Upgrading to HD

[jahill17]

Ok so I just bought this new 32inch HD Flat LCD Samsung TV...(LN-S3241D) The TV is sick!! So far I love it and I did my re-search and it seems like a pretty solid TV. My problem is that regular TV quality is just soo bad. I have dish network standard definition(havent upgraded to HD yet...cost about 300$ bucks) But what im saying is that the quality seemed better on my generic 19 inch tube TV. DVD quality is great and im still using component cables...not even HDMI.

I guess what im asking is, is it suposed to be this bad without HD? Does everyone have this problem?

[edDV]

Ok so I just bought this new 32inch HD Flat LCD Samsung TV...(LN-S3241D) The TV is sick!! So far I love it and I did my re-search and it seems like everybody else loves it too. My problem is that regular TV quality is just soo bad. I have dish network standard definition(havent upgraded to HD yet...cost about 300$ bucks) But what im saying is that the quality seemed better on my generic 19 inch tube TV. DVD quality is great although i dont have an upconverting dvd player just yet. I guess what im asking is, is it suposed to be this bad without HD? Does everyone have this problem?

1. A 32inch HD Flat LCD is a progressive monitor. Dish network (the old SD version) is interlace NTSC coming out of the Dish box. While the LN-S3241D has Samsung's DNIe video processor, it seems to be lacking inverse telecine (cinema processing) or advanced deinterlacing. In other words, it is good for progressive sources but lacking in perfromance for interlace sources. This may explain it's low price.
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-LNS3241D-Wide-Integrated-Tuner/dp/B000ELSXZE

2. As for DVD, first look for a good progressive player that does have quality deinterlace and "cinema" inverse telecine. It won't help watching Dish but it will improve playback of interlaced DVDs recorded from Dish or off air. You should connect a progressive DVD player in 480p mode over analog component or HDMI if the player has it. Analog component (progressive) is sufficient.

3. Upscaling is built into your TV. It will upscale 720x480p DVD to the LCD native 1366x768. An upscaling player will convert 720x480p to 1280x720p and then the TV must upscale 1280x720p to 1366x768 (overscaned). It is unlikely that the DVD player will do a better job with upscale but an HDMI connection at 480p may give somewhat better results than analog component. The difference will be small.

Bottom line: Invest in a good cinema deinterlacing progressive DVD player and consider Dish's HD service. The problem there is Dish uses 1080i that again is interlace. The Dish tuner may have good internal 1080i to 720p processing that will make up for the the TV's problems with interlace sources. That tuner should also improve SD reception as it converts 480i to 480p or 720p.

[zzyzzx]

I think your problem is that you bought a TV that's too big for your own good. Stick with the regular 19" TV and SDTV, and you'll be just fine (once they actually come out with SDT 19" TV's that is).

[jahill17]

While the LN-S3241D has Samsung's DNIe video processor, it seems to be lacking inverse telecine (cinema processing) or advanced deinterlacing. In other words, it is good for progressive sources but lacking in perfromance for interlace sources. This may explain it's low price.

WOW...That makes alot of sence...thanks for the info...do most high end TVs come with the deinterlacing built in to prevent poor quality when it comes to SD signals? And is there some sort of deinterlacing box that i might be able to buy seprately that works with my TV?

About the dvd player...you said invenst in a good "cinema deinterlacing progressive DVD player", is this any DVD player that has up-converting and a HDMI out put? Or should I look specifically for one that says "cinema deinterlacing progressive" on it?

And why does regular interlace look fine on my old school tube TV but not on my 32 inch LCD??

And, Thanks again so much for the info...I have learned so much...

[Krispy Kritter]

Most people complain of a "bad" picture for SD source material, especially on big screen TV's. Part of the problem is the size of your TV has changed, which in effect is like sitting closer to your smaller TV. I'm sure you can also tell a difference in picture quality by sitting close to your 19' CRT. As you get closer, the quality suffers. You are basically taking a low res picture and stretching it to fit your larger TV, you don't gain quality by stretching the picture. The better picture is a result of a larger resolution picture with more detail.

[jman98]

Some of it depends too on how they have the SD material being fed to the TV. I can tell you that I briefly used a coax cable from an HD cable box to my HD TV for a few days until I got Cable Card installed and the picture I got was pretty ordinary through coax. Even SD coming through Cable Card looks fine now. Using a component or DVI or HDMI connection from a video source to an HD TV makes a world of difference.

