UHF Freeview - how to improve picture?

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#291883 21-Jan-2010 13:36

Man the DVD is SD, 576i signals. Component video cables will help, but the source is still SD. It's been talked about quite a lot here in that some HD/HD ready panels do not display SD sources very well.

Personally I'd see if your DVD player can upscale, and if it can output this over component cables you will be ok. If it can not I'd be tempted to buy a new DVD player that has upscaling built in and hdmi output. They are around $50 - $150 depending on the brand and if you buy them at the supermarket or not etc.

With regards the freeview HD, the 3 muxes are on different frequencies. In some cases your existing aerial will be good at picking up some of the muxes and not so good at the others. This can mean the TVNZ channels for instance might be fine, but a group of others might not be very good.

With freeview you either get it well or you have problems with reception. If reception is not so great then you will need to look at your aerial, and how it connects back to your TV. RG6 refers to the type of cable that has sheilding appropriate to the signals you are wanting to send down it. RG59 looks similar and is cheaper but does not offer the right protection for TV signals.

If you have other TV's without freeview built in or a DVD/HDD recorder/VHS then you will need to keep the VHF aerial diplexed in with the UHF aerial. If you only have an aerial to feed the TV then you should throw away the VHF aerial and cable the UHF aerial directly to your TV.

Address these issues and you should be happy with your purchase.

pukunui

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#291885 21-Jan-2010 13:38

OK. Got a longer component cable. Put MiB back in. Definitely an improvement. No more clipping when Jay runs (I also had the TruMotion 200Hz on high - dunno if that makes a difference or not) but I still get weird little blurry auras around things that move quickly. It's not the end of the world but it's definitely not something you see when you're watching it on a CRT TV.

My DVD player is probably too old to do upscaling. It's a Philips DVP3050V DVD/VCR combo. I bought it several years ago. I got that one because it was region-free.

I'd be willing to consider getting a new DVD player with upscaling if I could be sure that it was also region-free (a good chunk of my DVD collection is Region 1 - all my US DVDs that I brought with me when I moved here). I suppose if it was also a DVD recorder, then I wouldn't need a VCR ... we never use our VCR anymore anyway.

sbiddle

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#291893 21-Jan-2010 13:55

pukunui: OK. Got a longer component cable. Put MiB back in. Definitely an improvement. No more clipping when Jay runs (I also had the TruMotion 200Hz on high - dunno if that makes a difference or not) but I still get weird little blurry auras around things that move quickly. It's not the end of the world but it's definitely not something you see when you're watching it on a CRT TV.

Turn motion plus, MPEG NR or any other processing off. Most of these only make the picture worse, not better.

wellygary

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#291894 21-Jan-2010 13:55

Turn off all the voodoo that your TV claims to have, Trumotion, HD Cinema engine, etc, mostly it is to sell a set in a highly lit store,

Most new DVD/HDD players/recorders sold in NZ are region free, or can be made region free fairly easily,
Although ones that do freeview HD are not cheap.

pukunui

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#291904 21-Jan-2010 14:04

I can't really see much of a difference with stuff like TruMotion on or off. I'll keep playing around with it though.

I'll look into DVD players. I don't think I need one that can play Freeview since the TV itself can do that. I just want to have my DVDs look good on the new TV.

Jaxson

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#291906 21-Jan-2010 14:10

Without going on about it, there is a big difference in what needs to happen between playing a SD source on an SD display. Of course your DVD's looked fine on the old SD TV, but on the new one somthing along the way has to take an SD source and convert it to display on an HD/HD ready TV. With everything going hdmi and HD/or upscaled to HD resolution from the source, the ability to stunningly upconvert an SD source is not the first priority on TV manufacturers list.

pukunui

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#291942 21-Jan-2010 15:36

Sure. I think I get it now. If I really want to improve my DVD experience any further, I'll have to get a new player - or go bluray.

Incidentally, what are people's opinions of LED TVs? I saw some at JB Hi-Fi. They looked NICE. Are they better than LCDs and plasmas? I'll bet they're expensive (didn't look at the prices).

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richms

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#291943 21-Jan-2010 15:37

Your dvd player may still be set to letterbox, make sure its on 16:9 and the TV is as well. The only thing that would explain the blowing up problem is if the player is letterboxing and the tv is cropping.

Richard rich.ms

Jaxson

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#291948 21-Jan-2010 15:46

richms: Your dvd player may still be set to letterbox, make sure its on 16:9 and the TV is as well. The only thing that would explain the blowing up problem is if the player is letterboxing and the tv is cropping.

Good thinking!

sbiddle

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#291954 21-Jan-2010 15:56

pukunui: Sure. I think I get it now. If I really want to improve my DVD experience any further, I'll have to get a new player - or go bluray.

Incidentally, what are people's opinions of LED TVs? I saw some at JB Hi-Fi. They looked NICE. Are they better than LCDs and plasmas? I'll bet they're expensive (didn't look at the prices).

You have to remember a LED TV is still an LCD TV. Rather than a CCFL backlight it used LED's - the panel is still the same.

I'm still a Plasma fan and IMHO a $2600 Panasonic Plasma will still beat many of the $5k LCD TV's hands down in some areas.

pukunui

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#291955 21-Jan-2010 16:01

YES! I got out the DVD player manual and discovered that I CAN change it from letterbox (which it was on) to 16:9 and that I CAN turn progressive scanning on (the manual even says to have it on if you're using a component cable). Now to test!

EDIT: That's made a HUGE difference. MiB looks more like what I would expect it to look like given that it wasn't filmed in HD.

richms

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#291956 21-Jan-2010 16:04

Progressive on the player is not always better than deinterlace done on the screen. You will only tell on stuff thats sourced from video however, if its film then any halfassed implimentation can get it right most of the time.

Richard rich.ms

pukunui

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#291959 21-Jan-2010 16:14

I'll try fiddling with it again later - see if the progressive scanning makes and noticeable difference. It may just have been changing it from letterbox to 16:9 that made the difference. But I'm pretty happy with the way things are right now.

Thanks everyone for the help!

Cheers!

robjg63

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#291965 21-Jan-2010 16:31

Honestly - You owe it to yourself to go and get a DVD player with upscaling and an HDMI connector!
You will be well pleased and probably only need to spend around $100. The picture quality of a DVD upscaled by a good player is veeeery good. Dont muck about with your current unit.

Dont let anyone push you into expensive HDMI cables either. There is heaps of BS about buying gold plated $$$ HDMI cables - do a google - A $20 one (if its long enough will work 100% ok)

In relation to the multizoning on DVD players - You would be hard pressed to find ones that arent already multizoned or cant be made multizone with a quick push of some 'secret' key codes - ask when you buy or google the model before you buy.

I was in Harvey Norman before Xmas and they had several 'brand' name DVD players with upscaling and a note on the pile of boxes (NEC or Toshiba?) on how to make them multizone.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

pukunui

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#291966 21-Jan-2010 16:33

I owe it to myself, eh? I'm not sure that would fly with the wife ... LOL. But I'll consider it. I might put it on my birthday wishlist. We'll see.

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