52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

[SoulWinner]

Greetings and salutations.
The other day we got rid of our 32" CRT television and replaced it with a 52" Philips LCD. It only has a 60Hz refresh rate, but otherwise has good specs. We have cable TV service, and there aren't many HD channels. After hooking it up and going through the initial set-up, the picture was real pixilated and grainy; so I redid the set-up and reduced the contrast and resolution until I got a sort of smooth picture, but it still seems grainy. Is this poor picture something I just have to deal with? When we watch DVD's the picture is great. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Best regards,
SW

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

Wow, long time no hear? Good to see ya posting SW, missed having you around.

Well, anyway, have you checked your cable box settings? Is your cable box HD ready? We had to get new TV about a month ago. Picture was like you described. Called cable company and they said we had to change boxes. Even though the present box we had said it had those channels, but it wasn't capable. We changed out the boxes and the picture was still sorta bad. Changed the settings to the right specs with the TV and the picture became excellent. Good Luck.............SS

 

[Expidia]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

What SS says about the HD box should help.

Many people new to flat screens can be disappointed when viewing regular TV stations as many are grainy.

Get the HD box swapped out and get your cable company's HD tier. You can cxl it a month later but at least you will get to see what your TV is capable of.

I have a new 32 flat in my kitchen and it's only connected to the basic stations yet about 10 channels are already broadcasting in HD and the picture is super on those stations, even without the box, but most of the others are not as clear as when I viewed them on my old tube type TV.

 

[chiefalen]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

You also may have to run the line straight from the entry point of your house and not off any tee's, straight to the cable box at your hd tv. Friend just had that problem.

 

[jlinder]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

First thing I would try is to hook up an antenna and try to receive some off air HD.

I suspect that you will see a fairly nice picture. If to the proble is with your cable.

Pretty easy to do and quick to try. If you go to tvfool.com you can enter your address and see how far you are from the transmitters.

With digital it is pretty simple - it either works or it doesn't (the picture will freeze at times when you are on the edge).

Let us know

 

[Edko]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

We bought a 46" Panasonic plasma this summer. At the time, we had no HD service, just directv (for sunday ticket). The picture was..ok, I thought. But I kinda wondered what the big deal was with a supposedly good, albeit midrange tv. I set it up with a decent onkyo receiver running all hdmi, etc.

After Christmas, we decided to get Fios, with an HD package. Amazing difference. Hard to watch SD now. Only thing better is a blu ray.

Your issue could be a gamut of things. The receiver in the tv, the refresh rate, the cable service itself, the tv stretching your sd picture into widescreen, etc. All the suggestions mentioned already I would suggest myself. My gxuess is it's the box. The better connections the better the picture. RCA<Composite<HDMI.

 

[Expidia]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

One other note . . . I had the cable guys come out on 3 different occasions over the past few years to try and clear snow or graininess once I switched the TV's to Plasma or LCD's.

The TV in my livingroom is a 60 inch. the bigger the tv the more graininess is visible especially on non HD channels.

I asked them each time to add a booster but they said there was no such thing as when we could go to radio shack on the old analog system and buy a booster.

Each time they replaced different lines. Around my house and another time the line from the street to the house.

This last time the guy added "a booster" in my basement. The line now goes from the street, into the basement and into the booster that plugs into an AC outlet.

All is fine now. I don't know if they just started carrying them but I told them I was going back to Direct TV and they tout 100 HD channels so he went out to the truck and installed the booster.

I have two HD DVR boxes for two TV's and 4 other tv's connected directly to the cable (no box) so I'm sure that was the cause of my weaker signal. He did say the digital signal could go on a run of at least 150 feet. But Time Warner prefers it split only once. And they would prefer you have a cable box for each TV.

Have them come out and check the strength of your signal coming into the house and at your tv first.

 

[salty87]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

did you get the hdmi cables?

 

[jlinder]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

Expidia,

The booster you refer to will help your sets with analog connections - an RF wire connected directly to the set. From what I can tell about how many ways you have the signal split this would reduce the graininess or snow.

However, if you have a digital box or receiving HD that signal is digital. A low signal will not affect the picture quality. It will cause the picture to freeze or experience blocking. Blocking is where portions of the picture, made up of squares, freezes or tears up.

What I have seen a number of times is where people confuse the wider picture with HD. While HD is wider (16:9 aspect ratio) than SD (standard definition) many sets will have a setting that expands SD to fill the screen. When that happens people think they are watching HD but it is not.

