LCD TV and standard cable??

[jkirksey1889]

Why does my old crt tube tv I have in the bedroom have a better picture on regular cable than my new lcd tv?

LG42LD550 is the model number.

Is there a setting or something that I need to change? Watching digital channels the picture is great on the lcd but regular cable channels are much better on the older tv's.

Thanks.

 

[MDS]

Why does my old crt tube tv I have in the bedroom have a better picture on regular cable than my new lcd tv?

Mainly because those channels are standard definition (480i) and must be scaled to a higher resolution and rendered on a much larger display area.

LCD TVs are 'fixed pixel' displays meaning they have one and only one resolution called its native resolution. For example, if it is a 'Full HD' display it has a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 (1080p). All input signals regardless of their original resolution must be scaled and/or deinterlaced to 1080p.

So when you scale and deinterlace a standard definition signal to 1080p some small artifacts can be introduced. Couple that with the fact the display area of the HDTV is generally much larger than most CRTs and the pixels on the HDTV can only be placed so close together and sometimes you get some grain or a 'soft' (ie. kinda unsharp or hazy) image.

The closer you sit to the TV the more those minor defects become evident. For example, if I sit 6 feet away from my 52" LCD, HD channels look excellent but if I sit that close and watch a regular channel that started out as 480i, it looks terrible. Step back to a normal viewing distance of 12 feet and even the SD channels look ok.

 

[Midwesthonky]

MDS beat me to the punch with his response. I have a similar issue and I resolved it by avoiding the standard definition channels as much as possible. I have an old CRT that is 32" and my HD is 65" or just over double. So yeah, it may look ok on the old one but no way on the HD set.

I admit it, I am spoiled by HDTV. Everything else looks like crap in comparison.

 

[jinjuku]

Why does my old crt tube tv I have in the bedroom have a better picture on regular cable than my new lcd tv?

LG42LD550 is the model number.

Is there a setting or something that I need to change? Watching digital channels the picture is great on the lcd but regular cable channels are much better on the older tv's.

Thanks.

Yep, reruns of M*A*S*H all the sudden don't look so good on a HD Panel.

 

[Pyrrho]

Why does my old crt tube tv I have in the bedroom have a better picture on regular cable than my new lcd tv?

LG42LD550 is the model number.

Is there a setting or something that I need to change? Watching digital channels the picture is great on the lcd but regular cable channels are much better on the older tv's.

Thanks.

It is primarily a function of the size of the TV and the distance you sit from it. The bigger the TV at any given distance, the more details you will be able to see (as the details are physically bigger on a bigger TV). So, a picture that looks fine on an old 27" 4:3 NTSC TV may look terrible on a 42" 16:9 TV at the same distance, because the picture is bigger and it may be that the level of detail in the signal isn't high enough for the larger TV to look clear.

You may (or may not) have noticed years ago with old NTSC TVs in the store, standing close to them, a little 13" TV may seem to have a sharper picture than a 27" TV. That is because the defects are vastly bigger on a 27" TV (over 4 times bigger).

Add to that the scaling mentioned by MDS and matters get even worse. But simply having a very large NTSC TV would look like crap if one is too close to it, but with HD, there is more detail, so one can sit closer to it without it being a problem. There are, however, limits. With your TV, with a 1080p signal off of a good BD (Blu-ray), if you have 20/20 vision, it will look clear at only 5.46 feet away (or further away, obviously). But with a 720p signal, such a size would only look perfectly clear at 8.19 feet (any closer, and the picture will look "soft" and start to look bad, the closer one getting, the worse it will look). And with a 480i signal, you will need to be much further back for it to look equally clear. These things are all assuming that the source makes maximum use of the format, and isn't from a bad print of a film or some other such issue. And with standard cable, we are talking about an analog signal that is subject to all sorts of problems, so you are unlikely to even be getting the full possible detail from a 480i signal.

In general, to have a TV signal look its best, you will NOT want to enlarge it or stretch it or any other thing, so that a 4:3 signal will take up only the center part of a 16:9 screen and have black or grey bars on the sides. If you make it bigger, you will make the defects bigger and consequently the picture will look worse.

 

[Pyrrho]

Yep, reruns of M*A*S*H all the sudden don't look so good on a HD Panel.

I would imagine that quite a few of the owners of such shows regret the decision to use video tape instead of film. Older shows that were filmed look much better, like Star Trek and The Prisoner. Both look amazing on BD, with Star Trek one seeing a bit too much detail, if you know what I mean. Of course, if one likes looking at styrofoam rocks in glorious detail, one may not know what I mean.

 

[jkirksey1889]

I want to thank everyone for the input. But I have some more info that might help you all to better help me. I also have a Sony Wega Tv that is 1080 compatible (the kind that has a flat and wide screen and can play 1080p but deep, not flat panel) and the picture on it through standard cable looks way better than my newer flat panel. It's not even close.

