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Bad picture quality on my 1080p Tosh
chris_elevate
22-11-2007
Hi,

I've got the TOSHIBA 37X3030DB which is the 1080p hi def lcd tv. I had sky in another room and the picture was being sent via rf and the picture quality was awful! I've just paid sky to come out and move the box/cable to my front room so the sky+ is now directly underneath the tv. Watched the football last night and (what an awful result!!!) and the quality wasn't very good.

I've got a XHT601 075 0.75M SCART connecting sky+ -> TV and I've got an Xbox connected via XHT458100 1M HDMI CABLE.

The quality for the X-Box is awesome but obviously I'm getting 1080p quality from it.

Anyone know what the problem is?

Thanks

Chris
paulyoung666
22-11-2007
yeah , you are running a low def source on a high def tv , one thing to check make sure the skybox is set to rgb and make sure you are using a rgb enabled socket
chris_elevate
22-11-2007
So it's gonna look bad until I pay £10 per month to sky hd?

Are the cables I'm running good ones?

I've been to the picture settings on sky and set it to rgb and I'm guessing there will be an option to enable this in the toshiba too?
Nigel Goodwin
22-11-2007
Originally Posted by chris_elevate:
“I've been to the picture settings on sky and set it to rgb and I'm guessing there will be an option to enable this in the toshiba too?”

Probably not?, often only one of the TV's SCART's is RGB, make sure you use that one - you should see a HUGE quality change when you switch the Sky box from RGB to PAL. Composite (or RF) from a Sky box looks absolutely horrible on an LCD or Plasma - RGB makes the world of difference.

You also need to bear in mind how close you're viewing from?, presumably your previous TV was much smaller?, yet you're watching from the same distance?.
chris_elevate
22-11-2007
Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin:
“Probably not?, often only one of the TV's SCART's is RGB, make sure you use that one - you should see a HUGE quality change when you switch the Sky box from RGB to PAL. Composite (or RF) from a Sky box looks absolutely horrible on an LCD or Plasma - RGB makes the world of difference.

You also need to bear in mind how close you're viewing from?, presumably your previous TV was much smaller?, yet you're watching from the same distance?.”


Thanks for that. Yeah I think one of my scart inputs on the tv is different to the other - I'll check it when I go home. So the setting on the sky box needs to be RGB or PAL?

Yes we had a old CRT tv which we sat the same distance from.

Could you give me your opinion on the leads I'm using? Would you recommend upgrading them?

Thanks
Nigel Goodwin
22-11-2007
Originally Posted by chris_elevate:
“Thanks for that. Yeah I think one of my scart inputs on the tv is different to the other - I'll check it when I go home. So the setting on the sky box needs to be RGB or PAL?
”

It needs to be RGB.

Quote:
“
Yes we had a old CRT tv which we sat the same distance from.

Could you give me your opinion on the leads I'm using? Would you recommend upgrading them?”

Expensive leads are just a complete waste of money, and make extortionate profits - as long as a SCART lead is fully wired, and has individually screened wires, it meets all the requirements you need.

I don't believe any of the expensive leads have ever been shown to be any better in blind tests?.
chris_elevate
22-11-2007
Excellent..... thanks!

There's an arrow on the leads I bought so I'm guessing that you need to have the arrow pointing from the sky box towards the tv and from the xbox towards the tv and not the other way round?

So to get an awesome picture out of the tv I need to upgrade to sky hd for £10 per month?

Are there cheaper was to watch sky hd? and does anyone know how to get the box cheaper than £300? I heard there was a way to get it cheaper form sky? Is this possible?
Nigel Goodwin
22-11-2007
Originally Posted by chris_elevate:
“Excellent..... thanks!

There's an arrow on the leads I bought so I'm guessing that you need to have the arrow pointing from the sky box towards the tv and from the xbox towards the tv and not the other way round?
”

Yes, but it won't make any difference - it's just another con to try and justify the silly price for a piece of wire!

Quote:
“
So to get an awesome picture out of the tv I need to upgrade to sky hd for £10 per month?
”

Yes, HD makes a huge improvement.

Quote:
“
Are there cheaper was to watch sky hd? and does anyone know how to get the box cheaper than £300? I heard there was a way to get it cheaper form sky? Is this possible?”

Boxes were available cheaper on Ebay, but Sky have eventually remembered to correct the trade price, so those deals are gone now. There are a number of threads about HD prices, you may be able to get it cheaper if you take phone and broadband as well?.
daveac
22-11-2007
Not added any advice here - others have done that - but I do wish people would think about thread titles a bit.

Anyone seeing your thread without bothering to read what the problem is might get the impression that the Toshiba TV is poor - when the problem as pointed out is with the way you have it connected - and with SD material.

My Toshiba has a great picture and with HD it's marvelous.

Even the football last night (not the game or result) gave a great picture on BBC HD - and the studio footage was a true great.

Cheers, daveac
chris_elevate
22-11-2007
Sorry mate!

Wasn't trying to imply the was anything wrong with the tosh. Like my title said..... I've just got a bad picture on my tosh. Not the tosh itself is bad!

Sorry for any confusion. The 1080p output for the xbox is excellent - making the toshiba worth every penny!
GDK
22-11-2007
Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin:
“Yes, but it won't make any difference - it's just another con to try and justify the silly price for a piece of wire!
>snip<”

Not necessarily true.

