Newbie- Is this normal?

[gshellhaas]

Installed D* last week. HIRD-E6 direct connect to Toshiba 34 HDTV. Use S video for SD and component video for HDTV. Professional install but did not ground.

HD pq is solid.

Ok being a perfectionist I need some objective input on SD PQ.

At a viewing distance of 8 foot the pq is really pretty good. Locals are little worse but acceptable. However below 8 feet there are ghosts or echoes around individual images.

I can turn down the sharpness on Toshiba and somewhat minimize but overall pq suffers.

Oh my reference point, I was a BUD user for 12 years before the switch.

Comments? Normal, tape off an eight foot perimeter,

Really appreciate anybody's feedback.

[Mike D-CO5]

Standard definition tv will never look as good on a high def tv. I had bought a 50 inch mitsibishi high def tv last fall and only had it for 3 days before I had Best Buy pick it up again. Dish satellite 's picture looked terrible on the high def tv. There faces looked like the skin was moving or breathing although the background images looked great. I went to another department store and saw the same tv next to the analog version of the same brand . I asked the salesman to place the tvs onto a standard def channel with Directv. The analog tv looked great but the high def picture looked like crap . So both sat providers look godawful on HDTVs unless of course you are watching a High Def channel.

[Mike D-CO5]

Oh, and I did end up buying the analog version of the same 50 inch mitsibishi tv, and I am quite happy with the picture. Hdtv will have to wait till the end of the decade when there is more channels to justify the cost of a hd tv.

[geneb11]

Oh my reference point, I was a BUD user for 12 years before the switch

The more Buds you drink ~~burp~~ the better the PQ:goodjob: :rolling:

[Mike123abc]

C-band will give you a better picture. This is what DBS companies start with then compress the picture to squeeze in lots more channels. The compression is getting better and better, but there is a ways to go before they can get a picture that you cannot tell from the original.

[scooper]

DBS is optimized for a standard NTSC screen size of 36 inches or smaller. On that screen size (my biggest TV is a 27 inch Sony) - I think DBS looks pretty good.

The big problem with the large HDTV-Ready TV's is that so much more detail can be viewed, and these HDTV's are optimized to view that detail - which makes non-HDTV DBS look like crap.

About the only suggestion anyone could give an owner of these large screens would be to have his TV properly calibrated, preferably by an ISF certified technician, but at the very least use the AVIA or Video Essential DVD's. And then probably use the line doubler in the TV on one of the NTSC outputs from the DBS receiver - experiment to find the one that looks best to you. For SD DBS, it may very well end up that the best picture comes from either the RF or the composite video.

[gshellhaas]

I really appreciate everybody's feedback. I have only had the service for 10 days and still feeling my way thru it.

Go Spurs!!

[durl]

I recently upgraded from 57" standard to 57" HDTV after being a Directv subscriber for many years and I noticed a slightly worse picture quality as well. From doing a little research I found that most attribute this to the line-doublers in HDTVs. They get rid of the scan lines but the downside is the less-than-crisp picture. Honestly, after a while you get used to the picture.

I ran a test disc to re-calibrate my screen and performed a manual convergence and that helped make a difference. I have 2 different settings on my TV--one for standard definition (with less sharpness) and one for HD.

When I have friends over to watch HDTV and we switch over to regular broadcasts, they think the picture stinks. But when you switch from HD, every picture is going to look bad. It's all in what you get used to seeing.