are the same for all standards.

Line scan for:
1080/60i = 1125x30 = 33.75kHz
480/60p = 525x60 = 31.5kHz
480/60i = 525x30 = 15.75kHz
720/60p = 750x60 = 45kHz
(assuming 30Hz rather than 29.97, and assuming the standard 1125, 750 and 525 total line counts for 1080, 720 and 480 active standards!)

As you can see 1080/60i and 480/60p are very close, but 480i and 720p are all a lot different. Thus most CRT sets display 1080i and 480p natively - but have to scale or de-interlace 720p and 480i

When I look in the menus for resolutions, 480i says "TV does not support" next to it, even though it displays 480i on SD OTA.

As for OTA looking better, I think it depends on the market. My true locals (Burlington VT) look awful on Directv. Their OTA signals are mixed quality, some are ok, but others are just as bad as the Directv and Comcast HD feeds. My "moved" locals (Boston) look almost as good as national channels, better than Burlington and OTA. When I lived in NC, I had 2 locals with 2 HD channels OTA and both of those double-HD channels looked better than the VT locals, OTA or otherwise.

 

[texasbrit]

There were apparently some multiscan crt Barco projectors in the early 90s that might possibly have handled 480i and 1080i but they are long gone, they used three Sony CRTs (red/green/blue) that were several hunderd dollars each.

 

[texasbrit]

When I look in the menus for resolutions, 480i says "TV does not support" next to it, even though it displays 480i on SD OTA.

As for OTA looking better, I think it depends on the market. My true locals (Burlington VT) look awful on Directv. Their OTA signals are mixed quality, some are ok, but others are just as bad as the Directv and Comcast HD feeds. My "moved" locals (Boston) look almost as good as national channels, better than Burlington and OTA. When I lived in NC, I had 2 locals with 2 HD channels OTA and both of those double-HD channels looked better than the VT locals, OTA or otherwise.

Yes, it's so variable. Here in DFW for MOST of the time the HD locals via DirecTv are about the same as the OTA locals, or slightly worse, , except for Chroma noise which is particularly bad on NBC. I think the locals are captured "off air" here but am not certain of this. Of course in many cities the network stations also have subchannels which steal bandwidth; if you are in one of those cities and your sat or cable company gets a direct feed from the OTA station it's possible to get better quality than the OTA signal.

 

[JohnHammock]

Very interesting. Looks I'll be going on a hunt for one of those special Barco projection TV's now I guess! JK! ? Actually stacking an HDTV on top of an SDTV is looking more and more attractive for my situation, ha.

I never knew this much went into TV stuff. Holy Toledo!

Texasbrit, thanks for all the consideration and explanation. My expereince of this website has been much better than avsforum.

 

[JohnHammock]

Check this thing out:
http://m.ebay.com/itm/Barco-ScreenP...video-display-system-/321833044851?nav=SEARCH

Seems fancy! Maybe it does what I need it to so I can keep my DIRECTV SD service, ha

 

[JohnHammock]

Hey guys, check out what this guy from avsforum:

"Most manufacturers thought that running a chassis at its maximum specs was a good thing, so most of them will convert any 15khz input to 31khz or higher. 31khz in this case would mean 480p. 1080i was an option as well. Anyway, the results usually weren't any good. Most if not all consumer CRTs I know will do that, so they won't display a proper 15khz signal.

But since you're asking about the "theoretical" possibility: All the Sony BVM monitors handle incoming signals in their NATIVE resolution. The BVM-D32 (32" HD CRT) for example will display 240p as 240p, 480i as 480i, 480p as 480p, 720p as 720p and 1080i as 1080i."

I looked up this Sony CRT and it's true. It displays whatever you feed it. It's possible!!!

 

[texasbrit]

....and did you see the price??

 

[JohnHammock]

....and did you see the price??

I know

 

[robjlevin]

One more time...call Directv and ask for deal. If you're out of contract I can almost assure you that you'll get one. You might even wind up with HD and a lower bill.

 

[stvcmty]

SD channels look better on a HD TV with a HD box through HDMI than they do on an HD TV with a SD box using composite or s-video. My grandparents went from a D12 to a HR34 on the same TV and the difference was night and day.

It seems reasonable to tell the OP to call Directv and see what they can do. The lack of details from the OP about what direct equipment they have is sort of sketchy. I am almost getting a feeling the OP doesn’t want to call DirecTV because something fishy is going on, such as account stacking or reception from north or south of the boarder

 

[HappyDay]

For the cost of anything you'd buy you can likely get moved to Hi Definition service for less and it wouldn't be a lump sum up front it'd be small if any at all over time.

As to your question on changining res there are a few tvs that have been made that can do it but most don't. The best I ever saw was a Lowe tv that is from Germany. Man that thing was incredible. So was its price tag.

DIRECTV is a bit over compressed on SD and therefore it's difficult to really scale it well no matter what you do.

HD service should cost at most $7 more a month for you. Might have to jump through a hoop to make that happen but I know it can be done. And if you haven't called and asked for discounts lately anyway play up the bill being a bit high nicely and see if you can't get even more discounts. No reason they may not offer you free upgrade and 30 a month off your bill as others have been getting lately.

 

[texasbrit]

SD channels look better on a HD TV with a HD box through HDMI than they do on an HD TV with a SD box using composite or s-video. My grandparents went from a D12 to a HR34 on the same TV and the difference was night and day.

It seems reasonable to tell the OP to call Directv and see what they can do. The lack of details from the OP about what direct equipment they have is sort of sketchy. I am almost getting a feeling the OP doesn’t want to call DirecTV because something fishy is going on, such as account stacking or reception from north or south of the boarder

In general it's not true that SD looks better over HDMI, it should not be any better than s-video. Some people have reported it's better, others that it's worse. It's still only 480 lines.

 

[Aridon]

Directv SD channels are garbage looking. Fortunately most of us don't watch them but If I were it wouldn't be on Directv.

 

[texasbrit]

Since you don't watch them how would you know?
Actually many of DirecTV's SD channels are OK ; Dish has some terrible SD channels also. But some cable systems are even worse, almost unwatchable.
FIOS used to have the best SD quality but it's gone downhill a bit because of bandwidth issues.

Personally I can't image anyone with any idea of picture quality watching SD at all, from any provider, if an HD version of the channel is available.

The OP might be able to get a deal but typically people moving from SD to HD aren't offered much.