Freeview Sat TV & large plasma

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tims

118 posts

Master Geek

#98227 27-Feb-2012 15:50

Apologies if this has been gone thru before but this wil be my first large screen TV and I was hoping to get some feedback from those who have a large plasma TV (>50") and use the SD freeview satellite as the TV input (I can't get Terrestrial Freeview).
At the moment I have an old 23" Phillips TV so will the switch to a large plasma be a bit underwealming when watching the freeview channels or it will still be a reasonable picture?
I'm thinking of getting the Samsung 51D550.

thanks

Jaxson

8041 posts

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#587441 27-Feb-2012 16:21

It will be what it is.
The ability of the TV to handle SD content will come into play, and you may find an upscaling unit will help, but I've had mixed experiences on that one.

SD resolution will look fine on your current TV, but going to one 4x the area, well you'll have to make do with whatever you get anyway.

vexxxboy

4243 posts

Uber Geek

#587448 27-Feb-2012 16:44

it will look different for the first couple weeks then you wont notice it and then you go back and watch your 23" and you wonder how you could have watched anything that small and quickly go back to your big tv .

Common sense is not as common as you think.

Athlonite

1828 posts

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#587453 27-Feb-2012 16:50

It'll look like crap freeview sat service is rubbish because of overly compressed video I'm on been using it for 3yrs and still notice it and my TV is on an 32" LCD

CYaBro

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#587459 27-Feb-2012 16:59

I would say it will depend on how far away you will sit from the TV.
If you sit as close to it as you do with your 23" then it will look like crap.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

RunningMan

8953 posts

Uber Geek

#587518 27-Feb-2012 19:29

I've used pretty much exactly your proposed setup. In reality, I find it perfectly watchable for most stuff, but if you do a side by side comparison with a blu ray the difference between SD & HD is startling.

The SD picture looks soft by comparison - if you watch a lot of sport or movies from FTA TV, then you'll probably wish for better, but it's not so bad that it interferes with actually watching the program.

JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#587630 27-Feb-2012 22:54

Watched some FV satellite programming on a 42" set at the place I was for a few days over Xmas. It's watchable - in my opinion, in terms of quality it's clearly over-compressed, significantly worse than the FV terrestrial picture (obviously as that's in HD), worse than DVD on a good DVD player, but slightly better than the old analogue signal.

Not ideal, but watchable.

DonnaRR

15 posts

Geek

#587658 28-Feb-2012 02:26

I watch Freeview Satellite on a 40inch Samsung LCD with a composite connection and I love the picture and sound clarity! Until recently I had a 27inch CRT with a coaxial connection so of course I'm noticing a marked improvement. Perhaps a 50inch will be too large unless you get HD through MySky. It's a bit frustrating that we can't get UHF but there's nothing we can do about it unfortunately.

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bfginger

1267 posts

Uber Geek

#587665 28-Feb-2012 06:47

I'm thinking of getting the Samsung 51D550

I wouldn't recommend a low end Samsung plasma. For another $20 you could get a P42ST30Z.

The quality of the Freeview Satellite broadcasts is weak and beyond a size point a larger TV may make the picture look worse instead of better.

Were you planning on getting something like the UltraPlus X-9200HD or DishTV S7090PVR as the satellite receiver? Hook whatever receiver you get via HDMI and if you use upscaling then disable the TV's overscan or else the picture will be being scaled twice. Many cheap receivers only do SD analogue out.

I watch Freeview Satellite on a 40inch Samsung LCD with a composite connection and I love the picture and sound clarity!

The satellite receiver should have a YPbPr component or HDMI connection available to be used that will give a better picture than composite.

Jaxson

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#587670 28-Feb-2012 08:07

JimmyH: slightly better than the old analogue signal.

That's a key point really, in that digital has a new set of 'problems' that are different from analogue.
Previously you had snowy pictures/flicking lines etc and now you don't have any of those problems, but instead you have compression artefacts etc where whole sections of the screen are one colour and move as a wobbling jelly pixelated blob etc.

At the end of the day though, there's no choice. Freeview, even satellite based, offers significant pluses over analogue so you should do it. But it is what it is though and there's only so much you can do to improve it. Modern TV's don't give much effort to upscaling SD/analogue sources so typically these don't look very good. Perhaps a good upscaling freeview source device will help with this, but as mentioned above, your results may vary.

DonnaRR

15 posts

Geek

#587796 28-Feb-2012 12:28

Sorry I do have a YPbPr component connection; I'm getting confused with the terminology! I'm just a keen baby geek