Sandard Definition Television Picture Quality Helpful Info
jamescrew
Unregistered guest
Posted on
I've read many posts on this board about the so so quality of standard definition picture quality and just discovered a possible solution that I thought I would share. Just got a Mitsubishi WD 52725 and had the cable company install a HD cable box/PVR combo. When I viewed the HD signals some were great and others were just very good but the standard definition picture quality was just so so. I talked to the sales rep at Tweeter about this and he said that many times the installers do not setup the cable boxes correctly. He noted that the cable box needs to be programmed to recieve the various signals to send to the tv (ie 480i, 1080i, 720p, 480p, etc). (as a side note, I can't speak highly enough about the friendly and helpful service Tweeter provided. I would highly recommend Tweeter) I called the cable company customer service and sure enough there is a setup wizard on the cable box. Went through the wizard and selected the signal inputs I wanted and discovered that it made a huge difference. All HD channels were beautiful and standard definition channels were much better than on my old CRT. Picture quality on all channels is now outstanding. So if your standard definition picture quality is not great check with your cable company or satellite company to see if the box needs to be setup. Hope this helps some.
I have found that my 52725 also has varying degrees of PQ on the SD programing. I have a HD DVR box from Charter cable. What model cable box are you using? Would you be able to provide the setup info that you used to configure your cable box, including how to access the setup wizard?
Thanks, Mike
jamescrew
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Mike, Cox cable uses the Scientific American HD box. It is a combo of a cable box and PVR in the same unit. The wizard is initiated by pushing two buttons on the front of the PVR at the same time and following the setup. I called Cox customer service and they led me through the setup. I would suggest that you call Charter cable and discuss this with them. In fact, I am having a Cox tech come over this Sat to check my signal strength and to look at the configuration to ensure it is setup correctly. Hope that this helps. It really made a difference in the picture quality on my set. Let me know if you have the Scientific American box and I will post what the tech does on this site.
Jamecrew, I believe I have the same HD DVR as you (HD8000). I went to Scientific Atlanta's website last night and downloaded the instructions for running the setup wizard. I set it up to only output 720P. I figured I'd let the cable box do any necessary upconverting since the TV would upconvert all signals to 720P. I noticed a definite improvement on the HD channels (both HD and SD programming). I didn't have much time to check on the SD channels. What I did see, looked better. I think the biggest issue is that the SD signal from the cable company is crap (lots of noise, etc) and therefore it just looks that much worse on a larger screen. My CRT TV's also look bad due to signal qualities. I'm going to give the cable company a call and see if they can clean up the signal at my house. Thanks again for the "tip" with the cable box.