Well, I went ahead and purchased the Phillips 3576. I hooked it up and the picture looks very bad. It is dark and grainy/blurry. What am I doing wrong?

Here's my layout: I have cable from wall connected to dvdr via coaxial. I then have dvdr hooked to tv (Panny TH-42PX60U) via coaxial. I then have dvdr hooked to receiver (Onkyo TX-SR605) via hdmi. I have the dvdr set to 16:9 aspect, hdmi set to 720p, and progressive set to yes. Movies look/sound great, but the tv channels are very subpar.

If I change inputs to select channels directly thru the tv, the picture still looks great.

Anyone know what I am doing wrong?

Thanks

Not sure what comes out of Onkyo to TV, but why not try connecting HDMI from 3576 directly to TV and see if it's somethng in the Onkyo?

Here's a help file for system connections that might help, altho it doesn't have an intervening receiver. (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=12298409&postcount=10) Sounds like you've done most of this already?

You might also want to try Composite or Component connection from 3576 to TV... your cable TV is a composite signal, like mine, and I get my best straight-TV pic by retaining that Composite signal to my 1080p LCD and letting its more expensive scaling and video sep circuits do the job at the receiving end... I use HDMI for playing commercial DVDs only, where it does an excellent job with my setting of 480p from my 3575's.

Not sure what comes out of Onkyo to TV, but why not try connecting HDMI from 3576 directly to TV and see if it's somethng in the Onkyo?

I should have mentioned that I did that, and it does not help.

I will try the component connection now.

This is driving me nuts. The picture is perfect when I view tv from the tv input, which is gaining its signal from the dvdr tuner, but when I try to view channels directly from the dvdr, the channels are very poor. How can this be? The signals for both inputs are coming from the tuner in the dvdr, are they not? Or is the tv tuner "retuning" the signal? This is a bit over my head. Might just box it up and send it back.

This is driving me nuts. The picture is perfect when I view tv from the tv input, which is gaining its signal from the dvdr tuner, but when I try to view channels directly from the dvdr, the channels are very poor. How can this be? The signals for both inputs are coming from the tuner in the dvdr, are they not? Or is the tv tuner "retuning" the signal? This is a bit over my head. Might just box it up and send it back.
With incoming coax on the DVDR then on to the TV, that's just passing the raw cable signal thru... it doesn't go thru the tuner.

Only the line connection from the DVDR to the TV shows the DVDR tuner signal (plus menus, HDD and DVDs).

Well, I contacted Phillips and they came to the same conculsion as I did. The tuner in the dvdr bad. They are shipping me a new dvdr.