I just upgraded my cable STB from digital cable to an HD box. I have a Sony KDF-50WE655. The SD cable from my old STB was terrific! I mean it far exceeded my expectations for SD on my HDTV. Now that I upgraded to a high def STB, the SD channels really are aweful. Why would a manufacturer put such a bad SD tuner in a high def box? It blows my mind!
The cable guy said my only option would be to split the cable coming from the wall, and send one to the STB, and the other directly to my TV. He said I have a very strong signal coming to my house, and there'd only be a 3 "somethings" decrease in signal strength. That's cool, but I have to switch TV/receiver inputs all the time, and I lose the on-screen menus for the SD channels.
This stinks! The high def channels are amazing, but SD went from excellent to poor in my opinion.
Has anyone else experienced this? Any other options?
Klaus
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I had a similar thing and I upgraded to a HD DVR box and the problem went away. I think that the cable boxes are in many cases junk and that the tuner in the TV is much better. I would have them try another box and see if that helps. If you have the DVR option available, it may be better since you are saving the signal digitally then sending it to the set
Are you using a different connector? Specifically, are you using and HDMI/DVI connector?
Klaus
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I use component cables from Cable box and DVD recorder into surround receiver which does the device switching and then component cables from surround receiver to Component 1 on TV.
With the regular STB I was using an S-video cable. Now I'm using the highest quality Monster component cable you can get, so I doubt it's the connection.
Wow!!! I wonder why they would use an HD STB that displays SD worse than before. I wish cable, TV, STB and satellite companies would understand that the better they execute this transition to HD, the faster adopters will come. And the more $$$ they will make. It's these little things that cause people to decide to wait.
Klaus
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I think that it is not a matter of an STB with worse performance rather than spotty quality control that becomes evident with a digital display which does line doubling and other enhancement on 480i. Remember 480i is a "standard" and if the original broadcast is weak, those 480 interlaced lines are compromised, so that the line interpolation in the set is interpolating garbage. I have found that my Samsung hlp4674w gives a much better picture with Dnie and digital noise reduction both off. This lowers the amount of processing done to the feed and a more pleasing picture on analog and most digital channels since Brighthouse cable here in the Tampa area really bites.
I agree with you. I honestly wasn't expecting nearly the quality of SD channel display on my Sony that I was getting with the regular, digital STB. I was truly amazed how good it looked! The HD STB is what made it look a lot worse... nothing else.
I think we are saying the same thing. However, whether sptty quality control, it still means an inferior execution of SD from the STB. My question is why are they allowing this to happen?
FYI
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It's cable! CABLE SUCKS! Sat signal is the only consistant digital signal source for SD and HD, period.
I can't begin to tell you how many negative posts I've seen concerning cable and converter boxes and rookie cable techs and that god-aweful CableCard system. Why anybody puts up with it is beyond me. Oh...let's split it and deal with switching between two inputs. Yea...split an already weak crappy signal and make it worse for your new big screen. It doesn't make any sense.
An expensive HD set deserves the best possible signal you can provide it. Cable will never measure up to the sat providers. Expect freeze-up, fragmentation, video and audio drop-out, missing channels, and cruddy NTSC analog (SD) that will always plague cable customers.
xvxvxvx
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All Sat signals are compressed, most cable companies have no need to compress the signals, ergo cable signals will always be cleaner, sharper and have less artifacts. Poor FYI, I think he is related to Vin.
xvxvxvx
FYI
Unregistered guest
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ergo my as$....
You have to live next to the dish garden to like cable damn tv. The only poor people are the ones on the ragged edge of cablevision.
And by the way, I happen to like ole Vin!
Define compressed signals...if you can! Do they crunch those little ones and zeros? Come on, xv.... give it a try! Better Google it so you don't screw it up!
Show me one post slam'n sat and I'll show you a hundred cable whiners.
xvxvxvx
Unregistered guest
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Show me one post slam'n sat and I'll show you a hundred cable whiners.
