Do all Large TVS have Bad Pic with SD?

[Idaho]

Hi. First post here.
So I got to REX to check out big screen TVs for the theater room I'm building. They look great! Lots of choices.

Then I ask to see what an SD satellite signal looks like. It looks like CRAP on EVERY TV except the CRT TVs. The salesman says it's their signal being split so many times and tries to convince me to take one home and it will be fine. Of course I don't believe him.

I went to Sears. They have one 50" plasma hooked up to SD satellite. This also looks like crap. I am viewing from 8 feet as that's where my closest seating position will be. I could not watch a picture that bad for very long. This salesman says all HD TVs do a bad job with SD signal and if I want a decent pic with SD signal I must use a non-HD TV. He shows me non-HD plasma sets but can't put a sat signal to really compare.

Now I'm stumped with my theater room plan. Most of what we watch will not be available in HD. I'd rather watch my 32" Sony non-HD CRT than a crappy big screen picture. I'm actually thinking of putting up a projector with a screen above my Sony just for HD material and movies but this is not really desirable.

I'm wondering why this problem isn't talked about more. Am I missing something?

Arlie

 

[apatel25314]

it is talked about alot and it is pretty much true, you could probably buy a really expensive scaler, but i dont think it would be worth it

 

[markw]

I think a lot depends on the signal itself and perhaps one's expectations.

I've only got a 32" HDTV running Comcast and yes, the HD does look great. The other digital signals (non-HD) look very, very good but, naturally, not as good as the HD ones do.

And, when using the built in ATSC tuner, the same applies to OTA signals as well. Actually, the OTA is just a teensy bit better, I think.

 

[Idaho]

SD on HD

Thanks for the replies.

mrkw
So you have a picture you regard as "very very good" using a 32" HDTV using cable signal. Is it a CRT?

I'm wondering what the cause of the bad picture is with these larger TVs even the ones well under 50". I understand the idea of seeing pixels looking at a big screen up close but it looked to me worse than that would explain. It seems the CRTs at REX were better.

Is it some degradation converting SD to work with an HDTV (you have a good picture so this seems unlikely) or is it that plasma/lcd/dlp displays require higher resolution to provide decent image quality? DVDs looked fine. I thought DVD and cable/sat were both 480 lines

With only a small fraction of cable/sat content in HD I take it there are loads of people watching bad picture quality on their nice new plasma/lcd/dlp TVs?
Seems bizarre.

I like to watch hockey. No way with SD on one of these.

Arlie

 

[MDS]

SD is low resolution - 480i. Anytime you take a low resolution image and blow it up to a much larger size, there are going to be artifacts.

Some scalers and video processors do a better job than others but in general you can't make a low resolution image 'better' than it was originally. Just think about taking a 3x5 picture and scaling it to 8x10 - it may still look good but it in no way gets better.

 

[Haoleb]

SD stuff on my 50' plasma looks ok, not as good as if i watch it on my 19" CRT though. I think part of that has to do with the HD box which seems to degrade SD signal as it seems to look better when i just plug the cable directly into the tv's built in tuner. I dont think it has as much to do with blowing it up as it does with how crappy the quality is that the cable companies put out.

DVD's are 480 and they look just fine. Even great. watching SD on our 110" projector it doesnt look really pixelated like its been blown up all to hell, It just looks crappy compared to something with a decent PQ. Football for example is not even watchable on the PJ in SD because you cant make out the players names or anything. It looks like crap. HD is awesome though. I just wish cable companies would dump this SD crap and get on the bandwagon and pick up more HD channels. I would gladly give up 10-20 SD channels to get one more HD channel.

 

[darien87]

I have a CRT projection TV and yes, SD does look like complete ***! It's so bad that I almost wanted to return the TV. But HD and DVD's look so awesome that I just live with it. I actually hardly watch any of the SD channels anymore. I just make do with the 20 or so HD channels I have.

 

[markw]

Thanks for the replies.

mrkw
So you have a picture you regard as "very very good" using a 32" HDTV using cable signal. Is it a CRT?

No, It's a Toshiba 32HL66

I'm wondering what the cause of the bad picture is with these larger TVs even the ones well under 50". I understand the idea of seeing pixels looking at a big screen up close but it looked to me worse than that would explain. It seems the CRTs at REX were better.

