[bmfap]

The W1070 hit $655 and I couldn't resist any longer. I got it installed over the weekend, just a painted on screen on the wall for our living room - i know not the best, but it's going to be it for now. I haven't done any tweaking yet, we had a family move night last night watching Annie with the kids. I'm super happy with the picture! Even on my drywall screen, it is super sharp and colors are awesome. I measured my projected image to be 126" diagonal. The kids have decided they have the coolest house in the neighborhood

NOW - turned on a hockey game for all it's large screen glory today, and I was a little disappointed. Are networks are broadcasting in 720p? On my 42" lcd it's nice and clear, but on the 126" screen i can see artifacts that look like the resolution just isn't up to snuff. It's not a screen or projector problem, the HD movie on demand we watched was fine, and even an upconverted DVD from the bluray player looked really good. Broadcast tv seems to be the weakest link?

Am I right in assuming the networks are broadcasting in lower resolution and that there's really not anything I can do about it?

Thanks for all the advice on this forum, it helped tremendously over this last year as I've been finishing the addition and planning for the projector.

 

[AV_Integrated]

Most networks are broadcasting stuff in 1080i, which is a long way from 1080p. Motion suffers from stair stepping issues and you aren't really getting a solid image. For sports, 720p is the typical format in use.

It's a rather long explanation, but real time encoding of HD material is not easy to do. Turning a several Gb/s stream of data into a MPEG or H.264 stream in real time, without artifacts is difficult when you need to hit 18-21 Mb/s compression levels.

Now, throw in the cable providers, and you may see those compression levels drop even more. Especially with networks which don't get the numbers that the major networks receive. So, your top dollar real time 18 Mb/s encodes become 10 Mb/s and may be performed by relatively weak transcoders.

It's certainly not the 720p that's messing things up. DVDs are 480i and you saw how good one looked, so it's for sure not about the resolution. It's a combination of the real time encoding (720p/60) and the compression required, and the potential recompression by your cable provider that is really messing things up.

You didn't say what cable company you had, but one of my client's is a pretty avid hockey fan and likes his FiOS service with Tivo players. Maybe it's time for an upgrade of service for you?

 

[Omni009]

You are totally correct. Networks compress the hell out of the signal. Even before I had a projector, I could see it. Now I can Really see it.

 

[Star56]

Yes many of the sports networks ( ESPN/Fox Sports) are in 720P and can look soft on a big screen. 1080i is far superior to 720P for sports.

I shoot to 106" and from 12/13 feet and DTV 1080i looks good in most cases. If your comparing to a 42" panel then yes your going to be let down buy the softness of some broadcast PQ.

Sitting back a bit can help reduce the appearance of softness and artifacts. Even a few feet can make a big difference.

 

[philmike21]

The W1070 hit $655 and I couldn't resist any longer. I got it installed over the weekend, just a painted on screen on the wall for our living room - i know not the best, but it's going to be it for now. I haven't done any tweaking yet, we had a family move night last night watching Annie with the kids. I'm super happy with the picture! Even on my drywall screen, it is super sharp and colors are awesome. I measured my projected image to be 126" diagonal. The kids have decided they have the coolest house in the neighborhood

NOW - turned on a hockey game for all it's large screen glory today, and I was a little disappointed. Are networks are broadcasting in 720p? On my 42" lcd it's nice and clear, but on the 126" screen i can see artifacts that look like the resolution just isn't up to snuff. It's not a screen or projector problem, the HD movie on demand we watched was fine, and even an upconverted DVD from the bluray player looked really good. Broadcast tv seems to be the weakest link?

Am I right in assuming the networks are broadcasting in lower resolution and that there's really not anything I can do about it?

Thanks for all the advice on this forum, it helped tremendously over this last year as I've been finishing the addition and planning for the projector.

A projector isn't supposed to be clear as a tv you do know that right? A tv is in most cases always look better than a tv. You sacrifice that when going to a projector. because it is going to give you that movie theater like feel.

 

[LeonZA]

A projector isn't supposed to be clear as a tv you do know that right?

Not if the projector can get decent content fed to it

Here in South Africa the HD channels on one of our satellite providers (DSTv) have got really horrible banding going on. I can't believe nobody notices or cares. I went to a friend's house and showed him what I meant but didn't seem to be bothered with it.

It's a rather long explanation, but real time encoding of HD material is not easy to do. Turning a several Gb/s stream of data into a MPEG or H.264 stream in real time, without artifacts is difficult when you need to hit 18-21 Mb/s compression levels.

It also depends on if the network cares enough and know what they are doing. The problem we have here is they just think: "...yeah looks good enough."

I was really impressed with the HD DVB-T signals I received when I was in Poland last year with a 5cm aerial:
http://s645.photobucket.com/user/lithosza/library/Poland DVB-T Captures

btw that stream was just at 8Mbit/s
I had to make JPEGs and I was using a simple Blend de-interlace filter so I probably am not doing the stream justice.

 

[woodhead2]

Try a different setting on your projector. On my Panny, I select dynamic, and I think the picture looks real nice.

 

[tezster]

What's your viewing distance? Regardless of display, they bigger (or closer) you are, the easier it is to detect faults in the image. Broadcasts through a cable box will be filled with compression artifacts.

 

[Verge2]

Turn down the sharpness setting.

 

[bmfap]

I hadn't thought about trying different settings, I haven't done any tweaking at all yet. Its not the case of comparing the projector to a TV, I'm comparing the TV signal to an HD movie stream signal an finding it lacking. Bluray is awesome on the projector, TV is not as awesome.
Viewing distance is about 13' on a 126" screen.
We watched basketball the other day and that wasn't as bad as the hockey game, so maybe it does depend somewhat on the network. And it is coming through the cable box, not really any other options where we live.
I'll try adjusting the mode and sharpness and see what kind of difference that makes

 

[bmfap]

Just quick update, turned on the baseball game on ESPN last night, and it looked amazing! It must vary from network to network. So far Fox Sports is not great. I'll be curious to see what happens in the fall when football season rolls around I guess.