[lunarist]

I would first like to thank all the members of this site for their continued support and insight.


I've recently purchased a DST3000 a few weeks ago and when I finally got it hooked up I was amazed at the picture clarity and color on my Toshiba 32 inch tv that's 6 years old. HDNet looked great even though the hockey players were very tall due to the fact that it's a 4:3 set. I watched The Mexican and it was like a DVD to me. I couldn't believe it, most channels were clearer and sharper and I was thinking 'man, wait to my 50HX81 arrives'.


I received my brand new 50HX81 on Saturday only to find that it had a black line at the top middle of the screen. It appears to be just behind the screen, it actually looks like a piece of tape.


Anyway, I'll be receiving a new one on Wednesday but in the mean time I thought I'd share my experience with this set.


I go to HDNet and I thought 'this looks really good, wait it looks great!' I go to the other channels and they all look terrible. I mean really bad. Sunday comes around and I turn on the football games and I couldn't believe my eyes. The picture was garbage, fuzzy, just plain awful.


The doorbell rings and who is it, friends of mine coming to watch the Rams game on my new HDTV. They venture downstairs and I have to tell you I actually thought about turning the set off and telling them that it was broken.


I couldn't let them see this awful picture, and on football game for that matter. I quickly change to 199 and they see the beautiful color. I switch back to football and it's like what the hell is this ****. You spent all this money for a picture that is plain unbearable to view.


I always see people here just trying to make up their minds on a 4:3 set or 16:9 set - based on much 4:3 material they watch. When in fact maybe they should focus on how much regular non-hd material they will be viewing as opposed to HD content.


Maybe it's just that the set is screwed, maybe it's the way I have it set up, maybe it's just me.


A few more points that I have noticed:


During say a football game or hockey game, the picture is awful. They switch to a closeup camera and the picture is actually pretty good. Why is that? I would have thought that the closer the camera the worse it would be, but not on this set.


Also, I have the component cables from the DST3000 to HD Input 1. I also have an S-Video cable from the DST3000 to the tv. What should I be setting the DST3000 to when watching non-hd content like a football game. 4:3, 16:9, cropped, letterbox, etc. What should the tv be set to? TW1, TW2, Full, etc.


Sorry about this being really long but I am frustrated and I know that you guys will be able to ease my pain and convince me that my $3500 purchase(tv, DST, cables, etc) was in fact a rewarding event.


Thanks to all,


Lunarist

 

[Beaner]

Hmmm.... I am considering the 50HX81, and I am also worried about the picture quality of sources other than HD or DVD.


A few questions:


Have you done a convergence yet? Also, try the "touch focus" button on the front panel.


Are you only watching satellite? (these large RPTVs really magnify any imperfections in your signal, compared to a smaller TV)

I have digital cable, and have heard that it can really look bad, depending on how weak your source signal is.


If almost all of your sat channels are that bad, I would suggest calling the sat. company. Maybe your not pulling in the signal as well as you could be.


Keep us posted, 'cause I really want to get this tv and am anxious to see how yours turns out.

 

[kschonha]

As another DST3000 owner, I think there are two problems at work here.


First, most material transmitted via DirecTV is severely compressed rendering it extremely soft-looking. The more on-screen motion involved, the worse it looks.


Second, the DST3000 will upconvert everything to 1080i format, further softening the appearance of the video image. You are better off using the AV Setup menu to switch over to 480p/4:3 format for SD material. It looks much better that way.

 

[lunarist]

******,


My signal strength is pretty high as I'm in the low 90's for 101 and high 60's for 119.


I have watched DVD's as well and I am not to impressed with them, they almost looked better on my 32 inch set. I have not watched OTA programming at this time.


I have done the touch focus on the front panel and have also done a half hearted 56 pt convergence as I had to do it by eye. I currently do not have an overlay.


Maybe this set is just really screwed up, I'll be getting a new one on Wednesday. I'll than check out that set. If DirecTV looks the same, I'll leave the set on for 10 hours a day for about 10 or so days to break it in and than do the 56 pt with an overlay.


I hate to say this but after the 56 pt convergence and ample time to break in - if DTV is still terrible, I'll return the set and get my money back. I'll than just say bye to HDTV until something is done to improve picture quality. Which in theory could be years or never for that matter.


Some channels looked better than others on my 32 inch as well. MSG was always a clear channel, ecspecially during the rangers games. On the 50HX81 that channel is a joke and hard to watch.


I'd love to be able to view someone else's HDTV in the metro Detroit area or Windsor for that matter, so that I can see a tv that has been properly tweaked looks like. Anyone?


Thanks,


Lunarist

 

[SUTTONHT]

I have the 50h81, hooked up to analog cable, OTA STB and DVD. I must admit that cable can be pretty bad.


I guess I'm pretty lucky in that I have 2 family rooms, so I do almost all cable watching on old 27 incher upstairs. For weekly football, try the OTA digital channell if you can get it. My 50h81 does a great job with this, even 480i signals look great because it is a clean signal. If you are planning to make this your only TV and watch lots of cable, I hate to say it, but a RPTV may not be for you.

 

[dakota]

Are you using svideo for regular feed and componenet cables (colour stream) for hdtv feed? If you are not you will lose some pq.


Is your setup properly. If you are viewing dvds with svideo or regular cables and not component cables (colour stream), then of course it will not look as good as it should.


If you get your set optimized on each colourstrem input, by the people you bought the set from, it will look much better then the auto thingy.


Hope this helps, the feeds are not that great, but hdtv is amazing. I hope you get a chance to experience it soon.

 

[ChadD]

When you enlarge the picture, you make all the flaws more visible.