Is it some degradation converting SD to work with an HDTV (you have a good picture so this seems unlikely) or is it that plasma/lcd/dlp displays require higher resolution to provide decent image quality? DVDs looked fine. I thought DVD and cable/sat were both 480 lines

With only a small fraction of cable/sat content in HD I take it there are loads of people watching bad picture quality on their nice new plasma/lcd/dlp TVs?
Seems bizarre.

I like to watch hockey. No way with SD on one of these.

Arlie

Again, I'm having a real problem trying to visualize "bad". SD is nowhere near as good andclear as HD but it's still[/1] very watchable. Perhaps it's the TV set and maybe I got lucky.

Again, the cable box upconverts everything to 10801, even the SD programs. But, even when I watch OTA, which comes in a mix of 480, 720 and 1080i, I still geta good picture.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Hi. First post here.
So I got to REX to check out big screen TVs for the theater room I'm building. They look great! Lots of choices.

Then I ask to see what an SD satellite signal looks like. It looks like CRAP on EVERY TV except the CRT TVs. The salesman says it's their signal being split so many times and tries to convince me to take one home and it will be fine. Of course I don't believe him.

I went to Sears. They have one 50" plasma hooked up to SD satellite. This also looks like crap. I am viewing from 8 feet as that's where my closest seating position will be. I could not watch a picture that bad for very long. This salesman says all HD TVs do a bad job with SD signal and if I want a decent pic with SD signal I must use a non-HD TV. He shows me non-HD plasma sets but can't put a sat signal to really compare.

Now I'm stumped with my theater room plan. Most of what we watch will not be available in HD. I'd rather watch my 32" Sony non-HD CRT than a crappy big screen picture. I'm actually thinking of putting up a projector with a screen above my Sony just for HD material and movies but this is not really desirable.

I'm wondering why this problem isn't talked about more. Am I missing something?

Arlie

One of your major problem is viewing distance and trying to equate resolution of different signal quality, 480i and HD signals. At 8 ft, you are even too close for 720p on a 50" set, let alone a 480i DVD.

Here, have a look at this chart:

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/hitech/1137/maxing-out-resolution.html

Capture the chart image to desktop and open it as it will be large enough to see. You are well below the DVD line and some below the 720 line, meaning that you will notice signal differences.

And, you cannot increase resolution of a standard DVD, 480i as there is no extra info there. Chopping the 480i pixel squares into smaller pixels will not help.

 

[jeffsg4mac]

SD on my 106 in screen with my projector is UNWATCHABLE, I don't even bother.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

I'm wondering why this problem isn't talked about more. Am I missing something?

No. The 'standard def' was developed when TVs had 9 inch screens. Nobody could have possibly forseen 27", let alone 50"+ in the early 1950s.

Its kinda like you're the 1st 18 wheel driver encountering a 6' wide gravel road.....

 

[Hi Ho]

The picture quality of standard definition programming on an HD display has everything to do with the scaler that scales it to the resolution of the display. Unlike a CRT, digital displays have a fixed resolution and everything must be scaled to that resolution.

Some TV's do much better than others when it comes to scaling. Sharp TV's are among the best I've seen in this regard with Pioneer and Panasonic plasmas very close if not just as good. Sony LCDs vary by model. Some do OK with SD and some don't do well at all.

I have a Mitsubishi HD1000 projector and a Yamaha RX-V2700 receiver. I use the scaler in the receiver for DVDs and Tivo. DVDs look excellent and Tivo, feeding S-Video into the receiver, looks amazingly good. There are no glaring artifacts, text is clear, and there is no motion blur. I'd say SD looks better on my setup than most of the TVs I set up every day. Does SD look better on my 27" CRT? Yes, but it is certainly very watchable on the projector.

My experience with satellite that the non HD receivers generally look like crap on an HDTV. Having an HD satellite receiver makes a significant difference in the SD picture quality.

My experience is about the same with cable. I deal with Comcast Motorola boxes mostly and the difference in SD quality between the non HD boxes and HD boxes is significant.

I have seen mixed results using tuners in TVs. It may just be Comcast but I have found that when using the internal tuner usually results in a blury image on HD content and an even more blury image on SD content. This seems to be dependent on the signal itself.

