Just got a 42 inch 1080p HDTV set. I'd like to improve my Standard Dish Network receiver PQ on this new TV. What is the best affordable way (200/300$ ) to improve it , if there is any. I'd done some research and it looks like a scaler will do the job. But it seems like the only one I was able to find at an affordable price will do the conversion only up to 1080i . I also read that a trick would be that of connecting the receiver to an upconverting DVD Recorder and the DVD recorder to the TV for real time upconversion !?!?!
Getting an HD receiver is out of question because I do not get HD signal where I live.
Any thoughts on that ?

Paky

p.s. I hope my whole message is making sense. I am new and really a noob on this subject ..........

You aren't going to improve it much more over what the internal scaler is already doing. It's SD, garbage in, garbage out, stretching it to 1080p is going to magnify all the flaws in it.

Are you saying you can not receive the Dish HD signals where you live? That is hard to believe have you checked with Dish? It is of coruse true that you can not receive OTA HD digial signals where you live but that has nothing to do with dish HD signals.
If you can not recieve dish, cable, or OTA HD signals then the only source you have of other then 480i content would be a BlueRay disk drive.
Maybe another option would be to switch to DirectTV Hd.
Which LG model do you have?

I'd like a zipcode so we can see if he can receive any OTA HDTV as well.

But improving the SD Dish ? You can put lipstick on a pig, but that doesn't make it look any better. Things I would try - (some combination of these)

1. Check whether composite or S-Video works better for your set.
2. Don't "stretch" it to fill the screen. In fact, if your TV has a setting on aspect of "1:1", that's probably the best you can do. The flipside is that you would be looking at a postage stamp. SD DBS is why we stuck to a 32 inch LCD TV - the picture size of the 4:3 DBS image in full height aspect is about the same size as the 27 inch sd CRT it replaced.

Make sure your TV is calibrated (although most LCDs seem to be much better in this regard than the CRTs a few years ago). Even using an SD calibration DVD should get you in the ballpark.

Like someone else said, how the hell can you not get HD where you live? If you can get SD dish, you can get HD dish.

Thank you all for the prompt replies. There's one simple reason why I CANNOT get HD signal : I do not live in the USA, but in the Western Caribbean. I use a 1.8 mt round dish to get only 1 satellite ( 119 ) of dishnetwork, which is the one that has most the standard channels. I do not think I am in the footprint of the HD satellites . And even if I would, I'd need a bigger dish, 2.4mt or more). Same as for Directv. I can get the HD bird for the Canadian Starchoice, but I am not interested in it. And the funny thing is that I realized all these ,only after I took the decision of buying a 1080p HDTV. I believe that I would have been in better shape if I'd bought a 720p HDTV.
So you say that there is NO way I can improve my SD Dishnetwork receiver PQ ?!!? Yes my receiver is hooked to the TV with the S-Video cable.

How about this RCA DRC8052N DVD recorder Inot really for recording but for "real time" upsampling the receiver signal) that has been mentioned in another thread on this forum ?

Paky

Your TV already has a scaler to upconvert to it's native resolution, you didn't mention the make and model though you might want to research how good it's scaler is supposed to be before you buy anything else.

The Display Devices section would be a good place to find out.

So you say that there is NO way I can improve my SD Dishnetwork receiver PQ ?!!?Unlikely. Don't waste your money.

Your TV already has a scaler to upconvert to it's native resolution, you didn't mention the make and model though you might want to research how good it's scaler is supposed to be before you buy anything else.

The Display Devices section would be a good place to find out.

This is my TV : SHARP AQUOS 42 LC42D65U
Will my TV convert a 1080i signal into its native 1080p resolution ?
P/

It converts everything to it's native resolution, it's a fixed pixel display.

Dish is in the process of creating the Eastern Arc and is moving HD channels to three satellites at 61.5, 72.7 and 77. Are you sure you can't get any of those? Signals are live there now and can be received on Vip receivers with the new purple smart cards.

All S-video is NTSC Standard Definition 480i video. You should get better PQ and scaling if you use component instead even if you stilll only output at 480i although 480p over componenent wwill probably be better then 480i over component.