I am new to this so please be kind..I just purchased a Sony 52" XBR4 and had DirecTv hook up their new HD DVR and the new dish..My HD channels are great, my SD channels are terrible...I have had 2 DirecTv techs out and they both basically say that's the way it is, one actually said DirecTv made the new boxes do this so you can see how much better the HD picture is..I just fail to believe this is true...Can anyone give me some input on this? Thanks
New Directv Hd Poor Sd Picture
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It's fairly common that when you get a HD TV everyone says their SD pictures look like garbage. Problem is that the HD set 'amplifies' all the flaws in the SD picture making it look worst. Some folks say that if they use the SVideo connection to view SD channels that they look a little bit better.
Not are signals are exactly the same; SD or digital; but the old saying "garbage in, equals garbage out" The new digital wide-screen displays magnify the garbage.
I have a 40" 1080P Samsung LCD hooked up to an HR20-700 and, I must admit the SD picture is not as sharp as it is on a couple of old tube type tvs that we have upstairs and in our bedroom. In order to get the "wow" factor you have to go to one of the channels being broadcast in HD.
Hopefully, in the not too distant future, all major programming will be in HD.
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Cabrat, rest assured, it is not you. It is in fact the way it is, which is a shame. It is stopping folks like my Dad from getting an new set. Doesn't want to see some of his favorites looking so bad. Heck you should see how bad the SD pics are on our 106 inch screen, yikes!
It's not just the big screens either. I can attest to poor SD from the other end of the scale. I use a 19 inch Phillips and SD is pretty bad . My TV is 900p native resolution.
SD on both of my HDTV's is not a thing of beauty. It's marginally better on the smaller Samsung but I'd kind of expect that because it's a smaller screen. If there's a show I really want to watch in SD where the quality makes a difference then I watch it via the Sony EDTV and the H10 that feeds it. The SD picture on that set is very, very good. Of course it's not an HDTV and while HD looks pretty good it can't compare to the SXRD or the Samsung. Sooner or later the EDTV will be changed out but it's our least watched set so there's no particular rush. The home project right now is upgrading the kitchen and that's taking most of our time and certainly our money. 
Wow...Thanks for all the input..At any rate I am having a DirecTv supervisor come out and take a look, hopefully he can get me a little better picture on the SD..Rad mentioned adding a SVideo cable which may help..I have an HDMI in the wall, can anyone tell me the best way to add the SVideo cable? Thanks again eveyone for all the input..
stupid question from me....when the digital date comes up in feb09 will these 'sd" channels then look better ?
The key in my mind is the original source. If it was filmed/recorded years ago then it won't be digital and there's only so much that can be done or is worth doing to make the original source look sharper. It's the old "garbage in, garbage out". Sure, you can digitally remaster an old show or movie, and certainly some look much better after having gone through that process, but it's clearly not a high quality source.
I'm amazed that no one has mentioned the major reason that most SD looks so bad on Directv....it's over compression! SD signals when presented over adequate bandwidth look MUCH better than what we have been getting for a long time from Directv. It's true that HD sets may amplify defects in SD sources but compressing the hell out of everything certainly does nothing to improve the situation!
Don't limit it to DirecTV, Dish and cable companies are guilty of the same thing.
I only mentioned Directv since they were the company being discussed. I've been a Directv subscriber for almost 10 years and I know their SD signals look much worse now than they did several years ago before they started squeezing too many channels into too little bandwidth. I also am aware of the overcompression that is present with Dish, the cable companies and, more recently, with OTA digital stations who add subchannels that corrupt the high quality of HD signals. Receiving equipment has hugely improved over the past few years but at the same time programming suppliers seem to be doing their best to undermine reception quality whenever they get a chance to make another buck.
A good analog SD channel will blow away the digital channel since they're cable and DBS are squeezing up to 12 channels in the same bandwidth as that one analog channel, somethings got to give.
I only mentioned Directv since they were the company being discussed. I've been a Directv subscriber for almost 10 years and I know their SD signals look much worse now than they did several years ago before they started squeezing too many channels into too little bandwidth. I also am aware of the overcompression that is present with Dish, the cable companies and, more recently, with OTA digital stations who add subchannels that corrupt the high quality of HD signals. Receiving equipment has hugely improved over the past few years but at the same time programming suppliers seem to be doing their best to undermine reception quality whenever they get a chance to make another buck.
Agree with your comments, just mentioned the others so the OP doesn't think they can go to another provider and it's going to solve their problem.
Everyone's focus is always HD but, since the majority of subscribers to any service pay the largest amount of their monthly bill for SD packages, people should be outraged at the SD picture quality that they pay big bucks for. Many of the not so-HD upconvert channels are what SD should look like. SD programming isn't going away anytime soon. As more new satellites become active, people should demand that D* and all providers improve their SD picture.
That would be nice but when D* and E* first started down this road customers back then b*tched about it and what happened, nothing, except their customers numbers kept growing, not shrinking. As long as the money keeps coming in and the customers keep coming I don't see that changing.
I got the XBR2 model ,the SD PQ is the same as yours. SD picture Quality Barely passes IMO. I would blame it on the TV being a 1080p,Because I have not see one yet that looked good in SD. I've seen a Sharp,Philips,Vizio,and Panasonic. My 768p Philips has much better SD PQ.
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