I just bought a 40" Sony LCD S4100 and have Dish Network (digital, not HD). The picture is not very good. I thought Digital TV would have a better signal.

The TV is in my bedroom and shares the DVR box with the TV in the living room. The Sony is connected via cable.

Is there a better way to connect my TV? Is Digital TV (Dish) the same as SD?

Thanks for any help,

Paul

All satellite is and has been "digital".
If you don't have an HD capable STB, all programming will be 480i (SD).

You should consider upgrading to HD and get an STB for each TV.

The Sony is connected via cable.


When you say cable, you mean like the type of coaxial cable that comes out of the wall (straight from the dish)?

yes, the satellite box supports 2 tv's in the house.

Looks like I need HD and the box in the bedroom. I don't know how its done if you have 2 HD tv's

They split the signal coming from the dish and send it to each box. It's pretty simple and commonly done.

Yeah, I'd get an HD box (for each TV) and connect it with at the very least a component video cable, if not HDMI.

Also keep in mind standard def channels on an HDTV range in quality, even digital. You're blowing a 480i image up to 1080p. There's going to be a bit of compromise. HD channels should look good, though.

Yeah if you are talking about what I think you are talking about my parents have the same setup. There is only one digital box in the house and somehow (I'm not really sure how it works) it sends the signal back over the cable and the other tv uses the second tuner in that one box. Another thing that I don't understand is how the remote works on the extra TV since it doesn't even have a digital box connected.

But anyway, the biggest problem for you is that your second tv is plugged in using coax instead of component, DVI, or HDMI which would all be better choices. I'm not going to say I know a lot about the subject though so If I'm wrong feel free to correct me. Anyone.

There should also be composite output on that tuner for the second TV. You should be able to improve the picture somewhat by running really long composite A/V RCA cables (like from www.monoprice.com) to that second TV.

You'll need a 3-wire, red, white and yellow A/V cable. (Might even be s-video out on the tuner to the 2nd set, since it only outputs 480i, but I'm not sure. Should at least have composite, though.)

StuckWithComcast is right about my setup. It'd be a long cable run for component (if the box even has that output mode).

I spent more time watching last night. Most shows are acceptable (movies get a little weird in some scenes being blown up to 16:9) sports are where it suffers. Football and basketball whole field shots. Close ups aren't too bad. Ultimate Fighting was pretty good.

I could move the box into the bedroom as my main TV doesn't have component (it's just bigger than my new one). I read about some of the video processors last night and they may be interesting.

Thanks for the help.

You might just see if you can turn that one box back in and get 2 regular boxes. I'm not really sure why Dish Network decided to start using that type of technology. It would have been great 10 years ago before we were all using HDTV's but now it really cuts down on the quality using the one box like that. It's really just a bad idea all around.

StuckWithComcast is right about my setup. It'd be a long cable run for component (if the box even has that output mode).That's composite. Considerably cheaper than component. And you can buy them that long.

As far as the output on the box, my Dish dual-receiver has them. And it will improve the PQ. Much cheaper than renting another tuner.

I'm not really sure why Dish Network decided to start using that type of technology.Basically to one-up Direct.