Are there settings on HDTV that can make 480i or 480p look better?
Question:
It's kind of frustrating to pay big bucks and to only get a couples of channel with HD content and so to watch about 70 % of the time SD content that look worst than my 20 years old CRT monitor...
Is there any hope ?
Can i hide a little of the bad signal when watching SD signal ?
Thank you.
Answer:
What hell is Sebastian talking about? He must mean to get the best quality, you need to watch 1080p. That's only true if you have a 1080p TV.
Since you have a 768p TV, then 720p and 1080i will only look sharp. When it comes to sending lower quality video such as 480i and 480p, the TV can only do so much to upscale the image and try to make it look the best as possible. In reality, upscaling will always result in a horrible picture. Downscaling tends to look alot better. Ideally, you want to minimal scaling.
In response to your actual question, the answer is "no". SD stations will always look like crap on an HDTV. I was disappointed myself when I first got my plasma. Thanks to digital cable and HDTV, it's not too bad. I have actually got use to it. But, a tube old-fashion 27" TV will actually look better than your fancy expensive HDTV when you are watching your basic analog 480 content.
There are only really two ways to improve your image for SD stations:
1) Go digital. Subscribe to digital cable. It's better quality.
2) Move away from using coax, composite or S-video to your TV. Go with component and ideally HDMI. Better cables, better picture.
Wait for another 5-10 years and all stations will be in high-def.
Sorry to say this to you but none of it really matters unless you are dealing with the 1080 range.
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