DVDs look blurry on HDTV

[musica123]

I just got a Samsung P2570HD TV to replace my 20 year old regular TV.

When I tried to hook my phillips 5140 dvd player and watch DVDs on my HDTV, I noticed that the picture quality was worse than my old standard TV. The picture on the HDTV looks very blurry and grainy. Does anyone know how I can fix it or does this normally happen?

Thanks!

[edDV]

I just got a Samsung P2570HD TV to replace my 20 year old regular TV.

When I tried to hook my phillips 5140 dvd player and watch DVDs on my HDTV, I noticed that the picture quality was worse than my old standard TV. The picture on the HDTV looks very blurry and grainy. Does anyone know how I can fix it or does this normally happen?

Thanks!

How do you have it connected? HDMI? Analog Component?

Are these store bought DVD or burned discs?

Are you feeding 480i, 480p, 1080i or 1080p?


PS: I see that the 5140 doesn't upconvert or have HDMI out.

In 480i analog component mode, the HDTV will handle the processing.

In 480p analog component mode, the player will handle the processing.

Try it both ways for progressive and interlace discs. See which works better.

[musica123]

I connect using the AV IN / red, white and yellow components.

I am using store bought DVDs but I noticed everything, even the loading screen on the dvd player looks much more blurred than it was on my standard non HDTV.

[Lawbringer]

Does that player support component out? Those are the red, green, and blue hookups for video (you can still use the red and white for audio), as opposed to the single yellow connector. If it does, I'd strongly recommend getting a set of component cables - if you get them online, they shouldn't be more than $10.

Once you get the cables, you'll need to change the output settings on the player (look up the directions online if you don't have the manual) to output progressive via component. You should notice quite a bit of a difference. Also, you may want to consider upgrading to a DVD player that outputs HDMI at some point.

Having an HD TV and playing stuff over composite (RWY) is like having a Ferrari and filling it up with Diesel

[edDV]

You need use analog component cables (Green, Blue, Red) for the best quality video for that player.

Experiment with 480i and 480p settings in the DVD setup menu.

[orsetto]

Standard definition DVD just doesn't look very good on most LCD HDTV monitors, especially the cheaper ones like this Samsung (which are really designed primarily to be PC monitors with secondary TV use as an option). It takes a long time until your eyes make the adjustment and your brain compensates for how bad SD looks on an HDTV: eventually it won't bother you so much, but coming fresh off an old CRT television can be a shock. HDTV ain't all it was promised to be: nice with the signals it likes, not so great with everything else.

[edDV]

Maybe. Mileage varies.

But if musica 123 is using a composite NTSC (Yellow) connection from a DVD player he is reducing chroma bandwidth to 0.5 MHz per component vs. ~ 3 MHz for analog component (Y, Pb, Pr). Not to mention cross-color issues for composite decoding.

One step at a time. Try an analog component cable connection with your current DVD player. Around $9 at Walmart.

Next step is a newer, better DVD player. After that the next step is Blu-Ray player and Blu-Ray discs.