Help with poor non-HD picture

[TheDog]

Hi,

I have a question for you all. I have a JCV D-ILA 52" TV (1080i/720p) that presents a great HD picture, but a not-so good regular picture. It's regular TV picture is kind of blocky and gets worse if there is motion going on in the scene. One person says that there is nothing I can do about it as it is just that the cable signal is crappy in my area and therefore, a decent TV shows how bad it is. Another person says basically the same thing, but suggested that I install a RF amplifier to increase the signal and receive a better picture. If this low grade signal is true, wouldn't it affect the HD picture as well? Or does it and I'm just not used to seeing a good HD picture and that can be improved upon as well? Any comments on this problem or using a RF amplifier?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Hi Ho]

Standard definition cable typically looks terrible on an HDTV. Unfortunately there is probably nothing you can do about it. I doubt a signal amplifier would do much. Standard definition video on a high definition display is akin to taking a cell phone picture on your PC and blowing it up. It gets fuzzy and pixelated.

The quality of the source is most important but the scaler can also have a major impact. I have found that standard definition from Dish Network looks much better than cable, though that may be due to the better video processing present in the Dish DVR. That's not to mention that both satellite providers offer far more HD content than any cable provider.

 

[Davemcc]

I suffered and researched the H-E-double hockey sticks out of this issue and here's what I found. The signal amplifier will do nothing. I tried it, didn't work. The quality of the signal is the biggest culprit and changing providers is the most cost effective solution. Problem could be that you change providers and still don't get the quality you need, but you're locked into a multi year program/equipment contract.

My research led to find that the problem with the picture is compression artifacts, specifically mosquito noise and (the biggie) blocking artifacts. There are video processors out there that do a great job of minimizing these artifacts, but like all video processors they aren't cheap. One suggestion, if you could use a new receiver anyway, is to go with the Onkyo TX-NR905 which (according to their website) includes MNR and BAR in it's Reon HQV video processing.

My personal solution was to buy an Algolith Flea-HDMI, which performs exactly as advertised. It cleaned up what was a terrible SD image on my LCD display and made it a very good image. Ultimately, I changed providers as well but I still use the Flea. Interesting note, the other day I noticed that my SD images didn't look so good, so I went into the Flea menu to try and adjust the parameters a bit, but I found that somehow the processing was turned off. I turned the processing on again and the image was immediately improved.

As I said, neither processing option is cheap. The Onkyo runs about $2K, but has other desirable features as well, like HDMI 1.3a, torroidal power supply, etc. The Flea runs about $1K and has a number of usable video processing features that can be fine tuned for your signal quality and display. Or just change providers and hope for the best.

 

[TheDog]

Thanks for your input. I can live with the poor regular picture as most of my TV watching is HD content anyway. Typically, the most regular TV watching is stations like the sprout network, noggin and the Cartoon network by our two-year old.

I did figure out how to get a little better picture last night. Playing around with the aspect and putting the regular signal back to normal 4:3 ratio, instead of blowing the 4:3 picture up to fill the widescreen, does make a slightly better, albit smaller picture. Anyhow, thanks again for the input.

 

[TheDog]

Thanks Dave, a new receiver is on the horizon, but not just yet. I'll keep your advise in mind when I start looking. Changing providers is another possibility...Comcast is a real pain in my rear. I've been holding out on that because it seems that Verizon is putting FO cables in my area and FIOS may be offered soon.

 

[DMD123]

I have had poor picture quality issues from my cable company for a while. They give all kinds of excuses that you have an HD TV and you need this or that...

But I will say after calling Comcast I was happy that they took the time to come out and check what I was complaining about. What did they find? First the Home builder used cheap crimp on connectors that were not properly installed so I was picking up over the air signals through them. Second they measured my signal and found it was too low so they added an amp.

All in all standard def is still poor but much better than it was. It did not cost me any money just a little time waiting for the cable guy. You might see if they would come out and check your wires/signal.

 

[bandphan]

what cables are you running, what is the total setup?try feeding the sd signals thru s video

 

[fmw]

The only solution is a better scaler. I use DirecTV satellite. When I installed a receiver with a better scaler, things improved very noticeably. Otherwise, there isn't anything you can do. You're dealing with a low res compressed image that needs to go onto a fixed pixel display. Scaling is what handles that.

 

[ParadigmDawg]

I found my SD to be horrible but when I upgraded to the HD Sat box even the SD improved, that was an unexpected bonus.

 

[TheDog]

Thanks for all your replies. The first thing I'm going to do is clean up the mess of wiring and splitters (there are at least 4 seperate splitters) and create a simple 1-into-4 system. There are only 4 drops right now: Theater's main cable box DVR, 2 Bedroom cable boxes and a cable modem. The previous owners must have liked 1-into-2 splitters since there are 3 of them and a 1-into4. My house has cable going every which way, most are not even connected to anything. I figure that I should take care of that first, then see the the picture looks. I'll keep you posted...