# Old TV resolution better than the newer HDTV



## edgoss (Oct 31, 2007)

I have a 22 year old Mitsubishi 26" tube TV and a 26" Samsung LCD HDTV.

I am new to this HD stuff so bare with me. The coax from the receiver goes to the tube TV and the HDMI cable or S-video to the Samsung. Both display the same station.

Set the Receiver to a Local channel. The local channel comes in better on the tube TV than the HDTV. Why is that? I would expect the newer TV to be as clear if not clearer than the older one, but it's not.

Help clear up my confusion. Am I missing something here?

Ed


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## peano (Feb 1, 2004)

SD normally looks worse on an LCD HDTV.


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## jrb531 (May 29, 2004)

edgoss said:


> I have a 22 year old Mitsubishi 26" tube TV and a 26" Samsung LCD HDTV.
> 
> I am new to this HD stuff so bare with me. The coax from the receiver goes to the tube TV and the HDMI cable or S-video to the Samsung. Both display the same station.
> 
> ...


Tubes can resize. LCD's have a fixed resolution (think of looking through a screen door) and have to blow up the smaller resolution to fit the screen. All but the most expensive LCD's do a rotten job at it.

My DLP does a great job at it and I'm not sure how Plasma's are but every LCD I've ever seen is terrible at SD.

-JB


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

Hold fire there - there's LOTS of factors that come into play here ---

1. Equal conditions for the LCD and the CRT TV. This means both sets adjusted correctly using a tool like Video Essentials / Avia DVDs. If you're watching SD DBS, I'd watch it through S-Video / composite video first and get a better comparison to your old TV. Also set it so your widescreen is showing the SD in 4:3 - even if that mean having the black bars on the side of the screen.

2. Viewing distance. Ideally, each should be at 3-5 times the screen size away from the TV.

Now - I ALSO have a 32" LCD HDTV - I watch SD DBS in aspect and the picture is quite comparable to the 27" analog CRT that it replaced - in both size and quality. We are well away from the picture as well. This size was selected to get that precise effect.

But what was said about large screen TVs and DBS is quite true - the large, High Def displays will make SD DBS look crappy, especially if you just "slap them in there" without taking any of the other factors into account.


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## Lincoln6Echo (Jul 11, 2007)

Well, I have a 42" LCD and SD does look bad, but only up close. At any distance greater than 9', the picture is quite good.

Remember, an old SD CRT is still only displaying 480i with large distinguishable pixels and viewing them from a distance is the ONLY option if you want a somewhat watchable picture.

With HD sets, you can watch things at a much closer range, but the distance thing still applies. General rule of thumb is that the further away you are, the better the picture looks.

An HD set, beit a 720p set or a 1080p set automatically upscales a lower resolution image to its native resolution. So as we all know when dealing with jpegs over the years, that when you take like a 640x480 pic and attempt to use it as your desktop wallpaper where your desktop is set to like 1280x1024, that 640x480 pic is generally gonna look like crap. That's basically what's happening to SD signals on an HD display. You're taking a 720x480 pic and blowing it up to 1920x1080 (for a 1080p display). It's gonna look like crap.

But let me also say this...
Before I got my new 42" 1080p LCD, I had a 32" Sony WEGA flatscreen. We also have a 36" flatscreen (same model, different size), and the 36" always had a better picture than my 32" due to a flaw in mine's S-video connection. However, now that I have my 1080p set, looking at the 36" is quite painful. I can see the terrible interlacing even at a distance of 10' or more. While before I was always amazed at the picture quality of the 36" over my 32". 

It's a matter of comparing an old Apple II greenscreen monitor to a new flatpanel LCD screen.


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## mw1597 (Jan 13, 2007)

edgoss said:


> The local channel comes in better on the tube TV than the HDTV. Why is that? I would expect the newer TV to be as clear if not clearer than the older one, but it's not.


Did you try tweaking your LCD TV resolution for optimum picture quality?

http://lcd-tv-calibration.classes.cnet.com/


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## mw1597 (Jan 13, 2007)

Also, check the Dish receiver menu option for HDTV setup. It may be set at 480i, if so then change it to 1080i.


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## edgoss (Oct 31, 2007)

I'll try experimenting with the 4:3 and the S-video to see how that looks.

I was just dissapointed with the 26" and was wondering if it was worth getting a 40-42" HDTV for the family room when I saw how the 26" looked. I was expecting something better.

Someone told me to make sure the larger HDTV I get had a vertical picture display the same or larger than the old tube tv. Not sure why.

I'll try going to a Best Buy or Circuit City and ask them if they can take the TV I like off a HD channel and switch it to a SD channel to see how it looks before I buy anything.

Thanks for all the help.

