MBM135 Posted June 15, 2007 Share Posted June 15, 2007 I recently bought a 50" Sony WEGA SXRD TV and love the HD and DVD movie performance. But, as I feared the quality of regular non-HD cable broadcasts leaves much to be desired. CNN, FOX News, HGTV, etc look pretty lousy. I knew going into this that an LCD projection TV was not going to match my 10-year-old 32" Trinitron for normal viewing but it's a bit poorer than I imagined. I am a bit of a perfectionist, I suppose the average Joe would think it looks OK. Any hints on some image tweaks to sharpen the picture or is this just something LCD projection owners have to live with? Thanks 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCHout Posted June 15, 2007 Share Posted June 15, 2007 I too felt your pain. I got a new 50" Pioneer Elite plasma and regular TV looks awful. I do believe that it is not the TV, it is just the jump in size is one factor compared with the shock when you go from full HD to standard definition. Kind of like listening from the sound difference from DVD and VHS, you just never realize how bad the picture was until you see it in full HD. Some cable services are starting to use digital for all channels (not HD now, just not an analog signal) and the picture does improve a little. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canadian_Dude Posted June 16, 2007 Share Posted June 16, 2007 I am sure there are little things you can do that will make minimal differences. But it looks so horrible because you are stretching a 480 x 720 picture I believe it is, to a probably 1920 x 1080 resolution, or whatever your TVs native resolution is. You can always spend the extra money and get the high def digital cable or satellite, but there is only gonna be like 20 channels in HD probably. I think I am only getting 13 HD channels from my cable company. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T2K Posted June 16, 2007 Share Posted June 16, 2007 When my home was being wired 12 years ago I had several home run circuits wired on the wall where I would place my TV, along with everything else necessary for future satellite or cable service. I have never had any service other than what I have today, basic analog cable with no crappy half a$$ universal remote or tuner-in-a-box for cable or satellite. I have a Sony SXRD rear projection TV and the picture is great on most channels. In fact the picture on the Sony is much better than the picture on the Toshiba LCD in one bedroom and a Samsung HD TV in another bedroom. That is, using the same source on all aforementioned TV's, analog cable. A couple of days ago I delivered and set up a Toshiba 37" LCD 720P TV to my mother-in-laws house. She has cable with the universal remote that I spent 3 hours trying to program, with a little success. The picture was really crappy. I attribute the poor picture to her cable service provider since I have the same Toshiba TV with analog cable and get a much better picture. The QAM tuners in both TV's pick up unscrambled digital channels. I receive network channels in 720P and 1080i. Even CNN, MSNBC, The Comedy Channel/FOX News have a great picture. I would consider the source if I had a bad picture on a Sony SXRD. BTW, the Sony is still the video winner IMO. The Toshiba ain't far behind. Keith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shepjk01 Posted June 16, 2007 Share Posted June 16, 2007 Head over to avsforum.com and go into the rear projection sub forum. Since you did not list the specific model number I will assume it is either an a2000 or a2020 there is an owners topic on each model read through the topic and it will give you alot of helpful setting with picture adjustments for regular tv. I have two sony sxrds the xbr2 and a2000 and almost never watch sd channels anymore. Also to sharpen the image look into the detail enhancement function and mess around with the drc. Just as as starting point my settings are. iris: Auto 1 Warm2 Contrast:85 Brightness: 52 Color:50 Sharpness:50 Detail Enhancement: Medium Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted June 16, 2007 Share Posted June 16, 2007 You might want to wait a few years till they get those scaling circuits revised for SD then get another tv. Otherwise just pretend that the SD picture is great. A twelve pack will help. JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBM135 Posted June 16, 2007 Author Share Posted June 16, 2007 Thanks, I'll check out the other forum and play with some settings. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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