Sharp 42" - NTL Picture

[kmelvin]

Hi, I just bought the latest 42" Sharp LCD.

So far, I'm not blown away yet.

For DVD, I'm using the standard scart - my hdmi cable is on its way so hopefully this will sort it.

My biggest gripe is the ntl feed, the picture looks like everything I watch was filmed on a camcorder.

Is there a better cable I can use to improve the picture? Or is there a settings change I can make to improve this?

Thanks
K

[budz]

You might wanna post your question at the AVSFORUMS.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=166

[kmelvin]

Yeah tried there but no one is interested in replying

[Heywould3]

a digital cable will improve the picture. SD (standard def) tv on an hdtv will not look as good as you would think. Worse than SD tv in most cases. i dont know if your tv is a 1080p or 720p tv but SD tv in your case is 576i i think is the number. i means interlaced witch only shows half the lines at any one time.. where p or progressive shows all the lines at the same time. DVD is 480/576p 480 being us standard so your only gonna see half the lines your tv is able to reproduce in a dvd best case.

the only way to see the true full HD is to use a digital tune. im guessing your tv has one since its required over here that all new tvs have atsc turners. i dont know about ireland, do you have any HD tv broadcasts? regular rabbit ears antenna will pick up HD tv stations if you have any. if you find that you do ahve digital stations any tower that is over lets say 25 miles would need an amplified antenna.

sorry i dont have any idea about eruo standards but that is the case here in the states.

hope some of this info helped.

[SatStorm]

Digital Standard Definition TV, looks awfull on LCD / Plasma screens. Only on 32" they look acceptable.
The are many reasons for this, but the main problem is the low bitrates the SDTV channels use when they broadcast.
Do the maths: With DVD, you have 8000kb/s, while with SDTV, and at the same framesize, you have around 4000kb/s (at best...).

The only way to improve a broadcast, is scaling, do some temporal smoothing filtering and deblocking it. The same exactly technics we do when we convert low quality mpeg stuff to DVD. The problem is that I don't know any TV with such build in filters. There is some kind of filtering on latest Samsung TVs (motion drive,etc), based on filters created by the MSU team. Sony seems to have adapted them on their latest LCD screens.

From what I know, Sharp use a special glass that helps somehow the picture by "smoothing" it. But the latest line focus on other things (faster panels) and I don't know if they keep using that new glass on the screens.

IMHO, from broadcasts, forget "good" picture. If you have money, you may wish to search and invest on DVB /S2 recievers, capable to do upscaling and add filters on the picture. Since you are in Ireland, using a Homecast HD reciever and a Diablo or a Dragon Cam that is capable to work with NDS cards, you can watch Sky Digital (don't use their own recievers) with better picture quality that usual.

I don't know any cable recievers with upscale abilities.

[John]

I've got the cable equivelant to skyplus. the box does upconvert. via hdmi or component. but there is no improvement on picture. there is only one hi def channel available on cable. and that looks sweet. so until they get more we will have to suffer with sdtv. which looks terrible on my lg 42".

[SatStorm]

Upscale is not only to upconvert the signal.

The latest DVB S2 receivers, add 10 and 12 bit proccessing to the picture, at the same scale as the latest DVD players.
All the typical DVB receivers (terrestrial, cable or satellite) use 8-bit proccessing hardware.

On my Samsung M91 40", the SDTV channels look far better by using my DVB S2 reciever (that upscales them to 720p) to watch them, than my other DVB recievers or my old Sky Digibox.

[jman98]

It's all about the connections you use. I hear people all the time say how much SD TV "sucks" on HD TVs. It all depends on how you connect it to your TV. If you use a low quality feed from a cable box, such as S-Video or coax analog cables, yes, it won't look very good. If you can use Cable Card or connect DVI/HDMI/component from your cable box to the TV, SD TV will look fine. It won't be as good as HD TV, but it will be OK and it won't suck.

As best I know, SCART is a pretty low quality old style video connection used in Europe. I wouldn't expect it to ever look OK on any HD TV. If you have the ability to use component connections instead, it will make a big difference in quality.

[kmelvin]

Thanks for the help.

The NTL box I have does not have DVI or hdmi. Other than Scart, I have the 2 sound connectors (red and yellow) and a coax connection aswell - thats it.

I'm guessing I have little to no options.

Is there an upscaler I can use to improve the picture?

[SatStorm]

There are upscalers out there, but they are not cheap.

@jman98: SCART connections offer RGB and believe it or not, they have very good picture. If you connect the RGB SCART of your device to the RGB SCART of the TV, you have a wonderfull 576i picture.
SCARTs also offer composite by default and in an alternative to RGB, they can offer S-Video. Unofficially, the last 10 years (or so...) some devices (like the DVB Satellite recievers) offer component too, at 576p (If the DVB channel broadcast that way).

SCART connections are bad designed, but they served well Europe for about 30 years. And RGB signal is not bad...

[kmelvin]

Hi, I'm thinking of getting this Dvd-Recorder.

https://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sk...ed#accessories

I'm hoping to upscale the ntl feed on the Sharp 42" Lcd using this.

Does anyone think this will work?

Thanks

[rhegedus]

You mean NTL that is now Virgin Media?

If so, NTL is renowned for a crap signal - some of their chanels look like bad VCDs.

The only way round this is to go for the Virgin Media 'V+' upgrade i.e. HDTV via HDMI. You will need a new box and subscription.

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/dtv/vplus/index.html