I have two HDTV's a 65" RPTV and a 30" direct view set. HDTV sources look great on both sets, but with DVDs I notice a big difference. On the smaller set DVDs look almost as good as HDTV, I would bet most people (not AVS forum members) could not tell the difference, but on the larger set the difference between HDTV and DVD is very obvious.


I don't think the fuzziness problem is with your set, it is just due to enlarging a NTSC picture so large. I personally think that the large HDTV sets do a better job of displaying NTSC video than an equally sized analog RPTV. At least the line doublers get rid of the scan lines.

 

[gpb]

I have a similar setup (dst3000 & 56h80), and at first was extremely dissapointed in the picture quality for standard def material. After playing around with the settings for a few days, I found that turning sharpness to 0 (factory setting is way too high), and basing the preference mode on the initial movie setting, that standard def material looked ok.

 

[lunarist]

Dakota,


I am using component cables for HD and DVD's and S-Video for all other DTV channels.


GPB,


On your DST3000, what are the settings for all DTV channels besides HDTV? 4:3, 16:9, are you using the component cables or do you switch it to Video 1 and S-Video cables?


Thanks to all,


Lunarist

 

[BondDude]

2 Thoughts/Suggestions


1) You may want to buy/rent a copy of 'Video Essentials' or similar video adjusment DVD. I was surprised how much this changed the way my Toshiba 36" HDTV looked, it takes a few days to get used to it, since you're probably used to the 'showroom floor' settings that the TV defaults to.


2) Big screens magnify the defects in the signal. a picture that might be watchable on a 13" screen might cause migraines on a 73" screen. I only watch HDTV and DVDs on my RPTV (65"). I do think that digital cable is more 'watchable' on the RPTV than analog channels, but if your cable system is like mine, then most of the channels that you watch are in the analog range (01-119 I think).


I have bought a TV before and found the picture was not as good as I thought. If you don't like the TV, by all means return it, but don't give up on HDTV! Football in HD is really great, and you will find it hard to go back once you see it!


Good Luck.

 

[tonyb100]

hmm to me all big screen tvs look bad with sd programing almost no matter what. just to much space to fill with such little picture info.


I think they can be great hdtv sets tho. And I guess this is the comprmise one has to make to have a big hdtv picture..

 

[jaymer]

hi,

i'm writing this to give some positive input to other newbies who have not purchased anything yet and maybe read this. i'm sorry for the problems presented here by Lunarist and hope they get rectified.


i was planning to purchase a 65h80 (toshiba) and only did not because for my setup I needed a way to record HDTV while away, and the AccessDTV card needed a transcoder to hookup to the Toshiba and that limited my windows desktop to 800x600 (or less) and that was unacceptable.


i stumbled across Mark Rejhon's thread and pics of his set up in Canada and saw a huge, wide windows dektop - i thought YES, thats what I need. that in-turn led to me getting a NEC LT150.


i only reply here because of my experiences just last night as they are so fresh in my mind.


on Mondays, I watch Angel - which was even crappy on my 50inch Hitachi that I've had since 1994. Sometimes its just a gray show instead of black. Just idiots at the local channel. Anyway, when shown up on a 8-ft wide screen - its not the greatest thing in the world - and I've gone through the extra trouble of having to integrate a video capture card AND dScaler (painless to do, just time and more purchasing) and its still barely viewable - but I'm not going to miss the show cause it looks bad. I remember when I walked into the B&O store in the new Tampa mall on a Saturday and they had college football (analog) displaying on the HiDefs cause they didn't have the HD antenna up yet - it looked crappy and thats the report we hear from all across the country as people visit electronics stores.


For analog sources, you need a HTPC and dscaler, OR a physical line doubler (these have been around for a while cause this aint a new problem) OR the new SDI type modified Sat receivers and a special SDI input card for your HTPC (another $1500 for pc and card, plus a different receiver and $500 for the mod). Sorry, but those aren't great choices.


now, onto the positive side...


ChadD wrote
Quote:

but on the larger set the difference between HDTV and DVD is very obvious.

I can say that this is NOT the case for me on a NEC LT150 via Home Theater PC. I know everyone's equip varies, but I just wanted to say this so others wouldn't think Chad's statement is a blanket "in all cases" type remark. (FYI, chad is viewing a DVD directly into his TV from the player - a method that is unacceptable for many because of the resolution differences - thats why a HTPC playing the DVD is preferred.)


For those still reading this, last night I put in a CD of Driven, the new race car movie with Sly Stallone. What I saw was AWESOME and every bit as clear (if not clearer) than the 480p signal I watch from CBS HDTV. Granted, because of the projector resolution I'm seeing "less than Hidef", but I also could not believe how good my entire system is - loud sound, clear motion (no artifacts, no rainbows, etc) and a big screen (100+ inch diag.) with tons of color - its almost perfect and I can't imagine spending any amount of money to improve what I saw last night.


So, we all hope you get your problems worked out, but I didn't want this to escalate to a broad "hidef tv bad" thread. Perhaps a $20 radio shack OTA antenna can help and better use of quality cables, etc. will turn this around for you.


good luck

 

[samiam]

Well, it sounds like you are hitting convertion

of standard TV to HDTV (upconvert), because, as

another person mentioned, the STB converts to

1080 no matter what.


Try bypassing the STB and using the sets own

tuner to get an off the air signal if possible.

Then, you will be seeing what the sets' own

doubler does.


I have the extreme case, a 120" wide projector

with internal N to N scaler (sony 10ht). This

scaler makes pretty much anything look good, but

of course NTSC upconverts look the worst. A NTSC

VCR looks so bad that I can not personally stand

to watch it.