I mean, the picture is so bad that surely LG wouldn't put something out that would look like it does using standard cable. The older Sony with almost the same size screen and also HD is at least 10x the better picture.

I don't have any interest watching the newer TV unless I put in a Blu-Ray or something.

It's terrible! I wish it was just BAD, maybe I would be able to deal with it then.

Thanks.

 

[highfigh]

I want to thank everyone for the input. But I have some more info that might help you all to better help me. I also have a Sony Wega Tv that is 1080 compatible (the kind that has a flat and wide screen and can play 1080p but deep, not flat panel) and the picture on it through standard cable looks way better than my newer flat panel. It's not even close.

I mean, the picture is so bad that surely LG wouldn't put something out that would look like it does using standard cable. The older Sony with almost the same size screen and also HD is at least 10x the better picture.

I don't have any interest watching the newer TV unless I put in a Blu-Ray or something.

It's terrible! I wish it was just BAD, maybe I would be able to deal with it then.

Thanks.

Broadcast TV and a HD source are far from the same. It's all about making one signal fit a display, mathematically. The TV video format existed ling before the HD standards were though of and they have to make everything so old TVs can still display the video, which is just a compromise.

http://www.lyberty.com/encyc/articles/tech/vid_horizontal_resolution.html

 

[Hi Ho]

I mean, the picture is so bad that surely LG wouldn't put something out that would look like it does using standard cable. The older Sony with almost the same size screen and also HD is at least 10x the better picture.

The difference is that the Sony is a CRT. CRT's are not fixed pixel displays. They can adapt to the resolution of the source content without the need for scaling.

The fact is that standard definition TV does not look great on modern flat panel displays. There is no getting around it.

If you are that unhappy with the picture you may want to try a different set. Some sets definetly do a better job with SD than others. In my opinion, plasma copes better with SD than LCD. Panasonic, in particular, does quite well with scaling SD source material.

Are you watching basic analog cable? Do you have a cable box?

 

[jkirksey1889]

Yeah, just basic cable, no box. Just screw the cable into the TV. This is gonna change. I plan to move up (seems like I dont have a choice now) to Direct TV or HD cable or whatever. I was just frustrated by how much better the older Sony looked that my newer TV.

Thanks everyone.

 

[highfigh]

Yeah, just basic cable, no box. Just screw the cable into the TV. This is gonna change. I plan to move up (seems like I dont have a choice now) to Direct TV or HD cable or whatever. I was just frustrated by how much better the older Sony looked that my newer TV.

Thanks everyone.

You'll have good picture quality with the HD channels but the SD channels probably won't look great. Whether it's with the built-in tuner or some kind of set top box, SD is still similar to pounding a square peg into a round hole.

 

[jkirksey1889]

You'll have good picture quality with the HD channels but the SD channels probably won't look great. Whether it's with the built-in tuner or some kind of set top box, SD is still similar to pounding a square peg into a round hole.

I can deal with not looking great. I can deal with the picture I had in 1980. This newer TV is the worst picture I've ever seen on regular cable. Wll I did have a TV that went completely black once and the picture I have now did look better than that but....

I was watching a basketball game last night. I have a long living room/dining room combined. I have the newer LCD in the living room part and the older HD Sony TV in the dining room part. From my couch I can see both TV's. The difference was unbelievable. On the newer TV I could barely tell who the players were. I think the only way I could tell who they were was by knowing their shapes. I couldn't see their faces and no way in heck could I tell what number was on their jersey.

Looking at both TV's at the same time on the same channel I would have sworn the newer more expensive TV was the Sony that weighs 202 lbs.

I feel like I'm stressing just how bad the picture is hoping someone would suggest something. I understand the picture may not be good with the newer TV but for me to believe it should be that bad seems like a stretch.

I dont know.

But thanks to everyone that has replied. I really appreciate the input.

 

[jostenmeat]

I have never seen a picture that looked more awful than SD on certain LCD televisions. I don't ever recall seeing SD on any LG LCD panel though.

I would also consider exchanging your tv for a Panasonic plasma. I typically compare SD on those to "HD-lite" on an LCD panel. I believe this will be the best bet, considering the money you have spent on the LG.

If your overall play money budget was bigger, those who really care seem to often say that you cannot beat an aftermarket outboard video processor to do all of the deinterlacing and scaling. Who knows though . . .

It would probably be a lot cheaper to get that VP in your next receiver upgrade, if with less flexibility (and perhaps performance)?

For the time being, if I was in your shoes, I'd start playing with settings on the TV to hopefully take a little bit of the offensive edge off. For starters, I'd make sure frame interpolation is defeated as much as possible (called Tru Motion on yours). FI should instead be called Fake Interpolation in my opinion, and for LG, they should call it False Motion. I'd also throw it on the most color accurate mode for the hell of it, surely cinema/film or something of that nature.