[akadennis]

I was just curious if these can be adjusted with a cablecard connection or is it fixed. With my cable box I can get 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. Thanks to anyone who responds.

 

[walford]

It is not a function of the card. The card just provides the ability for the (SD)NTSC tuner and the (HD)ATSC tuner in your TV to receive unencrypted signals for those services you subscribe to. You would probably need to read through the operators manual of the TV you are planning to get in to best understand your options.

 

[Kipp Jones]

The cablecard tuner is integrated in your display so the point is moot. It all depends on what your display will allow you to view.

 

[akadennis]

As far as I know my display allows all the resolutions I stated earlier. 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. With my cable box I can cycle through each of them. I was just wondering how this would be possible with a cablecard. I guess I will find out on Friday. Thanks to Kipp and Walford and anyone else who has any information about this.

 

[NVboy]

Quote:

Originally posted by akadennis As far as I know my display allows all the resolutions I stated earlier. 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. With my cable box I can cycle through each of them. I was just wondering how this would be possible with a cablecard. I guess I will find out on Friday. Thanks to Kipp and Walford and anyone else who has any information about this.

Sounds like you have a fixed resolution display, probably 720P? If so, it's still a mute point as your display will scale everything to 720P. And no, you can't adjust what the output will be. No need to as everything is still internally digital, just needs the scaling to take place according to your display.

 

[akadennis]

Looks like my fixed resoultion is

Three Wide XGA LCD Panels: 3.28 Million Dots Resolution (1386 x 788 x 3)

so im guessing the cablecard will display the channels at 1386 x 788. But even though it's fixed I am still able to let my cable box upscale it to 1080i. i guess i cant do this with a cablecard.

 

[NVboy]

Quote:

Originally posted by akadennis Looks like my fixed resoultion is Three Wide XGA LCD Panels: 3.28 Million Dots Resolution (1386 x 788 x 3) so im guessing the cablecard will display the channels at 1386 x 788. But even though it's fixed I am still able to let my cable box upscale it to 1080i. i guess i cant do this with a cablecard.

No, but I would imagine the Sony will probably do a better job than the cable box. "Don't worry, be happy!"

 

[walford]

Quote:

Originally posted by akadennis Looks like my fixed resoultion is Three Wide XGA LCD Panels: 3.28 Million Dots Resolution (1386 x 788 x 3) so im guessing the cablecard will display the channels at 1386 x 788. But even though it's fixed I am still able to let my cable box upscale it to 1080i. i guess i cant do this with a cablecard.

If your cable box is upscaling to 1080i then your Sony is down scaling it back to 1368x788. If you are receiving a 720p signal (ABC or FOX) then having your cable box upscale it to 1080i and then your Sony is downscaling it back to 1368x788. With the cable card you will probably get a better PQ by only go through one scaling operation which will be 720p to 1368x788p

 

[BBH]

Your cable box is letting you select its output. Your TV is most likely a 720P fixed pixel display. No matter what you feed it, it converts it to 720P. An internal tuner coupled with a cablecard eliminates the need for this down/up conversion. Theoretically, you should be better off without the cablebox in the pathway.

 

[The_smokester]

akadennis,

The cable card "unlocks" the tuner so it can read otherwise encrypted signals for the cable channels you have paid for.


These channels can be any of the usual resolutions including 480i, 720p and 1080i.


How these are displayed then depends on the capabilities and settings of your TV set.

 

[akadennis]

wow, this is all so confusing. so basically ur all saying that no matter where I have my cable box set everything gets converted to the tv's native resoultion. this sounds correct except that I do notice a difference when switching my cablebox from 1080i to 720p. It actually looks better to me at 1080i.

 

[walford]

Quote:

Originally posted by akadennis wow, this is all so confusing. so basically ur all saying that no matter where I have my cable box set everything gets converted to the tv's native resoultion. this sounds correct except that I do notice a difference when switching my cablebox from 1080i to 720p. It actually looks better to me at 1080i.

It depends on what signal your cable box is receiving if you are watching CBS or NBC they are broadcasting in 1080i so haveing your cable box sent\\d the unaltered signal to your TV and having the TV downscale it is better than having the cable box downscale it to 720p and then having your TV upscale it to its native resolution of 1386x768. If you are watching ABC or Fox then you are receiving a 720p signal and you would be better off sending it to the TV as 720P. You need to just pick the one that you like the best for the channels you watch and stick with it. I suspect that when you get your cable card that your ATSC tuner will accept the signal as received and that only one scaling operation will be performed in all cases and you will not have to pick one standard intermediate resolution.

 

[akadennis]

Ahh now I understand. So its probably best set it to whatever the station is broadcasting and let the tv do the work. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[akadennis]

I was doing a comparison with standard definition which is 480i. I would let my cable upconvert it to 1080i and then my tv would downconvert it to 1368x788. I then did it the other way, leaving it at 480i and then letting the tv upconvert it to 1368x788 actually looked better. I guess this is cause it only went through one up conversion and not one up and then one down.

 

[walford]

I have my cable box set to convert all SD to 480p and to convert all HD to 720p (which is the native mode of my TV).

When upconverting 480i to 1080i you were haveing your cable box "invent" the content of the 600 lines it had to add and of all the additional pixels per line it had to add. Then your TV was removing the number of lines and the number of pixels per line to get back down to 1368x788 and it was probably removing some of the origional lines and not only lines that had been added by your cable box thus causing a reduction in PQ.

 

[akadennis]

hey walford. thanks so much for educating me in all of this. im still not 100% clear but I definately have a better understanding. im guessing its probably best to leave ur cable box converting ur hd stuff to 720p since this is the native resolution of ur tv. for me since it's 1368x788 I guess it's better to leave my cable box set to whatever the station is broadcasting. cbs at 1080i and wabc at 720p, etc. and let the tv do its upconverting or downconverting. whichever applies

 

[akadennis]

i have another question. A friend of mine just got a cable card installed and was told by the technician that he would not be able to use his vcr to record from cable with the cable card. Is this true?

 

[walford]

Yes, unless the TV has a way to output a program that is being watched with a protocol such as S-video that he can input into his VCR.

 

[akadennis]

hey walford, thanks again for your expert advice. not sure if his tv can do this. are their any tv's that can do this? i guess this is the bad thing about cable cards. i like being able to record from my cable to my vcr.

 

[DisabledTrucker]

Actually there is, just plug the cable into your vcr before it makes it into your tv, though you wont be recording anything which is broadcast among the scrambled stations, you will get whatever is within the range of your vcr's tuner. Or you can run a seperate line into your vcr from your cable box's tuner.