Perhaps because cable has 100 times as many users as Sat FYI. Please think before you write, I know it may cause a headache but in the long run it will drastically reduce your posts.
Another reason is that you post several times a day about how poor cable is yet you don't even have cable. Can you tell how a meal will taste by looking at a picture of it on your TV too FYI?
I see why you like Vin, opinions are easy to convey, facts take more work. I have a project for you, attempt to prove that SAT signals by your provider are not compressed for transmission and if you are successful I'll cancel my cable service and subscribe to Sat service for one year.
xvxvxvx
PS: In order to do so you will need to explain why all SAT boxes have that little MPEG2 decoder in them. Yu know the one that uncompresses the MPEG2 compression used in the SAT signal.
HD Fanatic
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Gentlemen, Don't mean to interupt your dispute, but wanted to comment on your discussion. xv, sure satellite signals are compressed which can cause artifacts, but the biggest problem with cable is that there are more ways that the signal can be introduced to interference. This was especially true in my old neighborhood, where the cabling and connections were getting old. I swear I had to call out the cable tech at least once a month due to ghosting and fuzzy video. Now this may not be the case in a newer subdivision, especially where they use fiber optics. In my own experience, satellite tends to be more consistant albeit with the occasional artifacts...
xvxvxvx
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Good points HD Fanatic,
My position is just that FYI states all cable is inferior to all SAT programming and for technical reasons this can just not be the case. Assuming the best possible SAT signal and the best possible cable data there is no comparison.
As for your points this would only be true on analog not digital signals.
PS: We do have all fiber in our city, just completed late last year.
xvxvxvx
FYI/DLP4me!
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What makes you think I don't have cable?
It happens to come in free since I have Comcast Internet. I worked for Warner/ATT Broadband/TCI for a decade, years ago. My home was the 25th amp from the dish garden. Each active device adds more noise to the signal. Slope/gain circuits and miles of copper attenuate as high freq's win the race againt low freq's. Think about all the fuses, all the faulty splices, all the cracks, squirrel teeth sharpening, bullet holes, tree rubs, weather and whatever allowing the ingress of commercial and private radio transmissions. What a disaster! It was a sweep techs nightmare! Dallas hardly ever met FCC specs for NTSC resolution in the field. Along came fiber-optic (my expertise) and cleaned up most of it. However, not to the home, rather, to the subdivision. Still, there's a few thousand feet of half inch CommScope and a few broadband amps before a (made in Mexico) tap feeds an RG6 to the home. A ground block and a few splits and fittings later, your lucky if you can get a watchable signal at all, much less think it's going to be consistant. Comcast owns the system now. No better! I went to T.I. as a engineer and have since retired.
What kind of compression/conversion do you think happens when RF is converted to light at the head-end then back to RF in the field. It's not CODEX, my friend.
My many posts against cable deal with lousy analog NTSC and inconsistant signal. It can't be argued!
CableCard is a joke. Those who try it will need therapy!
Some people know what there talking about xv.... I happen to be one of them, just like you!
chinese poet
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fyi
I have to back you up on this one cable tv has to many transmissions points,and if not for the use of fiber opt trunk cables reducing the amplifiers from 60 to about 15 or so they would have been out of business when sat tv reduced the size of the outside equipment.
were comparing operating speeds for cable in megahertz while sat transmission is around 14 ghz, cable has no chance against KU frequency.
being that radio frequency travels around the same speed as electromagnetic radiation and the dish receives sat tranmission at this speed why would you have a desire for a medium carry your signal?
epsecially when alot of times 2 transmissions from the same channel enter the cable . 1. from the broadcasted location 2. from the the radio signal floating around a unshielded leaky cable connectors
this causes the signal to travel at 2 different speeds and it looks like crap on you set mpeg compression or not!
all in all the cable company recieves the signal from a sat and sends it to you through another medium,so why not send the signal from your own yard? makes since to me.