SD Picture quality on 921

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stuhuff

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Jan 9, 2005
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Switched from a 501 that I have had for 3 years this week and am very disappointed in the SD picture quality on the 921. I have a 57" rear projection and the SD images are much poorer with the 921 than with the 501. Does anybody else have this problem? Is there an explanation for this?

Thinking about returning the 921 and going with cable... :(
 
I have a 57" toshiba hd tv and I see the sd quality is good as I can get with the compression they use.

It has a movie mode which puts everything at 50 % on the picture controls. This gives me the best picture with the dvi cable. I don't use component at all . I also have the sd composite cables running to my 2 tv in my computer room. It is an 20" sd Toshiba tv. The picture quality is great on either tv. I even shopped around carrying around my 721 dvr last May . I went to Sears and they already had an hd Dish 6000 receiver hooked up to a 50" Toshiba hd tv. That tv was so sharp and colorful compared to the other hd tvs with the same picture. I tried both sd shows and hd shows it was great. I knew right then I wanted a Toshiba. I didn't buy it there, but at Best Buy where I could use my card.

I highly recommend Toshiba for anyone with Dishnetwork. It gives me the best picture quality for my money. :D
 
Why don't you use COmponent Video?

Mike, I have the same 57" Toshiba...I am using the component video inputs though. Did you find that the composite video inputs work better?

Thanks, Stu
 
If you are watching your hd tv and use the dvi cable and use the "movie mode" you should see a great picture with sd and hd picture. Do you have under the advanced picture control menu the 1) als on and 2)the flesh tone on , and 3)the cable clear dnr on too ? If not turn them on and this should help make the picture smoother and clear on sd .

Something else to ask you. How far away are you watching this tv from? It helps to sit about 12- 15' away from the picture to make everything look great. The closer you sit to a big screen tv the more you will see the flaws in the picture. I sit about 14 ' away from mine and I am in a 16'x16' room.

Also you need to do the convergence manually ( under installation menu ) to make sure that the picture looks sharp. It has number 1- 8 and covers the 4 quadrants of the screen. I find that if you don't do this about every couple of months , the picture will look out of focus after awhile. The touch focus button I never use any more because it is not as accurate as doing so manually.

I use composite for my second sd tv which is a small 20 " toshiba tv. I think it looks great. Just about everything looks great with satellite on a small tv. I think I read that a 20"- 27" tv is what satellite was made for. The big screens is where all the problems show in the picture. I also have a s-video super vhs vcr from JVC. I can watch in sd through the Hd 57" tv and the picture looks good but not as bright and colorful as my dvi cable over 1080i.

I watch my sd channels over dvi cable and the format is 1080i. I find the picture looks as good as you can get with satellite , except of course hd. Try what I have suggested and use the movie mode and enable the above features in the advance picture controls, and do the manual convergence and you should see a good picture too. The dvi is the key though, because there is no digital to analog conversion in the picture like with a regular sat receiver. It is digital all the way and no conversion artifacts.

I hope this helps you with your picture. :)
 
Toshiba convergence adjustment

I found at
<http://www.bus.ucf.edu/cwhite/theater/ToshibaTips.htm>
info on doing convergence adjustments for 56 points on my 46H83 (2003).

You must never use the 9 point adjustment again. There are MAJOR problems if you mess up so read the instructions. I could not get into the Designer mode (to clear the 9 point numbers) perhaps because the description was for X81/H81 models.

I used a scrap of vinyl from a hardware store. Advantages: cheap, very clear, stricks to glass screen, and easy to draw grid with Sharpie. Disadvantages: stretches.

I did have to adjust the overscan for minimum and still could not get the HDNET test pattern fully on screen, ~"4" vertical and "8" horizontal. I reduced the grid spacing from that in the article.

It takes quite a while and may require more than one pass (say ~1 hour each) to get the vertical nonlinearity small enough to make scrolling text not have varying size and to not burn in the grid. You are adjusting the absolute positions at 8X by 7Y points limited only by your straight edge and your eyes.

It will be worth it in fringe elimination. Letters do not have colors around them.
 
More data

I have a Toshiba 46" DLP. At the moment (because I'm waiting for my RMA documents and box to arrive) I still have both my soon to be ex-921 and my Adelphia SA8300HD connected. Both are connected via RGB using the exact same type cable.

When I got the 921, I was also a bit unhappy with the non-HD PQ, but attributed it to the fact that the DLP was really native 720p, and was larger. So, I just thought I'd deal with it.

