Philips dvr 3506/37 - bad picture

[Psco2007]

This unit is connected to a Panasonic TV via hdmi and optical audio, through a surround system.
The tv picture, when watching through the dvr is terrible and consequently, the recording.
The closed captions also do not show, even though they are there and do show when played on another dvd player.
Any suggestions appreciated, since Philips will not talk to you if the product is past warranty.
This is, by about one month.
I e-mailed them and the reply ( generic) was - look through the Yellow Pages and call a service center.
Do not purchase anything by Philips if you want to keep your sanity.
Thanks for any input.

[jagabo]

Was the picture quality OK before? What happens if you connect the DVD player directly to the TV via HMDI?

[Psco2007]

The dvd recorder is connected to the tv via hdmi and connected via red/white to surround sound unit.
The picture, when viewing through the dvd recorder has always been bad.

[usually_quiet]

This unit is connected to a Panasonic TV via hdmi and optical audio, through a surround system.
The tv picture, when watching through the dvr is terrible and consequently, the recording.
The closed captions also do not show, even though they are there and do show when played on another dvd player.
Any suggestions appreciated, since Philips will not talk to you if the product is past warranty.
This is, by about one month.
I e-mailed them and the reply ( generic) was - look through the Yellow Pages and call a service center.
Do not purchase anything by Philips if you want to keep your sanity.
Thanks for any input.

HDMI does not transmit the part of the signal that contains the DVD's closed captions. You should use S-Video (first choice) or composite (second choice) and interlaced, not progressive, output to see the DVD's closed captioning. Your TV will likely upscale as well or better than your DVD recorder if you purchased it within the last 3 years.

[Psco2007]

This unit is connected to a Panasonic TV via hdmi and optical audio, through a surround system.
The tv picture, when watching through the dvr is terrible and consequently, the recording.
The closed captions also do not show, even though they are there and do show when played on another dvd player.
Any suggestions appreciated, since Philips will not talk to you if the product is past warranty.
This is, by about one month.
I e-mailed them and the reply ( generic) was - look through the Yellow Pages and call a service center.
Do not purchase anything by Philips if you want to keep your sanity.
Thanks for any input.

HDMI does not transmit the part of the signal that contains the DVD's closed captions. You should use S-Video (first choice) or composite (second choice) and interlaced, not progressive, output to see the DVD's closed captioning. Your TV will likely upscale as well or better than your DVD recorder if you purchased it within the last 3 years.

I can receive the closed captions on 2 other dvd players if I hook them up in place of the dvd recorder,so I think it is a problem with this recorder.

[jagabo]

Here's the situation as I understand it:

HDMI carries an uncompressed picture. It has no side band to send closed caption text to the TV. So when receiving a picture via HDMI the TV can't display CC text, it's not receiving it. That means it's the job of the DVD player to draw the CC text onto the picture before sending the picture to the TV. Check your DVDR for such a CC option. It sounds like your other players have the option and it's already enabled.

[Psco2007]

[QUOTE=jagabo;1991192]Here's the situation as I understand it:

HDMI carries an uncompressed picture. It has no side band to send closed caption text to the TV. So when receiving a picture via HDMI the TV can't display CC text, it's not receiving it. That means it's the job of the DVD player to draw the CC text onto the picture before sending the picture to the TV. Check your DVDR for such a CC option. It sounds like your other players have the option and it's already enabled.[/QUOTE

The only option on the dvd recorder is to turn on and off the cc for tv, not dvd.

[usually_quiet]

With regard to closed captioning, there is probably nothing wrong with your DVD recorder. There is a nice long thread on HDMI, progressive output, and closed captioning here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=699933
that may explain why they work for your DVD players work but not your DVD recorder.

I know at least some Philips DVD recorders decode and display digital closed captions, and can record them as open captions, but the closed captioning on DVDs is analog. As far as I can find out, the Philips DVD recorders don't decode them, though they should pass them along in a signal that is not upconverted by the recorder, as long as interlaced output and something other than HDMI or component is used for the connection.

[Psco2007]

With regard to closed captioning, there is probably nothing wrong with your DVD recorder. There is a nice long thread on HDMI, progressive output, and closed captioning here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=699933
that may explain why they work for your DVD players work but not your DVD recorder.

I know at least some Philips DVD recorders decode and display digital closed captions, and can record them as open captions, but the closed captioning on DVDs is analog. As far as I can find out, the Philips DVD recorders don't decode them, though they should pass them along in a signal that is not upconverted by the recorder, as long as interlaced output and something other than HDMI or component is used for the connection.

As I said before, when watching tv through the dvd recorder, cc does show. It is only when watching a dvd that it does not.
Anyway, thanks to all for their help- my main concern was getting a better picture through the dvd recorder when using it to watch tv - I guess the tuner is not that great.

I should also mention that if cc is analog, why does it show on my tv when I am watching a digital channel on the tv?

[usually_quiet]

As I said before, when watching tv through the dvd recorder, cc does show. It is only when watching a dvd that it does not.
Anyway, thanks to all for their help- my main concern was getting a better picture through the dvd recorder when using it to watch tv - I guess the tuner is not that great.

I should also mention that if cc is analog, why does it show on my tv when I am watching a digital channel on the tv?

When you are watching TV through the DVD recorder and have its CC function turned on, you are seeing digital closed captions decoded by the DVD recorder. As I said before, a DVD's closed captions are analog, and your DVD recorder can't decode them. All it can do is pass them along, assuming you don't choose a connection and format that excludes the part of the signal that carries them.

Digital TV incorporates analog closed captioning as well as digital closed captioning. Analog closed captioning is encoded in the MPEG-2 user data, the same place that it is stored for DVDs. When the digital data is transformed into an analog signal, the closed caption data is placed in line 21, just like it was in an analog broadcast TV signal.

As far as the picture goes, it may be the tuner or the video decoder, and there is likely nothing you can do to fix that yourself.

[jagabo]

Analog video carries the CC text encoded as part of the picture at the very top of the frame (on scan line 21). If you have a TV that lets you see the entire frame (most hide the outer edges of the picture) you can see the CC data as a bunch of flickering line segments at the top of the screen. A TV can decode that data into text (and instructions about where the text goes) and draw closed captions onto the screen.

DVD MPEG 2 does not encode the CC data as part of the picture but rather as a separate stream of data. The DVD player must put this data on line 21 before sending the analog video to the screen. But this only works when the player is putting out 480i video. Then the TV will see the line 21 data, decode it and draw the CCs to the screen. Another possibility is that the DVD player could decode the CC data from the MPEG file and burn CC text into the picture before sending the picture to the TV. This could work in all output modes but I suspect few, if any, DVD players can do this.

So, the bottom line is that the DVD player must somehow overlay the CC data onto the video stream it sends to the TV.

When you are using the DVD recorder's tuner the CC line 21 data is already part of the picture (put there by the broadcaster). That's why the TV can display CCs when you watch broadcast TV.