[edDV]

WOW...That makes alot of sence...thanks for the info...do most high end TVs come with the deinterlacing built in to prevent poor quality when it comes to SD signals? And is there some sort of deinterlacing box that i might be able to buy seprately that works with my TV?
...
And why does regular interlace look fine on my old school tube TV but not on my 32 inch LCD??

Your analog 19" TV was intrerlace and matched the analog signal the Dish box put out. Your new digital LCD TV is progressive and must convert the incoming interlace NTSC (aka 480i) to progressive and then upscale it to fit the 1366x768 pixels.

To get from 480i to 1366x768p, the image must be processed. For higher end HDTV sets the processor will first search for evidence of a film telecine sequence (most movies and TV series). If it detects the sequence, a process known as inverse telecine is used to convert 480i/29.97fps to 480p/24fps (progressive frames). These frames are then repeated in a 3 then 2 pattern to for 480p/59.94fps. Then this is upscaled to 1366x768 for display.

If the telecine sequence isn't found, then various "deinterlace" techniques are used. Thes range from simple blend (blur) to very fancy motion analysis techniques. It is here that spending more for the premium processor pays off if you are going to watch 480i or 1080i.

There is no simple add on box. The way you enhance what you have is purchase the Dish HD box and rely on the processing in that box to convert 480i to 480p or 720p. Once you have the tuner box, you can also subscribe to the Dish HD service.

About the dvd player...you said invenst in a good "cinema deinterlacing progressive DVD player", is this any DVD player that has up-converting and a HDMI out put? Or should I look specifically for one that says "cinema deinterlacing progressive" on it?

Look specifically for one that says "cinema deinterlacing progressive" on it. Upscaling is easy so you will find it even on some cheap ~$60 DVD players. Premium picture processing typically doubles to tripples the cost of the player. You will find mid range models in the $80-150 range and premium models like the Oppo in the $200-299 range.

A cheap LCD TV will work fine if the pre processing is done in the external HD tuner and progressive DVD player.

[ratskie]

edDV:
I'm just starting to look at satellite myself and am quite ignorant about it. In your reply to jahill17, you said the output of the dish is analog NTSC. Does that mean all the ouput jacks, s-video and RCA, too? And the advertising about being "100% digital" is only the signal coming into the receiver? (talking SD here.) Now that I think about it, I guess the older TV's could only use analog, anyway.

Thanks for any clarification.

[edDV]

edDV:
I'm just starting to look at satellite myself and am quite ignorant about it. In your reply to jahill17, you said the output of the dish is analog NTSC. Does that mean all the ouput jacks, s-video and RCA, too? And the advertising about being "100% digital" is only the signal coming into the receiver? (talking SD here.) Now that I think about it, I guess the older TV's could only use analog, anyway.

Thanks for any clarification.

You have it right. Their older SD channels are all interlace, they encode MPeg2 ~480x480i to the bird and down to the box. Then they output analog NTSC (composite, S-Video or modulated to an RF channel). There are no digital outputs from a Dish SD box.

The Dish HD box, like HD cable, also use MPeg (2 or 4) encoding but have more ouput flexibility including higher quality analog component (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i) and DVI or HDMI direct digital (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i) outputs to the TV. Progressive TV sets like the one above will get best performance using 480p or 720p connections. This puts the interlace to progressive conversion load on the tuner box which may get better results than the TV's internal interlace processing.

[jahill17]

Look specifically for one that says "cinema deinterlacing progressive" on it. Upscaling is easy so you will find it even on some cheap ~$60 DVD players. Premium picture processing typically doubles to tripples the cost of the player. You will find mid range models in the $80-150 range and premium models like the Oppo in the $200-299 range.

Hey edDV if your still watching these threads....could you please list some good DVD brands and models or mayby a website so I could find a good one.
Thanks~

[manono]

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi?function=search&articles=all

Start at the top and work your way down. The Oppos (the first one), in my opinion, are the best bang for the buck. The one listed has DVI. There's a newer model not reviewed yet which has HDMI:

http://www.oppodigital.com/dv981hd/dv981hd_index.html

http://www.oppodigital.com/

[MJA]

OPPO DV-981HD is number 1 in Upscaling

http://www.amazon.com/Oppo-DV-981HD-Universal-Player-Up-Converting/dp/B000LU8A7E/sr=1-...&s=electronics

[edDV]

manono beat me to it with that link.

The Oppos are a great deal for the money but more for the quality of image processing vs. simple upscale. Note that they don't upscale on analog component outputs, only on DVI-HDMI. Even if your TV is limited to 480p over analog component, the Oppos are still great players for interlace or progressive DVD.

There are other good deals at lower price points if you look down the list.


