Help using directv with 50pz700u

Well DirecTV is broadcasting a HD-lite for one... They are bandwidth starved atm and aren't doing full resolution.

If you are in the top 300 markets or so, you can pop a cheap rabbit ear on the back and watch some live HD sports this weekend. That would confirm if everything is working correctly with the set. At least that way you would "see" all the HD you paid for to see in the TV.



You should also confirm that your set top box is configured correctly, what is the output setting set to? Does your TV's info button confirm that?

Does your set top box give you a choice of output "native" or "1080" or "1080 and/or 720 auto switching"?

I have the exact same setup and was disappointed with Directv channels too. I believe the directv dvr defaults to native resolution so I just left it that way and let the TV do all the scaling (seems to look best). I have noticed the quality varies with channel and programming and I assume it's due to the quality of the source material. OTA video recorded programming looks very good but after watching some 1080p movies and seeing what the tv is capable of, I don't really want to watch directv hd anymore. Hopefully, when direct starts moving to mpeg4 the quality will improve but I have my doubts.

directv's HD is the worst of all providers, dishnetwork has a much better HD picture quality

Dont know what area you are in, but we are coverd in forest too.......40 miles from the stations.......but the ground is flat. A cheap 30 year old antenna in the attic does the trick, nothing fancy. Receiving digital is usually easier than analogue.........but each area is different. Once you get past 60 miles it gets much harder to get the picture. Generally, 100 miles is about tops; but that takes some dollars.

For the last 25 years most people around here thought cable was needed to get channels...........with more and more HD sets with tuners, lots of people are dropping cable and sat service..........but again we are just 40 miles away.

I have still not seen any HD as good as OTA CBS HD sports and prime time, for us NBC live sports is almost as good, and FOX at only 720 is great too. Our ABC varies their quality a lot. Last year I had the opportunity to campare a Dallas fooball game.....Direct TV vs OTA...it was not close, the Direct TV was terrible. The big advantage to the OTA was no artifacts or motion blurr, or color smear.

Anyway, if OTA is not available, then maybe it is just a matter of time before you get good Sat service.

Yes it's does it it only when the channel I'm changing from and to are different resolutions, like from an SD channel to a HD channel or 720p ABC to 1080i NBC. It doesn't do it when flipping through SD channels or any 2 1080i channels. I've noticed it will also display HDMI 1 when looking at the antenna signal strength on the Directv receiver so it's must be the receiver turning on and off the picture or changing resolution modes, I don't think it's the TV. I bet if you set the receiver to 1080i only and let it scale it will probably stop the HDMI1 from popping up. I haven't messed with it too much so I'm not sure if it will degrade PQ or not, guess it wouldn't matter since directv PQ is not that great anyway.

Also if can now or in the future get the TV remote to control the DVR, please let me know how.

have you tried getting ova (over the air) feed to see how this tv looks by local free hd channels?

Freestylemx989,

I see you have your output on the HD-DVR set to Native, but have you made sure to set the TV resolutions for all the resolutions it's capable of. Under the Settings menu, I think it's under Display, you can highlight the Resolutions tab at the top and then be sure that you've set the DVR box to know that your TV is able to accept all of the resolutions (480i, 480p, 720, 1080i are the choices). If you've only set it to Native but not told the box that the HD resolutions are supported by your TV, it won't send them through without converting them.
I have the same directv hd-dvr set with my 58" 700u and it looks pretty darn amazing.
Try this. If you've already done it, oh well. Let me know if this was confusing.

I have to agree with most here that Direct TV is one of, if not the worst HD providers out there. I dumped it in favor of Comcast cable nearly a year ago and am much happier. Direct TV can market "more HD channels" all they like, I would rather have a smaller selection of outstanding HD channels than twice as many so, so, channels. J.MO.

If you want the best picture available (with the possible exception of HD/BD discs/players) you should invest in a good outdoor antenna. This site will help you determine what stations are available at your house, and how good an antenna is needed. If you have a D* DVR, you'll find the OTA stations integrate seamlessly. I think they do with standard D* receivers, too, but I have no first hand experience with them.

No, they are not pretty, but neither are satellite dishes. And, yes, it'll cost a couple of hundred dollars to have a good one installed, but, depending on where you live, that probably amounts to no more that you paid in sales tax or delivery for your TV. In any case, it's a long term investment (mine still works fine after 40 years). And the picture is much better than any cable or satellite service will provide.

Hmmm personaly I think Direct TV looks fantastic. But then ive never seen a dish network or cable HD broadcast. So ive got nothing to compare it to.

You should do yourself a favor and at least check into some of the other options available for HD content. As I said I dropped Direct TV nearly a year ago for Comcast and even though I get fewer HD channels, they are at least "true HD" rather than the crap Direct was calling HD. They don't call Direct TV "HD lite" for nothing.

The affect of compressing the HD signal is influenced by the specific TV being viewed. My wife can see absoleutely no difference between local OTA HD and the E* provided satellite HD local channels. This is when viewing on a 37" Panasonic plasma. This may or may not be the case later this month when we get a 58" 1080p Panny Plasma.

While that statement is unquestionably true regarding the the size and quality of the TV being viewed, it has nothing to do with the method and quality in which Direct TV is delivering their HD content. Regardless of the size and quality of panel, Direct TV's HD content is going to look worse than many other cable HD providers or over the air sources of HD content, simply because of Direct TV's "choice" as to how to deliver that HD content. As I said, I would rather have 15 great quality HD channels than 30 so, so HD channels, but thats a choice each has to make for themselves.

Again, you're missing the point that no matter the quality of the TV, at a given distance you will not be able to view any discernable diggerence between "HD Lite" and full rezzed HD inputs. As I said, in the case of OTA HD compared to "HD Lite" on a 37" set viewed at say 10 feet we can not discern a difference. This is similar to the tradeoff in choosing a 1080p panel versus a panel of lower rezz.... view from a large difference and you will be hard pressed to discern the difference.

I have no dispute with those statements except to say that if your watching HD content on a 37" panel from 10 feet away, Why bother with HD at all?????

I think Direct TV's HD signal varies WIDELY. There are some NBA games that look horrible, and some that look great. Then there is TNT which imho is just SD in 16x9 but sometimes I am just in awe at the pq of certain things. Bad Boys II the other night on FOX HD for example.

It's a bedroom set... let's see 1.5X37= 55". Wait, I know. I'll mount it on the ceiling,

As an aside, I suspect that you will find that the majority, if not most, end up watching at a greater distance then required in order to get the full benefit of the HD.

Take a 58" set at 1080p. How many sit 7.5 feet or less from such a screen?