Digital broadcast

[admin_exported]

Hi Guys,

I am a bit confused! I just bought a Samsung LCD TV and realised that the picture quality is worse than my old TV!!! I did not expect that! It seems the problem lies with transfering the analogue transmission into digital pictures? I have a freeview box (and there is obviously one built into Samsung TV) but the picture is still not as good as old TV So my question is...

Can I buy a HD Digital receiver to improve picture quality?

 

[John Duncan]

You could, and it would, but only for HD channels. The issue is not so much 'digital' as the fact that the majority of TV is standard definition, and needs to be upscaled by an HD receiver or by your television. You're stuck with this level of quality until more content becomes HD. Purveyors of HD content, in order of quantity - Sky, Virgin, Freesat - all of which require expensive boxes to access it.

jd

 

[Anonymous]

I understand (slightly) about the difference between HD and Digital, my point is...does a HD box upscale and low res. television signal to a resolution suitable for my new LCD tv? I have noticed a drop in picture quality and is sounds as though it is the ability of good tvs to convert (for want of a better word) the old low res. signal into a clean crisp high res. picture?

 

[professorhat]

The quality of your SD signals is dependent on the scaler being used. If you just have a standard Freeview box inputting via Scart, this means the TV is upscaling the picture. It's possible you may be able to improve this picture by purchasing a Freeview box which has upscaling capabilities built into it (e.g. the Topfield TF5810). However it all depends on the quality of the scaler in your TV and in the Freeview box as to whether you will see any improvement or not. You should definitely try and get some sort of home demo first to ensure this otherwise you may just be wasting your money.

Alternatives which provide an HD service e.g. the Sky HD box provide a combination of HD and SD channels. The HD channels will defintiely look much better, but you may find the SD channels are not a great improvement as from what I've heard, the Sky box isn't a great upscaler.
There are other considerations as well such as the bitrate the TV signal is sent at - on some channels this is higher on Sky than Freeview, so the picture may look better through the Sky box.