Regular signal on HD tv

[billa]

Does anyone have experience with just receiving their regular sat signal through a non-HD receiver on a HDTV (LCD, Plasm, DLP)?

How is the pic? Grainy? Pixelated?

I have yet to find a place where i can see this happening (all stores have HD receivers)

i want a big tv and will eventually get HD but for now am just going to stick with my 522 and dish 500.

[jpeckinp]

Does anyone have experience with just receiving their regular sat signal through a non-HD receiver on a HDTV (LCD, Plasm, DLP)?

How is the pic? Grainy? Pixelated?

I have yet to find a place where i can see this happening (all stores have HD receivers)

i want a big tv and will eventually get HD but for now am just going to stick with my 522 and dish 500.

If you want to see for your self have the store change the channel to an SD channel. That will let you decide what it looks like. 480i is still 480i no matter what receiver you use.

[billa]

i asked at a few local box stores and they changed the ch to an HD ch w/o an HD program...he seemed to balk at the idea of changing it to a non hd ch, so i assume the worst of course.

Then folks tell me that Sat (Dish) has a better through signal than cable and a DLP will show SDTV just fine...not a HD quaility but HD only makes a diff to me when i change from HD to a non-hd.

Anyone have personal/home experience with this issue?

Thanks

[sansha]

I had my LG 42" 1080p hdtv for a week or two before Dish installed my HD receiver and 61.5 dish, and it was fine running off a standard (Dishplayer) dish receiver and the old dish 500. the SD channels IMHO look pretty much the same before and after I got Dish's 622 HD receiver/HD package. What the HD receiver gives you is the HD channels, but I think SD are the same. the TV I have though supposedly cleans up SD signals, so I imagine it might depend on the tv too. Though many make that claim of improving SD signals. ANd if you have a really huge HDTV (60 inch or whatever, I imagine a 480i signal might be worse the bigger the TV you get, but i only have a 42" so I can't speak to that. Perhaps some one else can address what an SD picture looks like on a truely big HDTV screen. OTher than picture size, I can't see that you'll have any problems using a standard receiver on an HDTV, if that's what you want. You can alwyas get HD locals (if you have them) OTA directly to the TV. If you have an HD or blu ray dvd player, you can get your high def movies that way. If you don't want the dish HD receiver or dish HD programming at this time, you can still enjoy Dish's SD receiver and programming with your HDTV -- at least in my experience.

[Taco Lover]

It's really all personal experience, and no one's experience will be like yours.

I'll give you my experience, however. :) I have a Sony KDS-55A2000 SXRD rear-projection HDTV. Previously, I had standard def DirecTV supplying the programming, and the quality was just okay. I also had an OTA antenna feeding it as well, and the SD content off OTA was significantly better since it's not as compressed as a satellite signal would be. We had Dish installed, and I personally thing the SD quality of Dish is better than DirecTV, although some channels look worse than others.

[DishSubLA]

Does anyone have experience with just receiving their regular sat signal through a non-HD receiver on a HDTV (LCD, Plasm, DLP)?

How is the pic? Grainy? Pixelated?

I have yet to find a place where i can see this happening (all stores have HD receivers)

i want a big tv and will eventually get HD but for now am just going to stick with my 522 and dish 500.

Considering Dish's compression on the SD channels you really need to spend the money on a display with a high contrast ratio and at least 6MS response time or you will be really disappointed.

I originally got a Westinghouse 26" because of the price. I expected a compromise, and I couldn't get it to display a really good picture and had to suffer with the trails of movements that LCD's notoriously handle very poorly. I felt somewhat disappointed with the purchase but did not want to spend more.

I returned the Westinghouse because of a now known bug: video and audio are greatly out of sync after 15 minutes. Perhaps that is why Best Buy has since marked them down to $499.

I took my returned money and went to Costco and bought the far superior Sharp AQUOS 32"--for about the same amount of money I spent on the Westinghouse.

I knew of Sharp's AQUOS line's reputation, but now I can really attest to it's ability to take a lousy display technology for TV action (LCD) and make it something worth watching.

YOU WILL have to spend time adjusting to your taste (the pre-set "MOVIE" mode offers an easy starting point for a good-looking SD picture). Others in the household immediately commented on how much better the TV was--or how much better DISH SD looked on the AQUOS. If you adjust thing right and don't sit 3 feet from the screen (get an appropriate sized screen for your room; there is such a thing as TOO BIG), it is never grainy or pixelated. Premium movie channels look best. The broadcast digital image is beautiful. The SD image from my SVHS player is also much improved--even impressive--on the Sharp AQUOS

Most people who have a negative experience with the DISH video on LCD are folks who picked an inferior LCD TV--although they may have paid a mint for it. By that I mean it does a lousy job of upscaling, not such a a subtle job of converting analog to digital, limited contrast ratio (you won't be able to have Dish SD look good without a lot of play in this area), and too slow a response time. From my experience, an 8MS response time almost always has visible contrails. 6MS is where it's at, minimum. The lower the MS number, the better. Oh, and a much wider viewing angle than the Westinghouse.

Good luck, and keep your receipt.

[billa]

Pulled the trigger and the shows look pretty good...i am enjoying the panoramic view on the new tv...the normal and wide just doesnt cut it...of course, the pan curves on the edges, e.g. lines on a football field tend to swerve at the bottom, but not bad at all.