Issue with new LCD TV

Ki-Ki

Ki-Ki

Veteran
Bought a new 42" LCD HD TV on Finance a few days ago, but I can't for the life of me work out why It's so blurry. We hope to get Sky HD television soon. So for now it is in Standard Def', but I just never imagined it'd be so low quality without HD.

There must be something we missed when setting it up, I'm currently typing this on it now - connected with a PC. And the picture is amazing..

Just not the television itself. Even the 360 on HD isn't that crisp. It's good.. but no cookie.
 
It's probably just the difference between SD and HD. Especially if you're watching SD stretched out to 1080p.
 
Yeah it's a 1080.

I thought that'd be the simple 'solution', i've just read around about all this CTD and Plugs, switches, adapters and whatever else. Native resolutions. It's all to much, I just want to watch The New Doctor in a few weeks time, and Jack Bauer getting his gun off with Cole.
 
Ki-Ki said:
Yeah it's a 1080.

I thought that'd be the simple 'solution', i've just read around about all this CTD and Plugs, switches, adapters and whatever else. Native resolutions. It's all to much, I just want to watch The New Doctor in a few weeks time, and Jack Bauer getting his gun off with Cole.
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Yes, an HD set will often just magnify the problems of SD resolution. Some TV sets are better at upconversion than others. My old Sony LCD TV did a fantastic job. My new TV, not so great. Calibrating the television will probably improve things. Contrast is usually jacked up to 100 out of the box and it shouldn't be anywhere near there. Bring it down to at least 75. If you have a DVD that has a THX optimizer on it just run though it and you should get your set looking its best.
 
How are you hooking up your 360? If you don't have the HDMI out on your box (mine doesn't have it), it won't be as clean. If you ARE using Component cables, make sure the HD switch is turned on.
 
Yup, on our 67" HD 1080P signals look magnificent, and SD signals frequently look like they're cobbled together out of golf balls. It's just the way of things.

The 360 looks great, though, at least with the right games. Check those cables!
 
SD does not look good on most HD TVs. DVDs with movies look fine, which makes me think that the culprit is (1) interlacing and (2) too low bitrate for SD TV programming.
 
All SD looks like absolute garbage on an HDTV - no exceptions.

Of course, you have varying degrees of garbage, from trash can to landfill, with DVD being on the trash can end, and DTV leaning towards landfill.
 
RX782 said:
All SD looks like absolute garbage on an HDTV - no exceptions.
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This is not necessarily true. It's mostly true today because the sets have gotten so cheap, and HD more widely adopted, that manufacturers throw in the cheapest conversion chips on the market. A good processor can make SD looked fairly decent on an HDTV. My previous HD set cost 2,000 bucks and had a faroudja chip that made SD pretty watchable. My new set cost 600 bucks and SD looks like crap. There are also variations in quality due to cable and satellite compression.
 
Batutta said:
This is not necessarily true. It's mostly true today because the sets have gotten so cheap, and HD more widely adopted, that manufacturers throw in the cheapest conversion chips on the market. A good processor can make SD looked fairly decent on an HDTV. My previous HD set cost 2,000 bucks and had a faroudja chip that made SD pretty watchable. My new set cost 600 bucks and SD looks like crap. There are also variations in quality due to cable and satellite compression.
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I was speaking from a highly subjective point of view :thumbsup:

Would definitely have to agree on the the conversions as far as interlacing goes though. Some sets barely remove the artifacts, whereas the faroudja sets completely eliminate it.
 
So trying to sum up, you guys reckon it's the norm' to have crappy quality with SD on a HD.

That's good, to some extent then.

With the 360 the 6 cables are going directly into the back of the TV, and the switch is set at the HD end instead of.. well, whatever the other end is. We need some new games to, so I think i'll check them out when I go out, see if there's any spec's or if the newer games have anything I'm missing. Battlefield Bad Company 2 please. :)

Btw Max, I'd love to see a picture of that beast!
 
Ki-Ki said:
Btw Max, I'd love to see a picture of that beast!
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LivingRoomPan_R004.jpg
 
:) the pic was taken before I got the XBox...

...tried hooking the PS1 up the Samsung. Uck. Pixels the size of golf balls.
 
Considering the original playstation rarely even rendered full SD, that's only natural! (Also don't expect a PS3 to help, it doesn't render anything in HD, it merely blows up the SD image and blurs it out to alleviate the color limitations).

Even a 360 or PS3 though, doesn't fully render in 1080p (and many games don't even hit 720!), with many of them topping out at 768p. The common practice is to render to 1280x720, or 1024x768, then upscale (in-game) to the desired resolution (be it 720p or 1080p), and overlay the HUD graphics and such. This is done because razor sharp displays like HUDs and such would easily be recognized as sub-HD if they upscaled those as well.
 
Ki-Ki said:
With the 360 the 6 cables are going directly into the back of the TV, and the switch is set at the HD end instead of.. well, whatever the other end is.
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Wait ... 6? It's not really going to change anything, but you don't need that yellow one plugged in ... unless ...

Unplug the yellow cable and turn on your 360. If you can hear it, but not see it, you've been accessing the wrong AUX line. You're playing on RCA cables. If you still see the picture, then you're doing it right.
 
Hawk Teflon said:
Wait ... 6? It's not really going to change anything, but you don't need that yellow one plugged in ... unless ...

Unplug the yellow cable and turn on your 360. If you can hear it, but not see it, you've been accessing the wrong AUX line. You're playing on RCA cables. If you still see the picture, then you're doing it right.
Click to expand...

*Scratches head*

Okay, I'll give that a shot as soon as the gf stops dancing to Shania Twain, cheers!

@ RX782 -- The guy on the phone who sold it said something about the Xbox 360 Elite being able to give out 1080 HD. I'm not totally positive though, he sounded like a 15 year old cockney gangster.

@ Max -- Actually, never mind. Green with envy. Love the speakers.
 
Ki-Ki, I want you to cut the white ground wire with the blue stripe - not, I repeat not the black lead wire with the yellow stripe...
 
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