37" LCD not impressed...what can be done ??

[loady]

I bought this tv from ebuyer http://www.ebuyer.com/product/134965 and i have to say i am not impressed...i did have a 26" sony wega tube tv and the picture was good, i assumed i would be stepping up...the picture on this is as grainy as hell, pixelation/jaggies is a problem...i have a dreambox attached to it which was fine with the sony....what can i do to improve this picture...i refuse to get sky, would a v+ box do the job ? does it upscale the standard signal or something...the distance from this set to my eyeballs is about 7 ft.

 

[little_pob]

The set will be upscaling to 720p/1366x768. It will do this for all standard def feeds, which can amplify signal problems.

How are you connecting the dreambox to the TV?

And what outputs do you have on your dreambox?

 

[MH]

Putting it bluntly its because you bought a shite TV....

Should have stayed with the known well made brands.

Pioneer/Panasonic/LG and Samsung

 

[Munkey]

Have you played some other content off a dvd player or HD content? See what other sources look like before you send it back.

Try lowering the sharpness to removes jaggies.

 

[loady]

The set will be upscaling to 720p/1366x768. It will do this for all standard def feeds, which can amplify signal problems.

How are you connecting the dreambox to the TV?

And what outputs do you have on your dreambox?

The dreambox has scart or composite (red,white,yellow) and it is currently connnect via scart.

Putting it bluntly its because you bought a shite TV....

Should have stayed with the known well made brands.

Pioneer/Panasonic/LG and Samsung

you must be one of those people that say 'i only buy sony gear'imp: you will find that people like samsung make a lot of the screens inside a lot of LCDS with a few exceptions, just becasue it doesnt say 'samsung' on the outside doesnt mean the tv is shit, thats a sweeping statement to make actually,Even LG, they have been around for years, they have been making the insides of things you would never of thought they made , its only recently that they have started producing thier equipment with thier own logo...they also make washing machines but i can tell you that they are fekking shite...LOL i think the problems i am having are more to do with the feed going in rather than the equipment, besides i got this tv for upstairs but untill i buy the big boy for down stairs i am having this downstairs and i know its capable of a better picture than this.

All this 'p' and 'i' business is a load of bollox anyway, yes its better on paper and scientifically proven but your eyes cant precieve this difference...those damn stupid eyes

 

[loady]

Have you played some other content off a dvd player or HD content? See what other sources look like before you send it back.

Try lowering the sharpness to removes jaggies.

I put the xbox on via component connection (RGB)+(RW) and it was nice an clean, the xbox has no HDMI as its an old one but i assume the component and audio is the same as HDMI...DVD play back was cream but not HD as i dont have an upscaling dvd..do these virgin v+ boxes upscale the signal going into the tv so they are better suited for larger LCD/plasmas ??

 

[little_pob]

The dreambox has scart or composite (red,white,yellow) and it is currently connnect via scart.

Make sure the dreambox is plugged into SCART1 on the TV then enable RGB on the dreambox. This will give you the best picture for that setup.

you must be one of those people that say 'i only buy sony gear'imp: you will find that people like samsung make a lot of the screens inside a lot of LCDS with a few exceptions, just becasue it doesnt say 'samsung' on the outside doesnt mean the tv is shit, thats a sweeping statement to make actually,Even LG, they have been around for years, they have been making the insides of things you would never of thought they made , its only recently that they have started producing thier equipment with thier own logo...they also make washing machines but i can tell you that they are fekking shite...LOL i think the problems i am having are more to do with the feed going in rather than the equipment, besides i got this tv for upstairs but untill i buy the big boy for down stairs i am having this downstairs and i know its capable of a better picture than this.

Without meaning to speak for Mairy its not just the panel you have to worry about, its also the rest of the components added in by the manufuacturer.

Whilst a samsung panel is a samsung panel - well within reason, quality can and does depend on the factory it came from and where in the cycle it was made (remember these factories are closed 3 months in 12 for cleaning, and a panel from late in the cycle is more likely to contain dust) - the tuner, power supply and other electronics are added by the people who's badge is on the front.

Dead pixels aside, the panel will display what it is fed. And a poor quality tuner or a 'dirty' power supply can affect the picture.

All this 'p' and 'i' business is a load of bollox anyway, yes its better on paper and scientifically proven but your eyes cant precieve this difference...those damn stupid eyes

Whilst an LCD is not capable of displaying an interlaced image and converts feeds to a progressive scan (at least as far as I can remember), all the 1080i LCDs I've seen are actually 720p panels that just downscale the 1080i feed.

The general public are having the wool pulled over their eyes in more ways than one...

I put the xbox on via component connection (RGB)+(RW) and it was nice an clean, the xbox has no HDMI as its an old one but i assume the component and audio is the same as HDMI...DVD play back was cream but not HD as i dont have an upscaling dvd..do these virgin v+ boxes upscale the signal going into the tv so they are better suited for larger LCD/plasmas ??

The TV will upscale the image away. If it didn't you'd just end up with a 720x576 box in the middle of the screen.

 

[digidude]

Putting it bluntly its because you bought a shite TV....

