HD tv

[2PedalsTez]

Just checked the box and it is set on 576p resolution. Not very high is it?

Lol.. not really. Sounds like SD to me!

Worth having a look on AV forums.. you'll find answers somewhere in amongst the "Pioneer made the best TVs ever" threads

 

[Red Light]

On the TV you have you should definitely be able to see the difference although large screen TV's have shown how good SD can actually be. What make box are you feeding it with?

 

[Rezillo]

Just checked the box and it is set on 576p resolution. Not very high is it?

No, that is standard defintion! I don't know what settings there are but auto will usually detect compatible settings. This will output standard definition (SD) at 576p and HD at, in your case, 1080i. The TV will then usually upscale 576p SD pictures to a kind of pseudo-HD at 1080i.

If you set it to 1080i, SD will be upscaled to 1080i by the box, not the TV. Depending on how good either the box or TV are at upscaling, one of these options will have a slightly better SD picture quality than the other. HD channels will look exactly the same. Just try both options and see how they look.

This does assume that you have HD Freeview in your area (or a bluray player, or a PS3).

[edit] Freeview HD channels are 50, 51, 52 and 54, but note the first three won't always have HD content

John

 

[betty swollocks]

please check that you can receive HD. An HD TV or HD receiver will not display HD unless the signal is HD.
SKY HD is 1080i and is very much better than SD, but even then the quality varies according to the bitrate and the quality of the source material.
So, go to the Freeview HD website and enter in your postcode to see if you are actually receiving an HD signal.

 

[gavroche]

The box is Philips and the HD light comes on when HD channel is on.

 

[Rezillo]

The box is Philips and the HD light comes on when HD channel is on.

So all you need to do is change the Philips box hdmi output settings from 576p to 1080i or auto.

John

 

[gavroche]

A big thank you to you all for your help. It is very much appreciated.

 

[Davidc]

I have a 32" TV. At our normal viewing distance (3 to 4 m) we can see the difference on some, but not all, material.

Blu ray, which has more bandwidth available, is beter than any broadcast TV, but we don't use it much. Lack of decent content!

 

[marinyork]

A big thank you to you all for your help. It is very much appreciated.

And the verdict now it's all sorted? Do you need to go to specsavers ?

 

[asterix]

Garbage in = garbage out?

Having said that, the human brain is very good at adapting to poor picture quality otherwise we'd have to bin allthose old classics.

One of my favourite films is 'The Third Man' in b&W. They could never get that effect in HD colour!

 

[Red Light]

For me the biggest benefit of HD is the reduction of motion artefacts which are the bane of digital standard definition. In HD they are improved to the level where they match the old analogue TV quality rather than the large digital blocking of SD.

 

[Simba]

Ive not noticed it for TV but since I got my new 22inch HD monitor to go with my HD graphics card (ATi Radeon HD 6970 for those in the know) I have noticed a big difference in my gaming.

 

[alecstilleyedye]

i notice a huge difference between eurosport and eurosport hd, almost to the point where i could almost be cynical and suggest that they 'res down' the normal channel…

 

[Brains]

Maybe I'm just one of those people, but I can't see what the fuss about HD is.
When I go into Comet where you have 200 TV's in front of you I can't tell which ones are running HD and which ones are not, they are all much of a muchness


Our freeview sat dish picks up HD but it makes zero difference to any of our TV's at home

 

[ColinJ]

Maybe I'm just one of those people, but I can't see what the fuss about HD is.
When I go into Comet where you have 200 TV's in front of you I can't tell which ones are running HD and which ones are not, they are all much of a muchness

Whereas the difference was so obvious to me when I was walking past a Dixons (or was it Currys?) in Milton Keynes a few years ago that I stopped dead in my tracks and just stared at the demo set inside the doorway. The picture quality was absolutely stunning!

The demo programme seemed to have been filmed from a helicopter swooping in and out of valleys in the Alps and over the peaks of the mountains. I could see tiny bits of moss growing on the rocks, bubbles in the babbling streams, surface details on the leaves in the trees. A standard definition image by comparison, is the equivalent of me trying to read small print in a newspaper without my reading glasses on - everything just looks a bit blurred and fuzzy!