My Sony KDL40W3000 LCD TV gives wonderful DVD/Blu Ray pictures from my Sony BDP-S500, but frankly the pictures from many of the Sky channels (I have the basic Sky box) is so much worse than my old CRT tv that I really feel I have been conned by all this HD tv talk. This Sony tv is supposed to have a decent upscaling function (up to 1080p) but it doesn't seem any good on an analogue signal. I have read that a Sky HD box gives a better upscale of SD signals than my standard SKY box, but a friend has demonstrated that is nonsense. Is there any A/V that can assist in the upscaling of analogue/SD signals such that I can get a decent picture on my TV from the Sky satellite channels (non-HD)?
Best A/V for video upscaling of SD Sky signal?
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Hi,
Your 'ordinary' Sky digibox does not upscale anything.
Check all your connections are tight, you use good quality cabling between all equipment. If you have a poor standard signal, your tv will upscale that, which will make it look worse. I have an HD Panasonic tv and with my standard digibox, the pictures were superb - with my HD box, they're sublime.
Cheers,
Cofnchtr.
Your 'ordinary' Sky digibox does not upscale anything.
Check all your connections are tight, you use good quality cabling between all equipment. If you have a poor standard signal, your tv will upscale that, which will make it look worse. I have an HD Panasonic tv and with my standard digibox, the pictures were superb - with my HD box, they're sublime.
Cheers,
Cofnchtr.
[quote user="stormbird8"]but frankly the pictures from many of the Sky channels (I have the basic Sky
box) is so much worse than my old CRT tv that I really feel I have been conned
by all this HD tv talk.[/quote] It would be better on a decent CRT because it is usually being displayed in the resolution it was broadcast in.[quote user="stormbird8"]I have read that a Sky HD box gives a better upscale of SD signals than my
standard SKY box, but a friend has demonstrated that is nonsense.[/quote] If you are feeding the TV PAL signal in both cases, how will it be better on SKY HD, save the improvement of HDMI over SCART.[quote user="stormbird8"]Is there any A/V that can assist in the upscaling of analogue/SD signals such
that I can get a decent picture on my TV from the Sky satellite channels
(non-HD)? [/quote]Usually to get a better upscaler than that in your telly, you want to spend a sizeable proportion of what you spent on your telly on the upscaler. For instance, the Toshiba SD-360E upscaling DVD player looked no different on a Sony X series Bravia than a standard DVD player. Thats because the Toshiba was £30 and the Bravia £2000.
box) is so much worse than my old CRT tv that I really feel I have been conned
by all this HD tv talk.[/quote] It would be better on a decent CRT because it is usually being displayed in the resolution it was broadcast in.[quote user="stormbird8"]I have read that a Sky HD box gives a better upscale of SD signals than my
standard SKY box, but a friend has demonstrated that is nonsense.[/quote] If you are feeding the TV PAL signal in both cases, how will it be better on SKY HD, save the improvement of HDMI over SCART.[quote user="stormbird8"]Is there any A/V that can assist in the upscaling of analogue/SD signals such
that I can get a decent picture on my TV from the Sky satellite channels
(non-HD)? [/quote]Usually to get a better upscaler than that in your telly, you want to spend a sizeable proportion of what you spent on your telly on the upscaler. For instance, the Toshiba SD-360E upscaling DVD player looked no different on a Sony X series Bravia than a standard DVD player. Thats because the Toshiba was £30 and the Bravia £2000.
Thanks, but a friend with a similar HD tv (a year old Sony KDL40?2000) with a SKY HD box also showed that non-HD channels from Sky look lousy compared to a CRT tv picture, and I can't believe we are both having poor cabling/connections. Maybe Sony HD LCD is not as good as a Panasonic in this respect. Anyway I am stuck with this expensive Sony and think my only solution is to find a great A/V to do the video porocessing....
