# New plasma for 2nd tv looks fuzzy...



## JTeer (Jan 5, 2008)

Our old tv of 12 years which we had in the bedroom & was setup as TV2 finally went out over the weekend so we went out & bought a new 42" Panasonic plasma tv to replace it. I fully expected a nice clear picture but instead it has a little bit of fuzziness to it.

TV1 is an HD tv & looks perfect. Is there something I am missing here? Some kind of setup change I need to make? The picture was actually better on the old tv! :eek2:

I am posting this here to make sure it is not a setup problem with my HD receiver...if it is a TV problem, it will definately be returned!


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## matt (Jan 12, 2010)

Not a dish here guy but isn't TV2 a SD output?


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Since you are in the ViP612/622/722/722K DVR Support Forum I assume you have a 622 or 722. If you are using a TV2 feed, you will only get SD. You either need another HD receiver or DVR or replace your current DVR with a 922 using a "coming soon" Sling Extender with your second TV once "soon" gets here.

Or you could use the TV1 HDMI output on one TV and the Component/optical outputs on the other.


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## Carl Spock (Sep 3, 2004)

And as for why your old TV looked better, welcome to the world of an HD television on an SD output. They all look like crap.

It's like going from the family minivan to a hot sportscar. Not only will the sportscar handle better, it will pick up all the bumps in the road.


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## JTeer (Jan 5, 2008)

WOW! I was under the impression both 1 & 2 would be HD...

I imagine another DVR or HD receiver will cost me an arm & a leg!


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## matt (Jan 12, 2010)

D* has some good current offers with HD receivers 

Allright I'll quit lurking on your side for now, my E* friends....


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## Kevin Brown (Sep 4, 2005)

To give Dish *some* credit for TV2 , the "HD" SD output from TV2 looks better to me than normal SD channels out of TV 1 ...


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## finniganps (Jan 23, 2004)

Put in a DVD or BluRay on TV2 and you'll have a much better idea of how it will look in HD.


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## eclipsetrb (Jan 19, 2005)

You now need to choose:
Get another HD receiver for your second tv.
Continue with the fuzzy.
Or if your like me and just need a second tv for yourself in another room but not a different program then by a hdmi splitter and run a good quality hdmi cable to the second tv (check out monoprice.com for what you need.)


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## finniganps (Jan 23, 2004)

eclipsetrb said:


> You now need to choose:
> Get another HD receiver for your second tv.
> Continue with the fuzzy.
> Or if your like me and just need a second tv for yourself in another room but not a different program then by a hdmi splitter and run a good quality hdmi cable to the second tv (check out monoprice.com for what you need.)


Agreed!


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## speedboat (Sep 22, 2009)

eclipsetrb said:


> You now need to choose:
> Get another HD receiver for your second tv.
> Continue with the fuzzy.
> Or if your like me and just need a second tv for yourself in another room but not a different program then by a hdmi splitter and run a good quality hdmi cable to the second tv (check out monoprice.com for what you need.)


You can also use one HDTV via HDMI cable and a second HDTV via COMPONENT cable and skip the HDMI splitter (which can be trouble if the TVs have different capabilities, I hear). If it's a 722, run it in Single Mode, instead of Dual Mode, so your 2nd (UHF) remote will work to control both Tvs too.

NOTE: In single mode you will always be watching the same program on both TVs.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

speedboat said:


> You can also use one HDTV via HDMI cable and a second HDTV via COMPONENT cable and skip the HDMI splitter (which can be trouble if the TVs have different capabilities, I hear). If it's a 722, run it in Single Mode, instead of Dual Mode, so your 2nd (UHF) remote will work to control both Tvs too.
> 
> NOTE: In single mode you will always be watching the same program on both TVs.


You can still use dual mode if you can get your hands on an RF remote for TV 1.

This would be if you had a 3rd TV in another room hooked via RF/SD.


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## Bigg (Feb 27, 2010)

Michael P said:


> You can still use dual mode if you can get your hands on an RF remote for TV 1.
> 
> This would be if you had a 3rd TV in another room hooked via RF/SD.


Or you can hook up the local TV to TV2 via composite, so you can switch which TV gets HD depending on what you are watching- talking heads don't need HD, but a lot of content does...


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## sigma1914 (Sep 5, 2006)

Bigg said:


> Or you can hook up the local TV to TV2 via *composite*, so you can switch which TV gets HD depending on what you are watching- talking heads don't need HD, but a lot of content does...


