Regular TV on an HDTV?

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

HDTV Colleagues,

Just curious.....

I have a 17" HDTV in the den. Its accesses DirecTV via an HD satellite
reciever.
As expected, the 17" displays awesome images on HD channels.

However, my daughter NEVER watches the HD channels. Instead, she
watches mindless sit-coms (non-HD broadcasts). She complains about the
relatively lousy resolution (compared to regular TV). I agree, the
non-HD broadcasts do not look as nice as regular TV on her HDTV (or
any other HDTV in the house).

Just wondering: Can I hook up a non-HD satellite receiver to the HDTV,
and get images at least as nice as regular TV?

Thank you.

-Albert
San Jose, CA

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

I could be wrong but since the satellite is bigger and usually has a stronger
pull wouldnt getting a smaller regular dish be less vivid in color?
End higher ticket prices! Go to local college games!

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

"Dave Oldridge" <doldridg@leavethisoutshaw.ca> wrote in message
news:Xns953C90DD181D7doldridgsprintca@24.71.223.159...
>
> The reason so many HDTV's look bad on normal signals is that you can SEE
> the defects. A blurry TV with only about 480 lines of blurry information
> on the screen won't bother you as much as a sharp TV with 480 lines of
> very sharp information. The first thing to check is if your TV or your
> satellite box have any line-doubling software and try the various
> options. My Samsung has a pretty-good built-in line doubler for SDTV
> signals and, apart from being a little blurrier than the HD signals, they
> look really good. Better, actually than on any SD set that I own.

Yes, and this really depends on the set. Some (especially older and cheaper
sets) make any scaled images look rough, blurry, blocky and ugly, like a bad
low-bandwidth movie downloaded from the internet, but others (especially
newer sets and some higher-end older sets) smooth out the images to
eliminate visible scanlines without losing any detail, and look excellent.
This is why some older 720p (or 768 or whatever) plasmas and LCDs may not
look as good for standard TV (or for EDTV) as 480p plasmas (which may not
need to scale the image at all) -- though newer HD plasmas probably do look
better for all formats.

This is also why I recommend people buying a new inexpensive TV in the
26-30" range strongly consider an HD-capable 4:3 model, which can be only
$200-300 more than a regular analog TV of the same size (and no heavier or
bulkier): they can now make regular TV look better (just be sure to watch
some regular TV on it to make sure it actually does so), not to mention
being ready to handle (and show in high detail) HD signals. Though they are
not ready for the ideal aspect ratio, many people will be watching mostly
4:3 for the next few years anyway. But they are reasonably compact, and at
this low cost they aren't a problem to replace in a few years (or will serve
as an excellent smaller second TV when in a few years a larger widescreen
set is purchased).

But some of the problems are due to blowing up or showing clearly the
problems inherent in the signal. One of the problems that shows up more
these days is poor color ramping due to an insufficient number of bits used
to represent colors. This has been a problem in computer graphics for years
(even with 24-bit color), and is also a problem for LCD displays generally.
But I have been noticing it sometimes on my satellite (Dish Network) system
on a conventional CRT TV. It's especially appearant on areas of almost flat
color, such as sky, where you will see distinct color bands or plateaus.
Other compression problems are sometimes appearant as well.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

"Matthew Vaughan" <matt-no-spam-109@NOSPAM.hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<dmzQc.5974$54.92879@typhoon.sonic.net>...
> "Dave Oldridge" <doldridg@leavethisoutshaw.ca> wrote in message
> news:Xns953C90DD181D7doldridgsprintca@24.71.223.159...
> >
> > The reason so many HDTV's look bad on normal signals is that you can SEE
> > the defects. A blurry TV with only about 480 lines of blurry information
> > on the screen won't bother you as much as a sharp TV with 480 lines of
> > very sharp information. The first thing to check is if your TV or your
> > satellite box have any line-doubling software and try the various
> > options. My Samsung has a pretty-good built-in line doubler for SDTV
> > signals and, apart from being a little blurrier than the HD signals, they
> > look really good. Better, actually than on any SD set that I own.
>
> Yes, and this really depends on the set. Some (especially older and cheaper
> sets) make any scaled images look rough, blurry, blocky and ugly, like a bad
> low-bandwidth movie downloaded from the internet, but others (especially
> newer sets and some higher-end older sets) smooth out the images to
> eliminate visible scanlines without losing any detail, and look excellent.
> This is why some older 720p (or 768 or whatever) plasmas and LCDs may not
> look as good for standard TV (or for EDTV) as 480p plasmas (which may not
> need to scale the image at all) -- though newer HD plasmas probably do look
> better for all formats.
>
> This is also why I recommend people buying a new inexpensive TV in the
> 26-30" range strongly consider an HD-capable 4:3 model, which can be only
> $200-300 more than a regular analog TV of the same size (and no heavier or
> bulkier): they can now make regular TV look better (just be sure to watch
> some regular TV on it to make sure it actually does so), not to mention
> being ready to handle (and show in high detail) HD signals. Though they are
> not ready for the ideal aspect ratio, many people will be watching mostly
> 4:3 for the next few years anyway. But they are reasonably compact, and at
> this low cost they aren't a problem to replace in a few years (or will serve
> as an excellent smaller second TV when in a few years a larger widescreen
> set is purchased).
>
> But some of the problems are due to blowing up or showing clearly the
> problems inherent in the signal. One of the problems that shows up more
> these days is poor color ramping due to an insufficient number of bits used
> to represent colors. This has been a problem in computer graphics for years
> (even with 24-bit color), and is also a problem for LCD displays generally.
> But I have been noticing it sometimes on my satellite (Dish Network) system
> on a conventional CRT TV. It's especially appearant on areas of almost flat
> color, such as sky, where you will see distinct color bands or plateaus.
> Other compression problems are sometimes appearant as well.

I bought the Sony 50" LCD HDTV and it plays all the channels from my
Motorola 6200 cable box from RCN just fine. Some are much better,
like the HD channels of course, but the regular channels are fine. I
have the picture set to Wide Zoom and it is better than the 32" Sony
Wega I had for 6 years before this one.

Am I blind, don't care enough, crazy or does the Sony handle the SD
channels better than other TV's?