Listen to umr, he is a genius. Use PRO mode. BTW, it sounds like your sharpness is way too high. Try turning the sharpness to about 25%, set the user custom advanced picture mode to clarity 100, reality 1. You should see a huge difference.
If you haven't made any user menu adjustments, the picture will NOT look as good as it will once you tweak to your personal preference. Too many people think it should look great out of the box with no changes to default setups. Trust me, that's not true.
Download umr's tweaks and the service manual. Get familiar with it, do the changes (write down the originals) and see what happens. I've had my set for a few weeks. It is incredible. Just give it some time and tweaking. HD and DVD are absolutely incredible and the SD is the best I've seen on a tv this size. Since your going from a low resolution to a high resolution set, you're now truly seeing how poor the PQ actually is.
I will also say that so far, HBO HD has been very washed out. The locals look great, especially CBS (ABC looks not nearly as nice so far which is a 720p picture which makes me wonder about their view that 720p is imperceptible from 1080i). Still awaiting the DTV Loop on PBS here. Starts at 8pm.
It seems as though your brightness is set too high. I've seen several people on here complain about the "screen door" effect. I don't see this on the set. The blacks may be a little grey, but VERY little (only on very dark scenes). As odd as this sounds, set the contrast HIGHER and the brightness lower (completely opposite of normal RPTVs). This advice is coming from someone who owned a CRT base RPTV before my GWII.
I will say that I'm now done watching the hockey game in HDTV and my feeling is, LCD and hockey do not go together. Just as above, when the action was minimal or in close up, the picture was STUNNING. On a pulled back shot or with lots of action, the players blur, the elements around the rink blur. In fact, I've been watching hockey my entire life and have always been able to follow the puck. Here, on a 60" screen in HDTV all the hardest shots literally vanished from view by becoming a very minimal fast moving blur virtually imperceptible as a puck.
Agrajag,
It might be your HD tuner. I've watched countless hockey games on HDNET and can tell you, it is absolutely stunning. No problem with the puck, no blurring at all. I don't think it's your display device. You might have a defective box? Have you tried to swap the box to see if that helps? It could also be the broadcast. There are many factors that could cause your problem.
Another thing, a lot of the service menu settings are input independent. So, if you make a change to the menu in Pro mode for 480p (component), it does not change the 1080i or 480i settings at all. I'm using a Sony SAT HD100 as my STB. I am VERY picky with the PQ and setup and have no complaints.
I do not believe it's the tuner. The first hockey game, non-HDTV, looked like hell from standard basic cable. It had blur. The DirecTV Tivo has blur when doing simple panning menus and it's that very well-known LCD blur. HDTV blurred. XBox games blurred. So, that's 4 different sources and all but the HDTV were tried pre and post tweaking and all blurred before and after.
Many people in this forum have complained about the ability of the Tivo boxes to give a "good" quality SD picture. Since you've never owned a high resolution set before (smaller monitors are completely different), I think you are expecting way too much from SD content. No matter what you do, the SD will NEVER look like HD. However, since you have had problems with HD, you might have a defective set. I better than 20/20 vision and see flaws in everything on TV (including HD). However, the blurring you're talking about isn't visible. How do the network HD look? Do you have the same blurring effect?
I have a 60xbr800. While I understand your points, I don't see anything different on it (blurring, motion artifacts, etc.) that I didn't see on my 57XBR10W (CRT based RPTV). If the GWII were my first HD set, I might think the "problems" you seem to associate with the GWII are problems with the set.
The picture quality and clarity are better on the GWII than it was on the CRT based tv. Even if you get a direct view model, I think you'll still have the same problems. The only difference will be that they will be covered up by the smaller screen. In doing a direct comparison, use a similar distance for viewing (same multiple of screen height to distance, for example 4X). That is the only fair way to do a comparison.
How far away are you from the set (viewing distance)?
In response to not seeing anything different on this set than on a CRT-based RPTV, I entirely disagree. There were NO motion blur problems on the RPTV's I had. And I sit 12' from the TV. Motion blur is a well-known LCD by-product. It manifests itself on this set easily. Just bring up a Tivo menu and presto, you see it. You will not see that on a CRT-based RPTV and mine was a 65" so it should have been even more prevalent.
So, you had an HDTV prior to your LCD HDTV? Am I reading your statement correctly?
OK. I still think you have a bad set. I am extremely picky and am quite satisfied with the change from CRT based RPTV to the LCD.
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