[MillMaster]

Are there any tweaks that I can use on my HMX84 to make the SD PQ look better? I dont have a DVD player yet so I havent used a calibration disk, but I was just wondering if anyone knew any tricks. I know SD signals dont look that great normaly, but I was just wondering if calibration is the only way to fix most of the problems im seeing... alot of stations give me scan lines that are distracting...


My set up is a 52HMX94 with a motorola HD cable box, using component...


also, I dont have any audio equipment at all yet, so Im assuming its usless going DVI into HDMI right?

 

[BillP]

I found a significant improvement in analog SD cable viewing by 1) splitting the cable from the wall in order to send one coax directly to the TV for analog SD channels, bypassing the box (the other coax to the cable box for digital SD and for HD), and 2) having the cable company check the signal strength (it was low, so they boosted the signal, for free).

 

[gwsat]

I have not felt the need to split signals for my 50" RCA DLP. I get them all via my SA 8000HD cable box and a component cable. I characterize the PQ of most SD signals I receive this way as at least "good" and some are "excellent." If the signal is bad then the PQ is bad too, of course. But I also found bad signals to be virtually unwatchable on my old first generation 32" Sony Wega SD set. I can't say that my DLP makes this kind of problem any worse.

 

[cyberbri]

Depending on your current settings, you can try to bring the brightness down a little, contrast down a few notches, and the color saturation down some.


Brightness (black levels) should be set right under where noise disappears from pure blacks. You can test this on the 4:3 programming coming through HD stations, or other places as well. Try it on at least a few stations and find a good value.


Contrast should give you 'white' whites. You don't want it overly bright so your 5%, 10%, etc. greys are washed out. But you don't want your pure whites to be 5% or 10% grey either.


Try the different factory picture settings and see what kinds of results you get.


And as far as the DVI/HDMI question goes - you don't need any audio equipment to use that stuff. It's just a type of video connection (HDMI adds audio channels) to connect a component (DVD player, cable box, HTPC, etc.) to the display. Actually, most people here I've seen say that they don't notice much difference at all between component cables and DVI for cable TV.