Mitsu 62" DLP poor cable picture...

[Justinf]

I am new to the whole large screen display arena. After much deliberation, I purchased a new Mitsu 62725 62" DLP display from Sound Advice. I got a great price and the picture is awe inspiring w/ a DVD and some cable channels. However, the majority of my cable channels give me a headache because they are either fuzzy or just poor quality.

I have a motorola digital cable box from Comcast w/ only a composite and coax output. (The new box will arrive on 11/12/05) My question is should I expect poor picture quality from cable? Will it improve w/ my HD box when it arrives?

Justin

 

[beam3]

Justin, unfortunately most of your cable channels will, well.....look like crap. I have Comcast also, and the only channels that look good to me are HBO & up. On the other hand, HD looks amazing.

 

[Hi Ho]

Standard definition TV will not look as good on an HDTV as it does on a standard definition TV. This is because the fixed pixel displays (LCD, DLP, LcOS, etc) are just that, fixed. They can display only one resolution, the native resolution. Anything signal that is not at the native resolution will have to be upscaled. Upscaling often introduces artifacts and the fuzziness that you have noticed. CRT displays do not suffer from this problem because they are not fixed can display many resolutions.

Not all of the channels on your digital cable are digital. In fact, most of the ones below, say, 70 something are probably analog. The analog channels will be the worst offenders. I am not sure, but i believe the digital cahnnels can have 480p which would be comparable to a DVD. With your HD cable box you will get a beautiful HD picture on the HD channels but the analog standard definition channels will be the same.

 

[Mort Corey]

I think that you'll see a noticeable improvement when you get your Motorola HD box. Component, DVI or HDMI will give you a better picture than the composite output of your present box. As said, the biggest area of improvement will be on the digital stations, likely above 100. You won't care about any of them because you'll become enamored with the HD channels....even if you do have to watch a lot of bug shows

Mort

 

[ironlung]

Hdtv=waste Of Money

Maybe in 5-10 years there will be some HD content!


Welcome to the club of HDTV owners that aren't kidding themselves.

 

[ironlung]

When pigs fly

I think that you'll see a noticeable improvement when you get your Motorola HD box.

There no connection in the world that can make comcast signal less compressed.

 

[Justinf]

Thanks fellas. That pretty much sums it up. Looks like it will be all HD and DVDs from now on...

Justin

 

[abboudc]

I'm in the same boat as you...got a tv this weekend.

To get HD, Comcast told me i needed to either
a) get a cablecard
b) get a cable box

Either way i had to upgrade to digital cable. Then i looked at the plans on comcast.com. It seems you only get like 8-10 HD channels, 6-7 of which you can get free. The only non-free ones that i saw were comcast sports, espn hd (which i will miss) and discovery hd.

So i bought an over the air antenna. I'm not paying $17/month for 6 channels i should get for free + 3 extra channels, two of which i'll never watch.

I also noticed that i seem to have digital cable already, or at least a bunch of channels. During setup, my tv discovered like 80 digital channels (none of which look any better than analog, btw). There are a bunch of music channels and repeats like CBS, NBC, ABC. I guess they can't turn them off and depend on people not having digital tuners?

All of the non-HD channels look TERRIBLE. Even the digital channels that claim to be 480i or 480p. I guess i'm the oddball, most of the stuff i watch is on the broadcast networks.