Ed


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

They did that so you will be getting approximately the same size picture (see my post going from 27 inch 4:3 CRT to 32 inch 16:9 widescreen LCD). Remember that TV screens are measured diagonally - i.e from corner to corner.


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## HIPAR (May 15, 2005)

The SD provided by D* doesn't look sharp and clear on any TV. The macro blocks smear detail. This effect is exasperated if you have a wide screen TV and zoom the SD image to fill the screen.

That's what I do with my Sharp 37 inch LCD and, depending on viewing distance and the quality of the original programming, my SD picture looks anywhere from OK to abysmal.

--- CHAS


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## PghGuy (Oct 13, 2006)

HIPAR said:


> The SD provided by D* doesn't look sharp and clear on any TV.
> --- CHAS


I don't think you can make this kind of statement...my SD content has always looked crystal clear (even on my old rear projection SD532-HD5), I would even go as far to say that there is not much difference from what I see on my tube tv's in the other rooms...and I am talking about on a 60" display (now) and a 53" display previously.

As I am sure we all know, there are many variables that impact the quality of the display, however you can't say that SD looks bad on all tv's.


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## jrb531 (May 29, 2004)

scooper said:


> Hold fire there - there's LOTS of factors that come into play here ---
> 
> 1. Equal conditions for the LCD and the CRT TV. This means both sets adjusted correctly using a tool like Video Essentials / Avia DVDs. If you're watching SD DBS, I'd watch it through S-Video / composite video first and get a better comparison to your old TV. Also set it so your widescreen is showing the SD in 4:3 - even if that mean having the black bars on the side of the screen.
> 
> ...


3-5 times is a bit but IMHO. Sure the farther away you go the better it will look but what's the point?

If you are going to sit in the next room just to enjoy that 50" TV then get a small set and move in closer 

I watch my 50" DLP (resizes SD much better than LCD which is why I went DLP) from about 2x the distance and it looks great. There is no reason for me to move back nor would I want to. I want a "big screen" experience and I do not want to sit so far back that it looks the same as a 27" tube 

I had a 32" LCD and it looked terrible from the same distance.

Every tech has it's pluses and minuses and LCD's strong suits are the thin size, weight, long life and no burn it. It's NOT PQ. SD PQ is the worst for LCD for almost the comperable tech and while it's getting better each generation LCD still has some serious PQ drawbacks. LCD's are also very expensive in the larger sizes.

Plasma has resolution issues, burn in (getting better), is heavy as all hell, and longevity issues. It's thin and the PQ can be very good.

DLP is your best bang for your buck. Kind of middle of the road. It's about 13" thick so that can be a negative but it resizes the best IMHO for SD and is clearly the cheapest for it's size. It's drawbacks are having to spend $250ish every few years for a new bulb, viewing angles and some have issues with overscan.

My point? Nothing is perfect. Each tech still exists for a reason. If there was one end-all be-all tech then we would not have so many viable choices.

To many people weight and thickness are well worth the sacrafic in SD PQ and to others (myself included) I would rather deal with a 13" (instead of 3-4" for LCD) thickness cabinet and much better SD PQ.

Now some of the higher end (read: expensive) LCD's have some sophisticated internal electronic to help with SD PQ but the low-mid range models do not.

It also depends on how far you sit back. Some people, such as yourself, do not mind sitting 8-13 feet (3-5 times the screen size) back for a smaller 32" set. I do not want to sit that far back.

At 7' back my DLP 50" looks fantastic in both SD and HD. By your calculations I should be sitting 13-21 feet back!

To each their own. No choice is bad but some tech does do better with SD-HD upconverts. LCD is not one of them.

-JB

P.S. The above was a generalization. IE Some LCD's do look good with SD (usually the expensive ones) and some Plasma is high resolution (the expensive ones LOL) but for the low-mid cost parts I stand by the above for "most" sets.


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## 459707 (Aug 15, 2007)

jrb531 said:


> Tubes can resize. LCD's have a fixed resolution (think of looking through a screen door) and have to blow up the smaller resolution to fit the screen. All but the most expensive LCD's do a rotten job at it.
> 
> -JB


Wait a sec! Your saying that LCD's can't resize? Thats incorrect!

Your probably reading this on an LCD computer monitor (or HDTV). If so, try this. In Windows, right click the desktop, choose preferences, then click the settings. You are then shown a few options about your monitor. Go down to the screen resolution bar. Right now, my reslotuion is set to 1680 by 1050 (becasue that is the highest it will go, or the NATIVE resloution.) Now move that slider to...say 800 by 600. You'll now see everything will get really big, and you can't fit as many windows on your monitor as you could before. Now move it up to 1024 by 768.....you get the point.

