New Directv Hd Poor Sd Picture

[cabrat]

Most of the people I talked to before I bought my TV said they couldn't really see much difference between the HD and SD channels on most of the shows, aside for Sports and Nature shows...I sure can see a differnce..

 

[Indiana627]

Most of the people I talked to before I bought my TV said they couldn't really see much difference between the HD and SD channels on most of the shows, aside for Sports and Nature shows...I sure can see a differnce..

That's probably because a lot of people that have an HDTV don't subscribe to HD programming (most of them don't know they need to) and thus, SD and HD will look the same to them on their HDTV.

 

[Hemi 6.1]

HD tv is still new to millions,Not everyone knows that Just because you have an HD TV it doesn't make SD, HD. And there is still far more SD customers then HD!

 

[Indiana627]

True, but the scale is starting to tip, or at least level off. It's just sad that people spend this much $ on an HDTV and don't realize that they need to subscribe to HD programming, or at the very least get an antenna.

 

[levibluewa]

You Said It

Analog sd on cox cable looks better than Dish or directv SD Channels

MSNBC and Chiller look like crap. Comcast analog signal on the same set is clearer.

 

[FlyingJ]

My question then is....how come the freakin SD picture from D* looks a hell of a lot better on my SD TV (36 inch Toshiba), then it does on any of the HD TV's. Isn't it true that the HD sets just were not made to recieve SD signals that well??

 

[Hemi 6.1]

My question then is....how come the freakin SD picture from D* looks a hell of a lot better on my SD TV (36 inch Toshiba), then it does on any of the HD TV's. Isn't it true that the HD sets just were not made to recieve SD signals that well??

I agree with this. SD PQ on an HD tv IMO never looks even close as good as it does on my 32" Sony CRT tube tv. That TV is Number 1 in SD PQ in my house. My 37" Philips Looks GOOD ,but my 52" Sony looks OK, thats about it! Dishnetwork has the same results,but if you hook the SD TV2 option to an HD tv,Thats just like watching analog OTA.

 

[raoul5788]

stupid question from me....when the digital date comes up in feb09 will these 'sd" channels then look better ?

No, there is no connection between the analog cutoff date and the sd channels on Directv.

 

[GregLee]

I agree with this. SD PQ on an HD tv IMO never looks even close as good as it does on my 32" Sony CRT tube tv. That TV is Number 1 in SD PQ in my house. My 37" Philips Looks GOOD ,but my 52" Sony looks OK, thats about it!

So SD on 32" better than 37" better than 52". Notice a pattern?

 

[Kb Cool]

I am new to this so please be kind..I just purchased a Sony 52" XBR4 and had DirecTv hook up their new HD DVR and the new dish..My HD channels are great, my SD channels are terrible...I have had 2 DirecTv techs out and they both basically say that's the way it is, one actually said DirecTv made the new boxes do this so you can see how much better the HD picture is..I just fail to believe this is true...Can anyone give me some input on this? Thanks

How's SDDVD look? If it looks okay then it must be DirectTv's over-compressed SD.

 

[FlyingJ]

How's SDDVD look? If it looks okay then it must be DirectTv's over-compressed SD.

Now that is a freakin good point that I have never thought of. Makes me say, "Hmmmm"? But once again, not just D*'s, everyones that I have seen.

 

[joed32]

So SD on 32" better than 37" better than 52". Notice a pattern?

Yes! The larger the TV the worse SD looks.

 

[dneisij]

You guys are missing one of the main reasons SD channels look like crap on HDTVs. An SD picture is generally less than 300 lines. An HDTV has way more resolution.

Think of it this way. Open a small picture on your PC with a resolution of about 400x300 pixels. It looks fine but it only takes up a small part your screen. Now Set that as your desktop picture and tell windows to stretch the picture to fit your whole display. Now depending on what you screen resolution is set to the same picture will either look really bad or completely crappy. This is because you're taking a picture with low resolution and trying to display it on a high resolution display.

 

[uscboy]

It's not all just SD's fault, providers are of course compressing those channels. But even
good SD is garbage compared to HD. And I've had friends also that say they can't see the
difference when I show them... I think they're crazy.

Anyway, something no one has mentioned yet I think... make sure you aren't stretching
those SD channels to fill the screen. That'll just make a bad situation worse.

Also, don't crank your sharpness up in your TV settings. Only enough to make it so you can't
see the artifacting on HD channels from your viewing distance. On my 46" Bravia it's set to 15
I believe. But it can depend on how close you're sitting - I have to be 6-7ft back from the 46"
set to prevent seeing the blockiness even in HD... what's your viewing distance?

 

[dneisij]

One more thing. SD pictures are converted on your HDTV by a video processor that upconverts your picture. TVs with better processors will have better looking SD. It is because of these poor video processors that some DVD players have been incorporating their own upconverting video processors which do a much better job than most TVs. The problem is that only your DVDs will look better but not your cable, satellite, etc.

There are definitely some TVs that upconvert well enough that SD looks pretty good and an upconverting DVD player isn't necessary. Unfortunately there are not enough reviews out there that compare this.

 

[WilliamC]

My question then is....how come the freakin SD picture from D* looks a hell of a lot better on my SD TV (36 inch Toshiba), then it does on any of the HD TV's. Isn't it true that the HD sets just were not made to receive SD signals that well??

Your missing a very large piece of the puzzle here. Those SD tubes were designed to take 480i. Thats 480 lines of resolution max! What you were feeding it varied from 300-480 depending on the source so the TV will look great when its receiving close to its max res. Now you have HDTV with a native res that is much higher than SD-TVs. 720p or 1080i/p and all the other random native resolutions that panels have mixed in between. That 480i signal needs to be taken and scaled and processed by the TV to match its native res, because the TV can't change its picture structure to another res. Everything that comes in needs to be scaled to its native res unless its already at its native res. Depending on the quality of the scaler/video processor of your set the PQ may look good, tolerable, or unbearable.
Another piece you are missing is that your new TV is larger than your old so defects get magnified. Back in the SD days few people saw those nifty interlaced lines because the displays weren't large enough. If you owned a big-screen in the SD days then you would see those lines across your screen. The larger the screen the more noticeable.