Another problem is that a number of stations/networks will broadcast SD on their HD channels and when they do they stretch the picture before you see it. The better systems will do this non-linear. The center of the screen will look fine but when you get to the edges it stretches a lot. When done well you will almost never notice the stretch. You need to look for people on the right or left that look fat.

 

[JustJason]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

i'm not surprised it stinks. Phillips is a low name in the tv world.
When you go to buy these tv's... why do you think that all of them at the store are on some kind of HD feed? Because they look like crap on SD.

When you look at new tv's nowadays. They all look great on DVD and even better on HD. It's what they make SD (standard definition) look that sets the prices apart. So when you go to buy a new tv... make the salesguy put them all on a basic channel. The TV that makes the crappiest channel look the best is usually the better choice.

 

[Expidia]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

Expidia,

The booster you refer to will help your sets with analog connections - an RF wire connected directly to the set. From what I can tell about how many ways you have the signal split this would reduce the graininess or snow.

However, if you have a digital box or receiving HD that signal is digital. A low signal will not affect the picture quality. It will cause the picture to freeze or experience blocking. Blocking is where portions of the picture, made up of squares, freezes or tears up.

What I have seen a number of times is where people confuse the wider picture with HD. While HD is wider (16:9 aspect ratio) than SD (standard definition) many sets will have a setting that expands SD to fill the screen. When that happens people think they are watching HD but it is not.

Another problem is that a number of stations/networks will broadcast SD on their HD channels and when they do they stretch the picture before you see it. The better systems will do this non-linear. The center of the screen will look fine but when you get to the edges it stretches a lot. When done well you will almost never notice the stretch. You need to look for people on the right or left that look fat.

You are right. Besides the graininess I was getting what you call blocking due to the weak signal. Time Warner called it tile-ing where I was not receiving certain stations and other were just frozen.

The digital booster they have now and installed cleared up all those issues including the graininess on some stations.

 

[rogerwa]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

If he is viewing the analog signal on the LCD, and it is stretched (i.e. expanded the orignial 4:3 aspect ratio to a 16:9), on a set of this size could very well look like crap.

If it is a weak analog signal, split too many times or some other interference, it may very well look crappier than it has to.

It may also be the set. Some LCD's don't display the analog stuff so well and the size will magnify that weakness.

 

[Adjuster]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

Best test as suggested above is to just hook up the old rabbit ears and see whats being broadcast from your area in HD. When the station comes on it will say in the little info box 480/780/1080. Most HD tv over the air right now is broadcast in 780. You will be amazed at the quality difference. Next step if you want to keep this quality or even better is to call your cable company and pay the extra money for the all digital service. My parents went with full Verizon service, cable, internet, home phone and cell phone. Great service and perfect quality. They love it. One more thing. My parents are not technology people but with the Verizon service they also got a Tivo or DVR what ever you want to call it. They are hooked on that thing now. My mom sets it up to record all her favorite shows and my dad sets it up to record all the fishing shows. I am a tech person myself but even I don't have a DVR yet. My next tech purchase is a Blu Ray or Sony Play Station w/Blu Ray.

 

[SoulWinner]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

Ok, here's what I have figured out. The line to the TV is homerun, as are all the CATV outlets in house. All of the connections are compression F connectors. Aspect ratio is not stretched. I discovered that the digital channels look ok, it's the analog ones that suffer. Had a buddy that works for the cable company come and check the signal strength, and it's not a strong signal. He checked the drop from the pole and it's fairly new and in good shape. He is checking to see what the options for improving the signal out here. Thanks for all the suggestions.
Best regards,
SW

 

[Expidia]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

What I found with my low signal issue was that it was more of a weaker signal during peak hours. Like I said, demand a digital booster. They have them, they just don't want to give them to everyone.

I use Time Warner in my area and they installed one.

But don't expect analog stations to be anything close to digital no matter how good your signal is. Soon though all stations will be digital anyway.

 

[Edko]

Re: 52" LCD - Poor Picture Quality *HELP*

Right, analog is gone end of June, if they don't once again push it back.

I am not an engineer but if I recall cable is shared signal power. At least I know internet is, and that affects download speeds. If your neighbors are downloading alot of stuff simultaneously, your dl rate is affected. Someone correct me but isn't the tv signal pretty similar?

I would get on their behinds for a signal booster, and it better not cost you anything.