Sky HD picture quality

[admin_exported]

HI I STARTED WATCHING SKY HD MOVIES THIS MORNING, ON MY SAMSUNG PVR, AND FULL DEF PANASONIC 37" LCD..... BUT THE PICTURE ON ALL THE FILMS I LOOKED AT, LOOKED RUBBISH.....NOT ONE OF THEM LOOKED LIKE HIGH DEFINITION ! IS IT MY EYES ? OR HAS SKY REDUCED ITS PICTURE QUALITY THE SAME AS BBC ????

 

[davejberry]

Does your Samsung record in HD? What connections do you use to send the picture from the Sky HD box to the Samsung?

Are you sure that the film was HD material, I heard somewhere that not all the programming broadcast on Sky's HD channels is HD to start with.

 

[bigboss]

I was watching The Game Plan on Sky Movies HD today, & the picture & sound quality was, as expected, brilliant. I'm sure there's something wrong with your settings.

 

[GazzyP]

Your TV hadnt flicked onto SCART input. Had it??? Make sure its on HDMI.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi, it's a normal Sky Hd box (Samsung).... using HDMI ,and Chord silver plus HDMI cable....... To be honest with you, the HD channels dont look too bad now..... but SD is looking rubbish ! Is it me ???? Or SKY ? Picture looks better on freeview

 

[Pindi]

Have you set the resolution ouput on your Sky box to Auto? Sky boxes are rubbish at upscaling, I would let the TV do it instead.

 

[Anonymous]

I dont think so...as Im only using the hdmi connections ( 2 Chord silver plus HDMI)

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Pindi.... That sounds a very good idea,iI will try That straight away

 

[Anonymous]

Pindi..... Are you saying that sky output resolution SHOULD be set to automatic? Or should be set to 1080i ??? And will my full HD Pansonic LCD set the resolution automatically?

 

[The_Lhc]

Sky should be set to Auto, if you set it to 1080i then you're asking the Sky box to upscale SD pictures, which is what it's not very good at, setting it to auto outputs the SD channels at 576p, your TV will then upscale them automatically.

 

[Anonymous]

But is there a way of getting rid of that godawful delay when switching from SD to HD broadcasts (or vice versa) when output is set to auto? I find it so annoying.

 

[Pindi]

Unfortunately the delay can't be stopped when the Sky box is set to Auto.

Stevetyper, any luck?

 

[D.J.KRIME]

I personally would rather put up with the delay caused having the box set to AUTO over the frankly rubish upscaling ability of the Sky HD box

 

[Anonymous]

Presumably the alternative is to have your amp upscale (Denon 2310 in my case).

I've heard that my TV's (Philips 9664) upscaling is 'soft' and would like to try the Denon upscaling. Unfortunately, the Denon user guide is pants.I wonder if anyone is able to advise on settings to achieve upscaling via the Denon.

Thanks

LL

 

[tvspecv]

is the new amstrad box`s scaling capability better than the samsungs? or should i just stick to auto?

 

[pete.g]

Just checked my output on my HD box. Changed it to auto from 1080i to let the Denon 2310 do the scaling. Have to say, the PQ has improved dramatically on both HD and SD. I have noticed though, a delay in receiving the picture when changing from a SD channel to a HD one and visa versa. I presume this the HDMI handshake issue mentioned in other posts?

 

[Anonymous]

Hi pete.g,

Have you set your 2310 to upscale? If not, when the Sky box is set to auto, the default setting on the 2310 is to pass through the signal untouched and leave upscaling to to the TV.

Cheers

LL

 

[pete.g]

Hi LL

You are right. The 2310 is set to auto which is leaving the upscaling to the Pioneer. Do you think the TV will do a better job?

I will play around with it and see what happens.

Cheers

 

[Anonymous]

I don't think you can really seek advise on what provides the best picture. It can depend on so many variables within all our different set ups.

I would recommend trying various combinations (e.g. different Sky box outputs in conjunction with upscaling via Sky box/amp/TV to determine what works best for you.

Having said that, I think we'd all be really interested to hear what others think as there may be some sort of common denominator.

Cheers

LL

 

[Anonymous]

I seem to be the only one who finds the picture worse if I set the Sky box to Auto. I've tried it several times and there is no dramatic improvement everyone seems to talk about as I say it looks worse if anything. By the way I have an Amstrad box.

 

[Anonymous]

I have one of the new 500GB Amstrad boxes and, to be honest, I'm struggling to see any discernible difference when switching output between 'Automatic' and '1080i'.

Could it be that the upscaling on the new boxes has been improved?

LL

 

[Anonymous]

My tv is a Panasonic 42G10 and I couldn't put up with the poor quality of the SD on my new SkyHD, went through a few settings with the a Sky engineer on the phone, had an engineer come round, they couldn't improve the quality on my Amstrad box. So I cancelled the HD pack and got Sky to re-install my old Sky+ though a scart.

 

[The_Lhc]

footydad:My tv is a Panasonic 42G10 and I couldn't put up with the poor quality of the SD on my new SkyHD, went through a few settings with the a Sky engineer on the phone, had an engineer come round, they couldn't improve the quality on my Amstrad box. So I cancelled the HD pack and got Sky to re-install my old Sky+ though a scart.

As I asked the last time you said this and didn't get an answer, did you try setting the Sky output to Auto to let your TV do the upscaling?

 

[Anonymous]

PINDI....hi, Yes pic quality has improved iI think on SD......and i can live with the slight delays when changing channels

 

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

Out of interest, are people advising to set output to 'Automatic' based on experiences with the new Amstrad boxes or is this all historical?

As my previous post, I don't find a significant difference between output setting of 'Automatic' and '1080i' on my new 500Gb Amstrad Sky+ HD box.

It'd be interesting to know if they've improved the upscaling capabilities on the new boxes.

Cheers

LL