There are RGB scart cables where only the outputs (at one end) are wired to inputs (at the other end). This makes the cable "one way only". Such cables are sometimes useful to eliminate crosstalk when the outputs pins in the socket on the receiver (such as a TV) can't be disabled.

I used to own a Sony TV where the output RGB pins on the main (AV1) scart socket always sent whatever the tuner was tuned into. So, if the TV's tuner was on BBC1, and I was watching a DVD via the scart, I'd get a faint ghost of BBC1 superimposed on the DVD image due to crosstalk. I initially reduced the crosstalk by leaving the set on an untuned channel, but then eliminated it entirely by using a one-way RGB cable instead of a fully wired scart cable. Some later TVs allow you to choose what gets output from AV1, in which case you can select another, unused, input socket.
sancheeez
22-11-2007
Originally Posted by chris_elevate:
“So to get an awesome picture out of the tv I need to upgrade to sky hd for £10 per month?”

Remember, upgrading to Sky HD will give you a few HD channels which will look excellent and make full use of the TV. The normal SD channels might look a bit better going through an HDMI cable but nothing like as good as a true HD channel.

There are a few offers on with Sky at the moment .... espeically if you know someone that works there so you can get a friends and family discount code.

I upgraded my existing Sky+ box to HD and had the old Sky+ box reloacted to the bedroom and multi-room switched on.

Total cost £125 (plus the ongoing subscription fees for HD and multi-room obviously).
Nigel Goodwin
22-11-2007
Originally Posted by GDK:
“Not necessarily true.

There are RGB scart cables where only the outputs (at one end) are wired to inputs (at the other end). This makes the cable "one way only". Such cables are sometimes useful to eliminate crosstalk when the outputs pins in the socket on the receiver (such as a TV) can't be disabled.

I used to own a Sony TV where the output RGB pins on the main (AV1) scart socket always sent whatever the tuner was tuned into. So, if the TV's tuner was on BBC1, and I was watching a DVD via the scart, I'd get a faint ghost of BBC1 superimposed on the DVD image due to crosstalk. I initially reduced the crosstalk by leaving the set on an untuned channel, but then eliminated it entirely by using a one-way RGB cable instead of a fully wired scart cable. Some later TVs allow you to choose what gets output from AV1, in which case you can select another, unused, input socket.”

A couple of mistakes there!:

1) TV sets don't output RGB from any of the SCART sockets, they are input only.

2) There is only one set of RGB pins in a SCART plug, they don't have seperate in's and out's - they are simply wired directly to each other.

So on a DVD player the RGB pins are output only, and on a TV input only.

What you did was disconnect the composite output pin - this is only a requirement for a low quality non-individually screened SCART lead - which is why I always specify individually screened as the minimum quality required.
carefree cook
22-11-2007
Originally Posted by daveac:
“Not added any advice here - others have done that - but I do wish people would think about thread titles a bit.

Anyone seeing your thread without bothering to read what the problem is might get the impression that the Toshiba TV is poor - when the problem as pointed out is with the way you have it connected - and with SD material.

My Toshiba has a great picture and with HD it's marvelous.

Even the football last night (not the game or result) gave a great picture on BBC HD - and the studio footage was a true great.

Cheers, daveac”

how hard is it to just read the original post, rather that just the title?
you must have very little time on your hands
bluechang
22-11-2007
I have been helping my aunt and uncle set this exact TV up today, and using SD sources, it looked pretty impressive - I still prefer my Samsung Plasma though
GDK
23-11-2007
Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin:
“A couple of mistakes there!:

1) TV sets don't output RGB from any of the SCART sockets, they are input only.

2) There is only one set of RGB pins in a SCART plug, they don't have seperate in's and out's - they are simply wired directly to each other.

So on a DVD player the RGB pins are output only, and on a TV input only.

What you did was disconnect the composite output pin - this is only a requirement for a low quality non-individually screened SCART lead - which is why I always specify individually screened as the minimum quality required.”

You know, that's left me scratching my head, , because you're absolutely right. . I must've been thinking of a Scart to S-Video + Phono L and R lead I had, which is one way only and confusing it with the RGB only cable which is reversible. And the crosstalk must've been from the TV's composite video output. My apologies!

I suppose many people think "fully wired" scart leads are the best kind to get, but - unless they are individually screened - they can cause interference due to crosstalk.
daveac
23-11-2007
Originally Posted by carefree cook:
“how hard is it to just read the original post, rather that just the title?
you must have very little time on your hands”

The point I was trying to make - in general terms is the thread titles can be misleading.

Someone doing a quick 'Toshiba' seach before thinking of buying a TV might well scan dozens of threads and if a number of them seem to point to it being a poor TV when in fact a full read of the thread would show that wasn't the case - it may well put those people off.

Cheers, daveac
TheUnholySinner
23-11-2007
Got this tv also, got it about 2 weeks ago and very impressed with it. I have standard Sky plugged into the RGB scart, and Virgins free box into the other scart, and both have equal and excellent quality pictures, therefore i dont see how the RGB can make much difference. Obviously some channels display better than others, but nothing is what i consider to be bad, where as on some LCDs ive seen show SD outputs as bad as VHS quality.
The only thing i have changed on my tosh setup is taking the (black line/stretch?) setting off.. makes a big difference!
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