 

[markw]

I don't think it's CRT vs. newer tech. It's the viewing distance.

What's the maximum size for a CRT? 42" or so? Proportionally, how far does one sit from a SD 4:3 CRT?

What's considered a large screen HDTV? Up to 100"' and more? Again, proportionally, how far does one sit from a new tech HD TV? Odds are it's a lot closer then the CRT.

So, you're sitting (proportionally) farther away from a relatively small screen CRT and comparing it's resolution while sitting (proportionally) closer to a much larger screen.

Since you can only expand a 480 (or any resolution for that matter) picture so many times (like the digital camera pixels example someone used), if you sit close enough to a big enough set, you're naturally going to see every imperfection possible. By the same token, If you sit close enough to a CRT you'll notice them, too.

All else being equal, if you're sitting the same actual distance from both, naturally the larger screen will be more likely to show any problems than the smaller screen, regardless of the technology employed.

But, if you sit far enough away from either, you won't notice them.

It's not a matter of CRT VS new tech, it's a matter of viewing distance.

 

[Hi Ho]

What's the maximum size for a CRT? 42" or so?

The biggest tubes ever made were 40". Both Sony and Mitsubishi made them. Just hope you never have to move one. I have, and probably will again.

It's not a matter of CRT VS new tech, it's a matter of viewing distance.

That's not entirely true. Yes, viewing distance has somthing to do with it but CRT can still do something that no other display can do. CRT does not have a fixed resolution. If something comes in at 480i it can be displayed at 480i with no scaling required. It's the scaling that introduced the artifacts that are most compained about when watching SD on an HD display.

 

[markw]

And again,

The biggest tubes ever made were 40". Both Sony and Mitsubishi made them. Just hope you never have to move one. I have, and probably will again.


That's not entirely true. Yes, viewing distance has somthing to do with it but CRT can still do something that no other display can do. CRT does not have a fixed resolution. If something comes in at 480i it can be displayed at 480i with no scaling required. It's the scaling that introduced the artifacts that are most compained about when watching SD on an HD display.

I sit about 7' from my 32" Toshiba LCD and still get a very satisfying 4:3 SD picture. Of course, HD is lots better.

I still think there's more to size/viewing distance than anything else. But, until we can compare a 100" CRT to a 100" LCD, it's all smoke in the wind. But, then again, if we keep the comparisons to 40" (and under) representatives of each technology, maybe a viable conclusion can be arrived at.

And, my B-I-L has one of those humonga CRT's and I plan to be unavailable when they want to move it. Let his three, strapping sons do it. They are the ones that moved it in in the first place.

 

[Hi Ho]

I still think there's more to size/viewing distance than anything else. But, until we can compare a 100" CRT to a 100" LCD, it's all smoke in the wind. But, then again, if we keep the comparisons to 40" (and under) representatives of each technology, maybe a viable conclusion can be arrived at.

There are 65" CRT RPTV's and there are 65" LCD and DLP RPTV's. Comparing the two, I'd say CRT models definetely have better SD picture quality. This is because they don't have to scale the picture to a specific resolution.

 

[markw]

There are 65" CRT RPTV's and there are 65" LCD and DLP RPTV's. Comparing the two, I'd say CRT models definetely have better SD picture quality. This is because they don't have to scale the picture to a specific resolution.

RPTV's don't figure into the equation. What's the size of the CRT inside? 9 - 12" or so?

Perhaps it's the way they implement these tiny LCD screens in these projection TV's.

Like I said, check out a clean SD signal on a 32" Toshiba (32hl66?) and you'll see that it's not bad at all. If it can look good on a 32" screen, hoccum they don't strive at least the same performance on a tiny screen? Are CRT's cheaper?

 

[Idaho]

SD on HD

It's apparent the reason for SD looking so bad is not entirely clear cut.

The explanation by Hi Ho makes the most sense to me.

The picture quality of standard definition programming on an HD display has everything to do with the scaler that scales it to the resolution of the display. Unlike a CRT, digital displays have a fixed resolution and everything must be scaled to that resolution.

