Native Resolution Pass Through

[tnsprin]

I think there's something wrong with your TV. I've never heard of an HDTV that will not accept 720p signals. That would be a crazily bad product to try to sell. ESPN, ABC, and FOX are all on 720p.

All HDTV tuners must accept ATSC broadcast signals in all the various versions including 480i/480p/720p/1080i. However many sets do not display 720p or 1080i (usually doing one or the other), instead converting the ATSC signal to the one they do. And although almost all will accept 1080i component signals, many sets, esp CRT older then 4 years old, will not accept 720p component. Even a few HDMI sets will not handle them.

 

[JoeSp]

My Pioneer 630HD DVI does accept a 720p signal and upconverts to 1080i much better than the 622DVR. When watching a sporting event even on HD OTA Fox which is 720p I go into the 622 and change the output to 720p. I want to say that the downconverting of 1080i to 720p by the 622 is downright ugly! Native passthru would definately improve the picture especially that of 480 by the 622 -- my Pioneer does a much better upconversion then the 622.

 

[rdinkel]

I think there's something wrong with your TV. I've never heard of an HDTV that will not accept 720p signals. That would be a crazily bad product to try to sell. ESPN, ABC, and FOX are all on 720p.

There is nothing "wrong" with my HDTV; it is performing exactly as designed. It is a Loewe Aconda 38" CRT. The Aconda is a fully digital progressive-scan direct-view set with a huge 38-inch 16:9 picture tube. The only HD inputs are one set of components and one HD RGB. Components input supports 480i/480p/1080i; VGA/RGB supports 640 x 480i or 1920 x 1080i. It does not include an HD OTA tuner. It is an old design, but this high-end set produces a wonderful picture--even with SD inputs. Wife and I decided to upgrade the chassis last fall instead of replacing it. Glad we did. All shows just look better on this German CRT set than on our two other "modern" LCD-HDTVs.

 

[MyDogHasFleas]

I think there's something wrong with your TV. I've never heard of an HDTV that will not accept 720p signals. That would be a crazily bad product to try to sell. ESPN, ABC, and FOX are all on 720p.

All HDTV tuners must accept ATSC broadcast signals in all the various versions including 480i/480p/720p/1080i. However many sets do not display 720p or 1080i (usually doing one or the other), instead converting the ATSC signal to the one they do.

Right, exactly.

And although almost all will accept 1080i component signals, many sets, esp CRT older then 4 years old, will not accept 720p component. Even a few HDMI sets will not handle them.

I obviously did not know that, and have learned something from this.

I would hope that they made clear in the sales material for sets like this that you had to have a STB that would upconvert everything to 1080i.

 

[MyDogHasFleas]

There is nothing "wrong" with my HDTV; it is performing exactly as designed. It is a Loewe Aconda 38" CRT. The Aconda is a fully digital progressive-scan direct-view set with a huge 38-inch 16:9 picture tube. The only HD inputs are one set of components and one HD RGB. Components input supports 480i/480p/1080i; VGA/RGB supports 640 x 480i or 1920 x 1080i. It does not include an HD OTA tuner. It is an old design, but this high-end set produces a wonderful picture--even with SD inputs. Wife and I decided to upgrade the chassis last fall instead of replacing it. Glad we did. All shows just look better on this German CRT set than on our two other "modern" LCD-HDTVs.

Interesting! Again I've learned something here.

I have observed that many people prefer the look and feel of CRTs over LCD. To me LCD is a "colder" and "harsher" picture, I'm not sure how to describe it other than this. Plasma is more like CRT than LCD is. However I did just buy a big 1080p LCD box and I'm quite happy with it.

I think LCD is probably where everything's going, frankly, except for "videophiles"... similar to how analog vinyl record players are still sold to "audiophiles".

 

[RandallA]

I have a 4:3 32'' CRT HD Sony TV and a 16:9 32'' LCD Samsung TV. The HD on the CRT Sony just looks awesome but I need to zoom in the picture to fill the screen. The picture on the Samsung looks good but nothing like the CRT but I don't need to zoom in. I have a friend that has a Plasma Panasonic and HD looks very close to the Sony CRT I have. If I had to do it all over again, I'd buy the plasma Panasonic.

 

[rdinkel]

I have a 4:3 32'' CRT HD Sony TV and a 16:9 32'' LCD Samsung TV. The HD on the CRT Sony just looks awesome but I need to zoom in the picture to fill the screen. The picture on the Samsung looks good but nothing like the CRT but I don't need to zoom in. I have a friend that has a Plasma Panasonic and HD looks very close to the Sony CRT I have. If I had to do it all over again, I'd buy the plasma Panasonic.

At the time we got our Loewe CRT, plasma was not a real option. That is because we live at 8500FT elevation. At least back a couple of years ago, at our altitude, plasma displays would buzz and pop all the time. Don't know if that has been fixed, yet. So we went with the 38" 16:9 CRT with great digital processing.

One benefit of the CRT is that the SD content tends to look much better than on most other HDTV displays.

 

[RandallA]

"One benefit of the CRT is that the SD content tends to look much better than on most other HDTV displays."

Oh yeah! SD looks pretty good and like I said HD looks just awesome. I don't see any HD CRTs sold anymore.

 

[kstuart]

Over the weekend, I tried various combinations of 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i output by my 622 to my 720p LCD.

My conclusion was - although the TV has a very good MTK scaling chip, nevertheless in every case, 720p output by the 622 looked better. This was on 1080i and SD channels, as well as 720p ones.

My LCD is probably typical of the average TV that people are buying, so I think that most people will probably get best results having the 622 output the display's native resolution, rather than passing through the channel without scaling.

This may have something to do with Dish's use of non standard resolutions, which mean that the 622 will always be doing some scaling (except in those few cases where exactly 480i, 720p, or 1080i is uplinked, which is evidently a minority of channels).

My results seem to indicate that either the 622 is scaling and the TV is scaling, or else just the 622 is scaling, and that the latter is better because of a smaller quantity of conversions.

Of course, YMMV, results may be different with different displays.

PS Note that the above is true even with 480i, ie SD channels looked better when the 622 output in my display's native resolution of 720p.

 

[tnsprin]

Over the weekend, I tried various combinations of 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i output by my 622 to my 720p LCD.

My conclusion was - ...

As many have said YMMV. Each combo of equipment may show different results. So if Dish ever releases this feature, it needs to be optional.