HDTV Question: how come shows look grainy when watching Non-HD cable?
Question:
Nice TV. An HDTV, especially getting into the 50" range, will magnify and clarify every bad thing about standard def. signals. Definitely get HD programming from cable. In the meantime, reduce your contrast and sharpness levels.It still wont look great, but it will reduce some of the grain.
First, you got a GI-NORMOUS TV set replacing an itty-bitty 36 inch TV.
And your picture is going to be really really..MAGNIFIED.
So.find a picture and look at it really really CLOSE.NOTICE how awful it looks? If you step back from the picture, it looks better.even NORMAL I'd say.
Well, WELCOME to the World of BIG SCREEN TV.
Where all your LOW DEF shows now look a little more fuzzy...
And your Hi Def shows look great because they are DESIGNED to be perfect on large screens.
AND your DIGITAL channels? They are Low DEF.but they ARE Noisefree, which is what you get when you buy Digital Channels.
First, SDTV or non-HD channels were meant to be watched on a small TV like a 27" or smaller. This means when you go to a larger screen, there are going to be two reasons why you see noise, grainy and pixelation.
1) You are scaling from 480i to 720p or 1080p (whatever your TV is). Upscaling this much will always create video artifacts and noise in the video.
2) Like the other poster said, you are magnifying this already noisy video. This noise is more prominent.
There are a some ways to improve the image quality:
1) Upgrade to digital cable.
2) Use HDMI cable.
3) Upgrade to HD service.
You will eventually get use to it. I have had my 50" plasma for a year. I went from a 36" HDTV as well. It doesn't bother me anymore.
Kinda like when you take a small photo and blow it up full screen how u can see the pixels, well this is whats happening. You are taking a 640 x 480 broadcast and blowing it up to a huge size. Smaller televisions are better suited for smaller formats, and it isn't recommended you sit too close to a tv that size (10-15 feet is good). Just keep in mind that not all your channels are going to be in HD when u do get the package and the ones that are will have two channels (one in hd, one not).
Its not the TVs fault by any means, but if it bothers you a whole lot I recommend going with a slightly smaller size in a flat panel LCD (Projection LCD is not the same as LCD). 42" should be good if you decide to do this.
Note also that not all digital cable channels are digital (though all the HD ones will be of course). DirecTV is all digital and the picture quality is slightly better vs cable, plus they offer a much better HD package. The drawback is you sign a contract.
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