So I found out that my Tivo is only outputting 720p according to the info option on the TV. Looking to see if I can change that to 1080P to start. Not sure why it's putting out 720 since my old Tivo seemed to work fine.
You cannot use default out of the box settings on any TV - they NEVER look good. That's why the settings are adjustable. You have to find a picture mode that works best for you, then spend time adjusting all the settings to get the picture too look good. Default usually looks like crap. Find settings that other owners here have posted in the official thread for your TV and use them as a guide and a starting point, then tweak them to suit your particular content/viewing habits/room environment etc etc. I tend to use my local news broadcasts as a quick reference to adjust things like Contrast, Brightness, and Colors. I use the faces and hair and clothing of various anchormen/women and weather girls on CBS and CW (both are 1080i channels) to dial in the correct settings. For me, facial detail is the most important thing to get looking right so i go there first. As long as i can get their faces to look natural and their clothing to look realistic and detailed, i'm not so concerned about that wood counter not looking quite accurate or that red Porsche color looking a little inaccurate.
The Tivo Premiere doesn't have a 1080p setting (except for Pass Through) but it does have 1080i. I have found that setting Tivos and Cable DVRs etc to output everything at 1080i Fixed gives the best detail on every TV i've ever installed or set up (more than a few dozen now). The 720p Fixed setting makes the picture noticeably softer, with some channels being a lot softer. Just set it to 1080i Fixed and be done with it.
Hooked up the Xbox sand it looked very good. Hooked the Tivo back up and the images looks almost SD. I'll take a pic soon.
Any LCD will look poor and washed out when viewed from a 45 degree angle like that, so it's hard to tell what you're seeing. LCD TVs only look good when viewed from straight on. And any pictures you post are being viewed by us on our PC monitors so even a good picture will look crappy anyway.
Seems like faces are blue and over all the colors are just not rich. Any suggestions for calibration? I think I've seen a Disney bluray our there to assist..?
I wasn't sure it the TV since I had the same complaint with the Vizio P50. Just odd that the 4k demos on a usb stick look great and so does the Xbox but yet TV is just poor in my opinion. I'll try to make some adjustments and also pull out an hd antenna for comparison to the Tivo. Thanks!
A true calibration requires a light meter and specialized software. You can DIY but the learning curve is steep, not to mention the additional cost of the equipment. There may be a professional calibrator in your area. Cost can be anywhere from $250 upwards.
I agree completely. That's why I told the OP that I used DRN94's settings as a "starting place" when adjusting my TV. If the OP tries these settings and they don't help, he can always return to the original settings (that he doesn't like). In no way was I suggesting that his TV would become "calibrated" if he used those settings.
But when a new owner is completely clueless on how to adjust his settings, using someone else's settings is a good starting point and can be somewhat of a guide on what to set and how high or low to set it, and more importantly, what picture modes to use. For instance, someone may mistakenly set their Brightness really high thinking it will make the screen brighter, then adjust the Contrast really low to make it look washed out, but then he finds someone else's settings and where the Brightness is low but the Contrast is high and realizes he had been going the wrong way.
It's not just 4K panels, the viewing angles on ALL LCD TVs is poor whether they're UHD or 1080p or 720p. It's the single biggest complaint people have about LCD TVs for the past dozen years. It's just a limitation of LCD screen technology.
No LCD TV will be able to maintain it's contrast at 45 degrees off-axis, not even an IPS LCD TV. LCD TVs simply start to get washed out when you move off center and get worse the farther you go.
There's the problem.
That's a function of the panel type to a large degree. LG's S-IPS panels have excellent off-axis viewing but their blacks leave something to desire. OTOH, Samsung S-PVA panels have excellent blacks but off-axis viewing is really bad. Other panel types are somewhere in-between. There's always a trade-off.