Thanks - I realise I am going to have to spend a large amount of wedge on a good video processing A/V, but which is the best ? Or at least how much will I have to spend to see am improvement on the Sony TV's own upscaling. My tv is particularly poor when expanding a letterbox picture within a 4:3 screen format to fit the full 40" LCD screen by setting Zoom on the Sony...
[quote user="stormbird8"]Thanks, but a friend with a similar HD tv (a year old Sony KDL40?2000) with a
SKY HD box also showed that non-HD channels from Sky look lousy compared to a
CRT tv picture, and I can't believe we are both having poor cabling/connections.[/quote]As I said before, PAL CRT TVs native resolution is the same as SKY is feeding it, no upscaling required. Your LCD is 1080p native, so has to make up information from the PAL signal. Unless an external unit, or the SKY HD box, is doing the upscaling, SKY HD and SKY SD will look identical.[quote user="stormbird8"]Anyway I am stuck with this expensive Sony and think my only solution is to find
a great A/V to do the video porocessing....
[/quote]Looks like you want a home cinema receiver with video upscaling like the Onkyo TX-SR875, which will upscale to 1080p.
SKY HD box also showed that non-HD channels from Sky look lousy compared to a
CRT tv picture, and I can't believe we are both having poor cabling/connections.[/quote]As I said before, PAL CRT TVs native resolution is the same as SKY is feeding it, no upscaling required. Your LCD is 1080p native, so has to make up information from the PAL signal. Unless an external unit, or the SKY HD box, is doing the upscaling, SKY HD and SKY SD will look identical.[quote user="stormbird8"]Anyway I am stuck with this expensive Sony and think my only solution is to find
a great A/V to do the video porocessing....
[/quote]Looks like you want a home cinema receiver with video upscaling like the Onkyo TX-SR875, which will upscale to 1080p.
Thanks - will this Onkyo TX-SR875 really make a noticeable difference then? I mean at £950+ and weighing more than my daughter (50lbs) will it really give me a great picture from any SD Sky signal I throw at it??
Moving to Sky HD would make a difference - if you enjoy the content broadcast in HD: sports, movies, arts, Sky One drama, BBC and Channel 4 shows available in HD.
If you're watching non-HD channels, particularly the low bit-rate channels (ITV 2/3/4 and others) even with the quality-advantage offered by the switch from Scart to HDMI - which is noticeable - they're not going to look great on Full HD set like yours.
That's why we've been so vocal in support of HD Ready sets with good Full HD support - best of both worlds: cope easier with SD broadcasts while happy with Blu-ray etc, too.
If you're watching non-HD channels, particularly the low bit-rate channels (ITV 2/3/4 and others) even with the quality-advantage offered by the switch from Scart to HDMI - which is noticeable - they're not going to look great on Full HD set like yours.
That's why we've been so vocal in support of HD Ready sets with good Full HD support - best of both worlds: cope easier with SD broadcasts while happy with Blu-ray etc, too.
Clare, thanks - if ITV 2/3/4 are "low bit-rate" channels, what are the "high bit-rate" SD channels? Unfortunately ITV 4 quite often seems to be the one with the best films on!
A whinge Clare - I pored over What-Hi-Fi before making my purchase, and nowhere did I read that Full HD tv's are worse than HD Ready tv's at processing SD signals. If this is true, then can I suggest you do make it clear to your readers, I did read that it wasn't really worth paying up for Full HD (unless you want to future-proof your purchase which I did, and I was also suckered into the whole blu-ray experience). If you had made this clear I would not have wasted money on this fancy HD Sony.
A whinge Clare - I pored over What-Hi-Fi before making my purchase, and nowhere did I read that Full HD tv's are worse than HD Ready tv's at processing SD signals. If this is true, then can I suggest you do make it clear to your readers, I did read that it wasn't really worth paying up for Full HD (unless you want to future-proof your purchase which I did, and I was also suckered into the whole blu-ray experience). If you had made this clear I would not have wasted money on this fancy HD Sony.
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