Your statement is saying that LCD's can not resize. If this is true, then when you went to move the screen resolution slider, how did it move? Otherwise, it would just keep snapping back to the default. But indeed, LCD's can resize, because that slider moves.

Note, this can be done on all monitors, tv's etc. Your options may be different depending on the size and type of your monitor. (for example, my 22" LCD wide screen computer monitor goes up to 1680 x 1050, where as a 19" monitor may only go up to 1208 x 1024, etc. Also, if you plugged your computer into a CRT TV, you would only get one or two choices. On my old RCA 27" CRT TV, I would only get 640 x 480 or 800 x 600 and that was it. Also, BOTH resolutions were worthless because your couldn't read any text because it was too small and blurry. On the other hand, now days my 1080p set can get very high in resolution, and the quality of text, etc is unbelievable.

Hopefully some of the above made sense.

If not, go ahead and please ask me questions to clarify.

-Scott


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

What he is saying is that the SIZE of the pixels on a given LCD cannot change size. When you change screen resolution, it uses "more than 1 pixel" to present each "pixel from your video signal". Some LCDs do a better job at this than others. Plasma will also have this issue, but maybe not to the same degree.


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## peano (Feb 1, 2004)

For me, SD looks best on a good Plasma (ie Pioneer). Second choice would be DLP. Last would be LCD flat panels. The Sony RP-LCD Grand Wegas manage to do all right with SD.


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## HIPAR (May 15, 2005)

PghGuy said:


> As I am sure we all know, there are many variables that impact the quality of the display, however you can't say that SD looks bad on all tv's.


I'm saying SD coming down from the satellites, D*or E* (I have D* but I've seen them both) does not look sharp and clear on any TV. The pictures are smeared by the macroblocks. I can see the macroblocks on my Sony 32 inch XBR Crt set and they are more offensive on my 37 inch LCD.

I've also been noticing similar compression artifacts Over the Air lately.

I'm beginning to think there's no one left alive who remembers how good an old style NTSC television picture can look back when they sent all the video information.

--- CHAS


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## whatchel1 (Jan 11, 2006)

This has to do with degree that I have. The standard for view of 4 X 3 SD image is 7 times the diagonal of the picture. That was the rule of thumb when viewing SD material before HDTV. BTW burn in for newer plasma's is history. The units now have compensation circuitry built into most to keep it from happening.


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## jrb531 (May 29, 2004)

whatchel1 said:


> This has to do with degree that I have. The standard for view of 4 X 3 SD image is 7 times the diagonal of the picture. That was the rule of thumb when viewing SD material before HDTV. BTW burn in for newer plasma's is history. The units now have compensation circuitry built into most to keep it from happening.


All the tech is getting much better. There was a day in which I swore I would never buy another rear projection TV but years later the new DLP's have solved the problem with convergence and the depth is down to under 13" - add to this the replaceable lamps and low cost and I was sold.

I wanted a plasma but the price was much higher and I worried about the half life of the set.

LCD's I tried and I got one with no dead pixels but it really really looked horrid with an SD source. My 12+ year old 27" tube looked better. I know some of the more expensive LCD's have better resizing circuits but most of the low-mid range ones do not.

While I agree that a "pure" uncompressed signal would make for a better picture, this is not the cause of LCD's looking bad with SD. LCD's use the very same tech as LCD monitors for computers and when you blow up a SD source you really compromise the PQ. The ability to change the pixel size was and is a strong suit for CRT's and my HD CRT in the bedroom is by far much better at showing both SD and HD but my CRT is not 50" 

Sure I could sit across the room and it would look ok but as I said before... Why?

Why must we sit far away to get a good picture? Sitting far away is some form of cop out someone came up with to hide flaws in differnt tech.

After all if you followed this guideline when you went to the movies you would have to sit a block away 

I want a "movie-like" experience with my big screen and not sitting in the next room so the distance can hide flaws with the tech.

I'm not knocking LCD's and they have many many pluses but their weakness is SD PQ without question.

-JB


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## TP715 (Jan 15, 2007)

HIPAR said:


> I'm beginning to think there's no one left alive who remembers how good an old style NTSC television picture can look back when they sent all the video information.
> 
> --- CHAS


I totally agree with that statement. When I first got Dishnetwork I could not believe how terrible the SD image looked compared to the analog NTSC signal I had before. I'm "used" to the Dish SD image quality now, but it isn't because the quality went up, it's because my standards went way down. My brain has been trained to ignore the down rezzing, posterizing, and macroblocking.

I've never been impressed with the HD image quality either, compared to the real HD I saw in the store on the Sony Hawaii loop. I calculated what bit rate is required for _real_ HD and compared it to what Dish actually uses. The compression is about a factor of 100; i.e. they throw away 99% of the original image data.

