New HD TV-Question about non HD channels

[cruisnfamily]

So we just got an HD TV. Never had one before.

HD channels look great! Regular (non-HD) channels look pretty crummy.

Is this how it is for everybody? Or is it just my lousy cable tv provider?

 

[golfgal]

Do you have a HDMI cable hooked up to your tv? For the most part our non-HD channels look fine but not as good as the HD channels. I am assuming you have a HD converter box now too.

 

[cruisnfamily]

Do you have a HDMI cable hooked up to your tv? For the most part our non-HD channels look fine but not as good as the HD channels. I am assuming you have a HD converter box now too.

Yes to the hdmi cables
Yes to the hd cable box

The HD channels look fabulous, the non-hd channels, almost not watchable they're pretty bad! DVDs, netflix, wii, etc are fine. Not as good as the HD channels but fine.

 

[golfgal]

OK, that's all the help I can give . There are a couple TV experts here, they will pop in and help you out. I want to say it is something easy like wiggle the cord--always my go to fix-but maybe not.

 

[ICF]

If the SD pciture is stretched to fit a bigger screen it is very possible that the picture will look worse than when you watched them on a smaller - non HD tv.

I have a 46in HD LCD TV with direct tv. The HD channels are beautiful and the non-hd channels are ok, far from perfect but by no means unwatchable....although I do do my best to try and watch HD as much as possible.

If they are really as bad as you say they are, its probably due to a crappy cable company picture.

 

[elgerber]

We have Direct TV and a few HDTV's, the biggest is 52 inches. The non HD channels are not great, but they are watchable. Even the non-HD channels are digital. With the cable company we had however, the non HD channels were analog, and yes they were pretty much unwatchable! That is why we went back to satellite TV.

 

[RAD]

IMHO, it's GIGO, Garbage In, Garbage Out. Your HD set is just showing the limitations of your SD channels signal.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

If you have an upconversion HD box or receiver, that might help a little, but other then that, your HD TV is only going to show up to 480 from a non-HD TV.

 

[cruisnfamily]

We have Direct TV and a few HDTV's, the biggest is 52 inches. The non HD channels are not great, but they are watchable. Even the non-HD channels are digital. With the cable company we had however, the non HD channels were analog, and yes they were pretty much unwatchable! That is why we went back to satellite TV.

IMHO, it's GIGO, Garbage In, Garbage Out. Your HD set is just showing the limitations of your SD channels signal.

This was the conclusion we came to as well, crummy cable company signal! We're switching to fios next week and hope that solves this problem!

Just thought I'd survey the crowd and see if everybody's nonHD channels were as bad as ours are.

 

[RAD]

This was the conclusion we came to as well, crummy cable company signal! We're switching to fios next week and hope that solves this problem!

Just thought I'd survey the crowd and see if everybody's nonHD channels were as bad as ours are.

From all the posts that I've seen on other forums you'll be very happy with the picture quality of FIOS. The biggest issue folks have is with the DVR, some have decided to go with a Tivo DVR and cable card.

 

[Micca]

What is the size of your new tv? Above a certain size, standard def on a big screen is going to look pretty bad. I have a 70 inch HDTV. It looks fantastic with HD, DVD, and blu-ray. With SD tv...not so much. However I don't recall the last time I needed to watch sd on this tv.

 

[cruisnfamily]

From all the posts that I've seen on other forums you'll be very happy with the picture quality of FIOS. The biggest issue folks have is with the DVR, some have decided to go with a Tivo DVR and cable card.

What's up with their DVR? We're getting the "home media DVR"...tape in one room watch in the other rooms...

 

[bicker]

So we just got an HD TV. Never had one before. HD channels look great! Regular (non-HD) channels look pretty crummy. Is this how it is for everybody?

In a nutshell, Yes. Part of it is that SD (standard definition) televisions are engineered in consideration of the fact that an SD signal is what it will be handling, while HDTVs are engineered to highlight the crispness and clean lines you get from HD. Also, SD signals typically are analog at some point, and so naturally have error in them. HDTVs tend to be larger than the SDTVs they're replacing, so the errors that have always been in the SD signals are now expanded and are much more noticeable.

 

[bicker]

From all the posts that I've seen on other forums you'll be very happy with the picture quality of FIOS. The biggest issue folks have is with the DVR...

Actually, the biggest issue folks have with FiOS is their incredibly poor billing. I've seen some incredible stories of just how they've screwed things up. For example, this month, I was double-billed for the television portion of my bill.

FiOS' picture quality, here, is no better than Comcast's, but that's because Comcast's picture quality here is excellent.