You mean component...red, blue, green.


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## eclipsetrb (Jan 19, 2005)

I prefer using the hdmi and switch for a few reasons.

If you use component you also need to run audio separate for a total of 5 wires, if you running in walls that can be a real pain.
Most hdmi splitter/switches today in conjunction with the tv are smart enough to adapt (you simply set the output on the receiver to 1080 and the tvs will up or downscale to whatever they are capable of) I run a 4x4 matrix switch feeding 2 Panasonic plasmas and a sylvania lcd from my 612, ps3 and htpc and have had no problems so far.
Finally if it works HDMI will give you the best signal possible and is more future proof so if a receiver comes along later on that will do 1080p wich the copyright people wont allow on component cables then you dont have to worry about upgrading.


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## ARM07470 (May 22, 2005)

eclipsetrb said:


> Most hdmi splitter/switches today in conjunction with the tv are smart enough to adapt (you simply set the output on the receiver to 1080 and the tvs will up or downscale to whatever they are capable of) I run a 4x4 matrix switch feeding 2 Panasonic plasmas and a sylvania lcd from my 612, ps3 and htpc and have had no problems so far.


Do you have multi-channel audio at any of your three locations? Getting multi-channel audio to work correctly with my 4x4 maxtrix and three locations took lots of trial & error & money.

The problems I encountered revolved around the fact that I had a 5.1 stereo receiver in my main viewing location but only stand-alone TVs in the other two locations. Neither of the stand-alone TVs could decode DD5.1 but sometimes the Dish DVR would send them DD5.1 because it saw that my living room stereo supported it. That would result in the stand-alone TVs having no audio.

Other times, the DVR would only send 2 channel PCM audio even when I was watching in the living room and really wanted to enjoy 5.1 channel sound. I spent many hours unplugging this and rebooting that but couldn't get everything to cooperate reliably.

My next step was to upgrade the two remote locations to have 5.1 stereo receivers. Cool, now I've got surround sound everywhere so my problems should be solved, right? Wrong! Since each TV and receiver was of a different brand/vintage, the MonoPrice matrix and Dish DVR still couldn't reliably figure out that DD5.1 was supported at all three locations. I'd get one or two locations working and then the third one would get turned on and I was back to 2 channel PCM. I really wished that Dish would let *me* configure the HDMI audio output format (like a PS3 does) instead of trying to figure it out from the scrambled up EDID data the matrix switch was providing but they don't.

So after much Googling and even more money, I finally found the Gefen HDMI Detective. Installing this gizmo between my HDMI matrix and DVR lets me control the EDID data that is sent to the DVR and keeps it from getting "confused."

At the end of the day I'm extremely happy with my setup but wanted to post my story as a warning that HDMI switching isn't always as easy as one might hope.


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## eclipsetrb (Jan 19, 2005)

I only needed 5.1 on my primary and it is located close to the receiver so I just ran an optical out from the receiver, never even messed around with running the audio from the matrix to a receiver or from the tv to a receiver. The smart thing to do of course is to always have all the cables and boxes and equipment and wire it together in a big room to test everything before you start running in walls.


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## ARM07470 (May 22, 2005)

Using optical for multi-channel audio definitely helps to avoid the issue with the Dish receivers. However it isn't an option if you want to enjoy 7.1 and/or uncompressed audio from the PS3. For that you have to use HDMI.

The PS3 is nice in that it will ignore EDID data and just output what you tell it. However, I'd still run into issues before I added receivers capable of decoding 5.1 at each of my output locations. Every time I wanted to use the PS3 in the main room, I'd have to enable 5.1 output. Then the kids would try to use it from their playroom and they couldn't hear any game/dvd dialog because the TV would only play the left & right channels but not the center one because I forgot to reset the PS3 to 2 channel PCM. Conversely, I'd fire up a blu-ray in the living room and wouldn't be able to select the 5.1 soundtrack because I forgot to adjust the PS3's audio settings back to 5.1. Life is much simpler now that I have identical audio decoding capabilities in all three locations.


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## SaltiDawg (Aug 30, 2004)

sigma1914 said:


> You mean component...red, blue, green.


You've got a *component* out for TV*2*?  lol


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## Bigg (Feb 27, 2010)

SaltiDawg said:


> You've got a *component* out for TV*2*?  lol


Yeah, I had it right the first time lol.


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