Poor Picture Quality, What's the Problem ?

[Briman]

I purchased DirevTV in July 2004. The picture quality is not quite why I feel it should be. Let me explain what I have, what I have done, and what I have been told the problem is and see what others think:

Equipment:
Sony KV36HS420 36" HD Ready TV
Samsung Receiver with Tivo
Hughes Direct TV Receiver
Sony DVD Player
Sharp DVD-Burner

What I have done:
I ordered DTV in June 2004, and had it installed in July. When first installed, it I had a 27" Sony tv that was old and needed to be upgraded. I then purchased high quality RG6 coax cable and ran all new wire throughout the inside of my home and terminated it into wall plates. Then I plugged the other end into a multi switch (3x8). When I bought the new tv, I ran the LNB A and B lines from the outside of my home and ran them into the A and B side of my new switch. Installed the TV and had a fairly good picture. It's grainy and pixalted at times. Talked to the salesperson, and he told me that I may need to power the 3x8 switch, that the cable run might be too far to be powered by the receivers. So, I bought a power supply. It improved the picture quality when I powered the switch.

However, it's still grainy and pixelated, especially the logos for the channel I am watching and the score boards for sports in the corners. Again talked to Salesman. He told me one of two things could be the problem:

1) Poorly terminated coax cables. Specifically the end is not touching an adequate amount of braided shielding and allowing interference in the line.

2) Poor cable connection from the satellite to the switch. This could either by the cable first installed by DTV, or it could be the cable that I added onto it to extend it, or Both.

Since my roof has a 38' peak and sharp pitch, I don't really want to climb up on the roof unless I have to. At the same time, my entertainment center weighs a ton, and I don't really want to disconnect it to get to the wall plate. However I will do what I have to do to fix the problem.

Any ideas on the Problem ??
Since the DVD player plays crystal clear on the TV I can assume that the TV is good, and I feel I should be able to get a picture reception similar to that of the dvd player when watching DTV, agree ??

 

[Neutron]

If you're talking about the HD Channels part of the problem is D* has gone to 3 HD Channels per transponder until January due to the NFL Sunday Ticket HD games. They are planning on launching 2 very high powered satellites next year and will be able to offer a lot more HD including local HD channels. If you can get the 6 months free HD deal they have going on right now.

 

[Briman]

Not HD channels, I haven't gone that far yet. Want to get what I have as clear as possible first.

 

[matthpd195]

Was the picture up to your standards on the 27" TV?? or maybe a second receiver hoooked to a smaller TV in your house?

In my experience with my 57" Sony HD set the SD picture quality has gone down from my old 27" Sony. Your putting the same signal into a higher quality TV set, so those minor imperfections that you didn't notice before, are being shown.

The HD set it designed for the high quality inputs, such as HDTV & DVD.

I upgraded to the HD Package from DirecTV and I am very pleased with the HD quality, however the SD channels still can look grainy on the big set.

 

[matthpd195]

Just another quick note. The same thing happened to my parents when they went from a 27 inch to a 46 HD set. All they had was basic cable, It REALLY looked horrid!

I convinced them to switch to DirecTV and, while still a bit grainy, it is MUCH better than the cable signal.

 

[Briman]

In your parents situation, was the channel logos really grainy ?

 

[Briman]

Salesman told me that since Directv is all digita, and the tv that I bought is digital, there shouldn't be no grainess to it, it should like similar to a pc screen.

 

[matthpd195]

Yes, on mine as well....especially on WGN and Fox Sports.

While I will agree with the salesman one one point, the picture quality on the HD channels does look like the sharpness of s PC. However, the SD channels do not.

DirecTV passes you a digital signal, but the channel coming into them may not be digital. Most, if not all locals are analog getting to DirecTV.

 

[Sean Mota]

It is called MPEG compression. All SD channels are compressed on any provider not just D*. It is a fact of life. Best SD quality you will get is from your local OTA reception and even that is going down the drain. When D* or any provider says "100% Digital cristal clear definition" is not a true statement. It is just that you never noticed these MPEG-2 imperfections on SD channels before on the smaller TV. HDTV are meant for high quality signal (as someone else mentioned) and when you feed them the MPEG-2 compression, it shows all the artifacts. You can calibrate the input of your TV to deal with the MPEG-2 compression artifacts and see that makes it any better. I have done this to my TVs but it still does not equalt the OTA SD quality. I do not know what else you can do. I have a 60" LCD, 42" DLP and 42" ED Plasma and this is true in all of them.

 

[Briman]

How much interference does the cables take in if not terminated correctly where they are touching the braided shielding

 

[Briman]

I have the Samsung DTV/Tivo Reciever - Can I hook the two LNB lines from the dish directly into the receiver without using a multiswitch ?

I can use that as a testing measure for best possible picture that I am going to get.

 

[matthpd195]

Yes, you could do that. The other receiver that was hooked to the multiswitch could not be used then.

 

[Briman]

But I can run two extension cables from where the Satelite leads stop and ensure that I have them terminated correctly, and plug them into the tivo unit. The tivo unit is connected through S-Video to the TV.

The following picture quality is the best that it's going to get.

 

[dcbag]

Have you tried turning the sharpness level on your tv almost all the way down. I'm pretty sure this will get rid of the grainess.