I think people get defensive when someone complains about satellite image quality because subconciously they don't want to admit they are paying so much money for mediocre quality.


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## whatchel1 (Jan 11, 2006)

jrb531 said:


> All the tech is getting much better. There was a day in which I swore I would never buy another rear projection TV but years later the new DLP's have solved the problem with convergence and the depth is down to under 13" - add to this the replaceable lamps and low cost and I was sold.
> 
> I wanted a plasma but the price was much higher and I worried about the half life of the set.
> 
> ...


The distance I stated has only to do with the distance needed for viewing of an SDTV. The movie theater is film which has a much higher quality than NTSC TV picture. In fact the 1080p sets are just now approaching anything close to what has been available via film projected onto a movie screen. So sitting closer than than 7 times the diag is perfectly fine and is expected.


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## HobbyTalk (Jul 14, 2007)

Below is a link to a chart that shows that viewing a 50" screen at anything over 10' away negates the res. of a 1080p display. That is only 2.4 times the screen size. from 10' to 15' it will look the same as 720p. Over 15' you might as well have 480p.

http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html


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## HIPAR (May 15, 2005)

TP715 said:


> '
> 
> ... I'm "used" to the Dish SD image quality now, but it isn't because the quality went up, it's because my standards went way down. My brain has been trained to ignore the down rezzing, posterizing, and macroblocking.
> 
> ....


Same here.

The MPEG 'pods' have prevailed. Resistance is futile.

--- CHAS


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## tvjay (Sep 26, 2007)

I bought a Samsung HDTV Tube TV because right now I watch a lot of analog cable and I am definitely impressed with it. I make all my sources (HD off-air, analog cable and my standard DVD player) into 16x9 because I can't stand seeing black bars. My 16x9 analog signals are pretty good (especially since they are being stretched) at my standard viewing distance. I can however say that when you are close I can see that there are a lot of pixels. Because of this I can see that it would be hard to watch an analog signal on a DLP or Plasma. 

BTW: My Samsung Tube HDTV REALLY looks good when watching HDTV from my local TV stations.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

CRT picture of any type is more forgiving, because the pixels are not fixed on the screen, they are painted by the electron beam.

Digital displays show macro blocking and mosquitoes more that CRT.

That is why there is an almost cult following for crt projectors among videophiles.


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## PghGuy (Oct 13, 2006)

HIPAR said:


> *I'm saying SD coming down from the satellites, D*or E* (I have D* but I've seen them both) does not look sharp and clear on any TV*. The pictures are smeared by the macroblocks. I can see the macroblocks on my Sony 32 inch XBR Crt set and they are more offensive on my 37 inch LCD.
> 
> I've also been noticing similar compression artifacts Over the Air lately.
> 
> ...


And I will say again that you can not make that kind of claim for all tv's. I guarantee that you would not say that if you were watching SD on my tv. The fact that you try to make this claim because you have seen SD on both D* & E* shows that you might not fully understand all the potential causes of a poor SD picture. I have my VIP622 hooked up to my 60" plasma and the second output to an older tube tv and you can not tell the difference between the two for SD quality...both are very sharp and clear.

I also have cable and the SD does not look as good through cable but there are specific reasons for that (my location and the length of the splitter box on the street to my residence plus the signal is being split to give me cable internet are some of them). I have friends that say their cable provides a much better picture than satellite and they dropped satellite. In all situations there are so many variables that cause the difference in quality that you can not simply make this kind of claim because you have seen both D* & E* SD channels (most likely all these other variables are completely different).

The quality of your equipment, your location, the quality and length of cable bringing the signal to your residence as well as many other factors all contribute to the quality of your signal. I would be surprised if you accounted for all of them simply because you have seen SD on both D* & E*


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

Our 722 video is connected to our a/v receiver with component connections which is passed through to our plasma

In addition to our home theater setup, we run to a switch box (1) the S-video/RCA-audio connection from the 722 and (2) RCA composite/audio connections from our 508's. Then from the switch box we run a long 50' S-Video/RCA audio to our office and connect it to one of our 22" wide screen LCD monitors and a small boom-box. Additionally, we connect coax to the an NTSC rf feed from the switch box to a 32" tube tv in another room and a 14" tube tv in the kitchen.

The SD from the 508's looks great on our 42" plasma with seating at 7', looks so-so in the office on the 22" LCD, looks adequate on the old 32" tube, and looks really sharp on the 14" tube. But the SD from the 722 looks really sharp on our 42" plasma, while similar to the 508 output on the others. The HD from the 722 looks sharp on the plasma (it better!), not so sharp on the office LCD, and surprisingly good on the two tubes letterboxed.

Of course, anything today looks much better than the b/w snowy signal we got off a 40' antenna on our little Hoffman TV in 1951.:lol:


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