Correction: I forgot the Oppo 971H does NOT support 480p over analog component, only 480i. This is rare. The DV-970HD does support analog component 480p. Both upscale 720p or 1080i over HDMI only.

[jahill17]

ok...so listen to what I did. Im an impatient person and went out and bought a Toshiba SD-4990 up converting player (I know you said not to but I was curious). It was about 90 bucks, I also bought a HDMI cable as well. THE PICTURE LOOKS NOT ONE BIT BETTER! Now the only reason I bought it was because I can take it back no questions asked but I was at least expecting some sort of improvement.

I put the resolution on 720p and it looks no different that 480p...

Should I have least got a slightly better picture???

And does buying a 50$ Acoustic Reaserch cable really make a difference from buying a 120$ Monster.


ALSO....will interlace signals on my TV cause small flickering....espesially on things like menu text or movie credits?

ALSO...Whats the difference from buy a nice upconverting player like the oppo and buying a HD DVD or Blue ray Player....which will play regular DVDs better.

[edDV]

...
I put the resolution on 720p and it looks no different that 480p...

Should I have least got a slightly better picture???

That just means the TV does an equal job with upscale. Did you try a mix of progressive and interlace DVDs? Did the interlace ones look any better? That player does have inverse telecine.

And does buying a 50$ Acoustic Reaserch cable really make a difference from buying a 120$ Monster.

No. The $29 Philips HDMI cable at SAM's will be just as good.

ALSO....will interlace signals on my TV cause small flickering....espesially on things like menu text or movie credits?

Is this Dish (480x480 highly compressed MPeg2) or from a quality DVD? Small type credit rolls are a good test of both progressive and interlace source.

ALSO...Whats the difference from buy a nice upconverting player like the oppo and buying a HD DVD or Blue ray Player....which will play regular DVDs better.

The HD DVD or Blue ray Player need to cover the same functions as the Oppo (Red Laser DVD) plus handle 1080p HD or BD blue laser DVD. Your TV probably can't accept 1080p. Otherwise use 720p.

See the standard DVD playback review of the Toshiba HD-A1 at
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi?function=search&articles=all
about 25% down.

[jahill17]

That just means the TV does an equal job with upscale. Did you try a mix of progressive and interlace DVDs? Did the interlace ones look any better? That player does have inverse telecine.

So your saying that my TV has been doing the upscaling by itself allready...?
And how do I tell the difference between Progessive and interlace DVDs....I have quite the colection.

Is this Dish (480x480 highly compressed MPeg2) or from a quality DVD? Small type credit rolls are a good test of both progressive and interlace source.

And yes...flickering is mainly on the Dish menus...suck as the guide to all your channels. And not during the movies on DVD but on the actual player's menu...(you know...the menu that says "Toshiba" when I first turn it on or open the disk tray)

[edDV]

Progressive DVD includes most commercial DVD movies and many DVD TV series that were shot on film. In progressive 480p mode the 720x480p/24 native "film" frames are repeated 3, then 2 in the player to 59.94 frames per second over analog component or HDMI.

Examples of interlace 480i DVD:

- Consumer camcorders
- VHS or TV tuner captures to DVD (unless deinterlaced)
- All standalone DVD Recorders
- Commercial DVD - sports
- Commercial DVD - non-film TV series like Saturday Night Live (anything shot with TV cameras)
- Commercial DVD - most concerts and events (unless shot on film)

Many TV series that were shot on film are still released as 480i DVD with telecine. They can have serious cadence issues. There was never any effort to maintain telecine cadence. Many scfi and action series fit this profile. These are the types of problems discussed in those www.hometheaterhifi.com DVD player reviews.

[edDV]

So your saying that my TV has been doing the upscaling by itself allready...?

Yes. See #3 in my first response.

If your TV didn't upscale, you would be seeing a small 720x480 picture centered on your 1366x768 display.

[jahill17]

So your saying that my TV has been doing the upscaling by itself allready...?

Yes. See #3 in my first response.

If your TV didn't upscale, you would be seeing a small 720x480 picture centered on your 1366x768 display.

Ah....right...

[MJA]

And does buying a 50$ Acoustic Reaserch cable really make a difference from buying a 120$ Monster.


.

best cables online

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10240&style=

$120 for a cable is a highway robbery

[ratskie]

edDV:
One more question about satellite receivers, please. Realizing now that SD receivers change the digital signal to analog, does an HD receiver do that also with SD signals, or is is capable of passing the digital signal through to a TV still in digital format (albeit SD)?

Thanks again.