Should have stayed with the known well made brands.

Pioneer/Panasonic/LG and Samsung

the tv shown is an LG m8, with a samsung LCD panel, just rebadged, theyre also sold in woolies named tronics or something like that

 

[Munkey]

Although 4 or 5 companies make almost all of the panels out there, it is still the TV manufacturers who are responsable for the picture processing algorithms that decide what to do with the source material content once fed into the TV.

It seems that the standard definition picture processing may not be as good as it could be on this telly. Have a read at

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=474454&highlight=Hannspree&page=2

It seems the TV is very good with Freeview but no so good with NTL. Possibly the newer £75 VM+ box could deliver a sharper picture.

TBH it will be very hard to beat the picture of your old Sony IMO.

Also some out of the box colour settings can be way off so you may need to try and perform a simple calibration to get the colours/grayscale correct as well as reducing ghosting and jaggies.

 

[hawkish]

It is a cheap price - as im sure has been well iterated by munkey it depends on what grade the panel is -there is 4 grades - if they come off the line perfect - they go in the A grade and toddle off to sony / sammy, if they come off a bit cacky then they range down to a D grade - thats where your tv comes in. They sell em on to the chinese who create a product around em.

Maryhinge is wonderfully blunt! but correct too - think of it as chips from a chip shop, the potatoes came from the same field lets say. But chip shop 1 sells you them covered in fat and cold - chip shop 2 sells them cooked perfectly and crispy and with a little wooden fork and some ketchup if you want it.
Chip shop 2 also has salt and vinegar to put on there whereas chip shop 1 dosent want to bother stocking ketchup, salt or vinegar and so offers you the chips at half the price - hoping to undercut and get some buisiness.

Im not on crack - I just have weird analogies but im sure you get my drift - the potatoes are the LCD panel itself - the vinegar, salt and ketchup are upscalers - 100hz - 1080p processors and the like. Wthout these pictures will look bad - unless you are feeding it the cleanest of HD scources - even with HD the top brands trounce the budget ones.

Upscalers are critical for a quality picture - just streaching a normal res picture over these extra pixels causes huge compression and blocking issues - in much the same way as writing on a deflated balloon looks great, but when you inflate it you can see the imperfections. A good upscaler can effectivly completely re-present the standard image and present it to the screen at the correct ratio at driver level. Much like an artist looking at the deflated version - then drawing it perfectly on an inflated version.


Its the age old problem of cost vs justification. I own a panasonic TV as its not the most expensive - but still is rated as one of the best. I would urge anyone thinking of buying a TV to do proper research 1st and not go for the cheapest - a Decent brand will last you 20 years - a cruddy one 5 years - by the time you have replaced the cruddy one 4 - 5 times you will have easily paid over what a panasonic and a bag of chips would have cost in the 1st place.

You get what you pay for - and if you buy cheap you ALWAYS pay for what you get.

 

[MH]

the tv shown is an LG m8, with a samsung LCD panel, just rebadged, theyre also sold in woolies named tronics or something like that

yes they are re-badged for a reason.

They are substandard components and panels that have failed the quality control test. So they are sold of, to other manufacturers.

 

[hawkish]

On a more positive not you can use a dvd recorder with a decent hdmi upscaler to feed to the screen - thereby getting the best possible from your panel - just scart rgb into AV2 - select A2 on input select and the recorder will upscale it correctly for you - it wont solve movement blur or milky black colours but it is the best option

heres one i reccomend

http://www.pricerunner.co.uk/pl/4-903627/DVD-Players/Panasonic-DMR-EZ27EB-S-Compare-Prices

 

[loady]

All your replies have been most helpful...the chip shop theory was entertaining but also valid and i understand what you are saying, mairyhinge is indeed blunt but i wasnt having a pop, it just wasnt the short answer i was after...i am somewhat enlightened now and would say...'i think i bought a shite tv'....anyway..as i stated, this is for upstairs, i may even get rid of it altogether as i am a wiser person for these tvs now....so..when i do buy the big boy downstairs, i understand that buying the cheapest tv isnt the best option (that was not my intention anyway) but on the other side of the coin nor is good to buy the most expensive ??...i quite fancy a sony bravia lcd for downstairs and would spend the money..but is it all hype by the sony machine ?? are these tv's REALLY that good ? what do you guys reccomend for a budget of say £1200 ?? i am an advocate of having as many of each connection as possible and would certainly want one with a pc connection as i intend to hook this one up to the media centre i am going to be making.

 

[Munkey]

If I had that budget I would try and bag a Pioneer plasma. I've seen the Pioneer PDP4280XD for around £1300. Dont worry about the resolution only being 1024x768. Its the picture processing, contrast and black levels that count. All the Full HD crap is nonsense.

 

[hawkish]

If I had that budget I would try and bag a Pioneer plasma. I've seen the Pioneer PDP4280XD for around £1300. Dont worry about the resolution only being 1024x768. Its the picture processing, contrast and black levels that count. All the Full HD crap is nonsense.

seconded - thats your best option 720p 1080i is bliseteingly good on the old plasmas!