Standard cable on hdtv...

[bla4free]

Hi. I just bought a 19" hdtv for my kitchen. I'm plugging standard cable in it (from Cox cable) and the picture looks absolutely awful. It's really grainy and I'm unsure if it's supposed to look like that or if there is something wrong w/ the tv. Will someone please help me! Thanks!

[edDV]

Hi. I just bought a 19" hdtv for my kitchen. I'm plugging standard cable in it (from Cox cable) and the picture looks absolutely awful. It's really grainy and I'm unsure if it's supposed to look like that or if there is something wrong w/ the tv. Will someone please help me! Thanks!

What is the make and model number of the TV?

Have you tried connecting it to a cable box using S-Video or analog component? If it looks good there, the TV tuner is at fault.

[budz]

Hi. I just bought a 19" hdtv for my kitchen. I'm plugging standard cable in it (from Cox cable) and the picture looks absolutely awful. It's really grainy and I'm unsure if it's supposed to look like that or if there is something wrong w/ the tv. Will someone please help me! Thanks!

Standard cable will look grainy on a HDTV unless you have digital cable. This is a common problem when consumers buy a HDTV then take it home thinking it's going to look good just like how it was in the store.

[edDV]

A key feature to look for is clear QAM tuning if you plan to connect to a cable without a cable box. That will at least get the locals in digital (SD or HD) quality. If you want all the cable channels, look for a model that supports "cable card".

[jman98]

Avoid using S-video input unless you have no choice as it is a low quality video input and will look like crap on any HDTV. Try to connect your cable box, assuming you have one, via either DVI or component cables and you should get a better picture. If you are just connecting a coax cable directly to your HDTV and bypassing the cable box, you'll never get a very good picture as coax is a low quality video input.

Assuming you get the video input for the cable from a high enough source, my next suggestion would be that you NOT just do what 95% of Americans do and just set the TV to 16:9 for everything. Doing this WILL make standard definition cable look worse every time, even with a high quality input. It's really best to switch between 4:3 and 16:9 depending on your source, but if you want to do like almost everyone does and just have a "one size fits all" setting of 16:9 for everything, there's not really anything anyone can do to make standard definition cable look better when it's stretched.

[edDV]

... If you are just connecting a coax cable directly to your HDTV and bypassing the cable box, you'll never get a very good picture as coax is a low quality video input.

Unless the TV tuner can direct tune digital cable (clearQAM and "CableCard")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAM_tuner

[buttzilla]

Call cox up i'm sure they have a hd box. You need a digital box or hd box with component out. Without a box it will always look like shit.