However, when I watch the same exact channels via Adelphia on the SA8300HD, I find the PQ is actually far better. I'm really surprised! I didn't think this would be the case. I actually don't know if it's the 921, or if it's just because Dish is compressing the SD stuff so much. It's REALLY a big difference, however. Didn't notice it right away because I normally just watch HD content on that set, or DVDs.
 
I have 2 508, one 921 and one 6000. The 6000 and 921 SD PQ is about the same but the 508 is about 40% better. My SD picture from a 508 hooked to an old 61" 4X3 Sony is amazing and I don't see any compression problem. My 921 is hooked to a 53" Pioneer Elite and the sd picture is terrible both from the components and S-Video.

Sergio
 
KKlare said:
I found at
<http://www.bus.ucf.edu/cwhite/theater/ToshibaTips.htm>
info on doing convergence adjustments for 56 points on my 46H83 (2003).

You must never use the 9 point adjustment again. There are MAJOR problems if you mess up so read the instructions. I could not get into the Designer mode (to clear the 9 point numbers) perhaps because the description was for X81/H81 models.




When Best Buy set up my tv they did the point convergence screen right from the get go. The guy said that these tvs required tweaking on the convergence periodically because if you move the tv around a lot it will lose the picture focus. I moved my tv quite a lot when I got the 921 dvr to do power cord reboots and he was right it caused my covergence to be out of focus. I have since put a small surge protector with a switch on/off that I can plug into my monster surge protector. I put it right behind the 921 where I can easily access it. I now check it about every 2 months to make sure it is still in focus. It keeps my picture quite sharp. I don't know what you read in the instructions because my instructions didn't have anything about not using this feature.

Anyway my picture stays in good shape by doing this and I have no complaints on the pq with Dish network. :) Once again I have to stress if you don't use the dvi cable then your picture quality will vary.
Click to expand...
 
Can anyone recommend an economically priced DVI cable? And does anyone know if there is a worthwhile difference between the 100$ monster DVI and a cheap/standard DVI cable?
 
No diff.

Digital is Digital. 1's and 0's.

The whole quality Monster cable thing is a sham when it comes to digital cables
 
Sorry should have elaborated

I tried the Monster and cheap one and saw no difference what so ever. Now analog or speaker cable is a different story
 
bdemz said:
I tried the Monster and cheap one and saw no difference what so ever. Now analog or speaker cable is a different story
Click to expand...

Thanks. I much prefer to hear from actual use as opposed to speculation. And I definitely apprecaite your feedback.
 
Got my 921 last weekend and hooked it up and been playing since Sunday. I gotta tell you guys, my 721 with S-Video out had better SD PQ than the 921 does, and I'm running DVI on the 921. I've played around with 720p/1080i settings but whatever I do, my 721 had better pq. I think I'm gonna hookup component and see how it looks. It shouldn't look better, but who knows, it's worth looking at I suppose.
 
I have had to tweak my system as well, I have a 921 hooked up to a 42 plasma and it seems to me that my tv does a better job of downconverting the 1080 signal than the 921 does at delivering the 480. This is all relevant to what your tv is able to handle. In the world of HD your tv will only handle up to the lowest resolution indicated by your set. Mine is 854x480 so it is not HD. A 1024x768 will only use the 768 and so is not technically receiving true HD@1080 anyway. Sets that are true HD I.E. 1080 on up x 1080 on up will deliver the true HD signal to your screen. It's a fuzzy situation at best. I can say for sure that I and anyone whom sees my picture can say for sure that the picture in HD on an HD feed looks ten times better than the picture in HD on an SD feed. Go figure...
 
My 921 produces a much better SD picture in HD-mode than using the S-video. For some reason, the 921 s-video sucks . Using DVI will only benefit real HD when your display is also digital (LCD,plasma,DLP). If your display is a RPTV ,components should work better or as good as DIVI/HDMI. I also noticed that the SA-video cable that comes with the 921 is very cheap and not deep enough to be hooked all the way through the S-video port .

Sergio
 
I don't think a better DVI cable will make any difference , unless you are running a 50 foot cable. I suggested a better S-video cable because the standard Dish s-video cable is too shallow and can cause some signal dropouts. Using DVI or component should not make a lot of a difference if your TV is a RPTV. If it is a plasma, them the story is different. I only had bad experiences with monster cables. Try the components and see if the picture improves. If not, try a better S-video (look at the connector and see if it's not the "shallow" type). DVI/HDMI sends 0 and 1 and normally don't do anything to the signal.

Sergio
 

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