Some TV's do much better than others when it comes to scaling. Sharp TV's are among the best I've seen in this regard with Pioneer and Panasonic plasmas very close if not just as good. Sony LCDs vary by model. Some do OK with SD and some don't do well at all.

I tried backing up to see if it was a distance problem. No matter how far I got the picture never got close to the quality I see with my 32" CRT. Sports were almost unwatchable at any distance. DVDs looked fine at 8 feet with ALL the sets I saw, even 60" sets. Yes I could begin to see pixels but very watchable. I also looked at the smallest plasma/lcd/dlp sets and they looked bad with SD, some worse than others. Also, my 32" CRT looks fine from 4 feet.

I know that's not going to convince everyone, but AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED IT SIMPLY IS NOT A DISTANCE PROBLEM.

I spent some time at a Circuit City store yesterday. Same results. The salesman there was candid, stating he actually shows each customer how bad their nice HDTV will look on SD to avoid callbacks (he's not on commission).

Again, I'm having a real problem trying to visualize "bad". SD is nowhere near as good andclear as HD but it's still[/1] very watchable. Perhaps it's the TV set and maybe I got lucky.

Again, the cable box upconverts everything to 10801, even the SD programs. But, even when I watch OTA, which comes in a mix of 480, 720 and 1080i, I still geta good picture.

The bad picture I'm talking about is not a subtle thing. Every person in the stores I was in was in total agreement. Maybe you did get lucky. The more I think about this the more I think it's a combination of cable/sat signal quality (why else would a DVD look SO much better?) and a scaling problem (why else would my 32" CRT look better at 4' than a 32" plasma at 8'?).

My wife went to a friend's house who recently bought a nice large screen TV. They had a cable program in SD playing. She did not say this to them of course but told me if that was the picture we'd have she'd rather not buy a bigger TV. Perhaps a lot of people buy their TV and can't accept that their picture could be bad since they just spent a lot of money so their brain somehow sees it as not being that bad. Maybe they think it was always that bad but HD is just so much better.

My experience is about the same with cable. I deal with Comcast Motorola boxes mostly and the difference in SD quality between the non HD boxes and HD boxes is significant.

I have seen mixed results using tuners in TVs. It may just be Comcast but I have found that when using the internal tuner usually results in a blury image on HD content and an even more blury image on SD content. This seems to be dependent on the signal itself.

The advice about using an HD satellite receiver also makes sense to me and I will definitely check that out as I plan to get one of those anyway. It gets tough to try to demo this kind of thing as stores don't have the equipment.

Bottom line, I have some work to do to come up with a solution that will be satisfactory while waiting for more HD content.

I appreciate all the input and will post my progress.

Arlie

 

[MDS]

It is both the scaling and the distance that affects SD quality. When I said before that blowing up a low resolution image to a larger size will always create artifacts I was talking about 'scaling' 480i to 720p or 1080i. The picture is larger but it is the same quality as it was originally.

Distance can hide some of the defects. No matter what the resolution, if you sit too close you can start to see the 'structure' of the display.

Set your computer monitor to 640 x 480 (which is roughly the resolution of 480i) and sit your normal two feet away from it - it looks like crap. Now back off to the other side of the room so that you are 10-12 feet away - doesn't look quite as bad.

 

[tbewick]

Broadcast standard definition and high definition are typically done at low bit rates which lower the picture quality in comparison to the uncompressed source. With MPEG-2, a BBC test reported that you need ~10 Mb/s for standard definition and 20 Mb/s for high definition in order to have a picture comparable to the uncompressed material. 10 Mb/s is above the level you usually get with DVD's, which normally hover around 8 Mb/s.

I sit at the maximum SMPTE projector viewing distance with my Pioneer plasma, at around 6 feet. The only problem here is a slight courseness to the picture due to the plasma's dot pitch. With DVD's I find the picture excellent, and this is using the 480i output of an entry-level DVD player. With broadcast TV, I usually lower the panel's contrast level and sharpness setting as this helps to hide much of the picture blockiness.

I think that high-quality DVD masters will be checked using reference-quality video processors and projectors/large LCD/plasma panels. With these display devices, the output will be the highest quality possible with standard definition. Geometry, shadow detail, effective contrast, and picture resolution will all be far superior than that of the best CRT's.