As the post immediately above yours aswell as the post you quoted disagrees with you it makes your post a bit silly doesnt it?

I too agree that the improvement of pictures when switching from the standard Sky + to the HD box was instantly noticeable.

As the earlier post said - some find that the upscaling done by the tv is better than that done by the box - and those people can leave their Sky HD set to AUTO - but I have mine set to 1080i to allow the box to do the work as the improvement in quality on sd channels is blindlingly obvious

We must assume your tv has a better upscaler than my Panasonic so please dont tell me what I can and cant see with my own eyes- the upscaling abilities of various tv's and Sky HD and disc players is pretty well documented on this forum

Just had a quick look at the online manual so I'm a bit more familiar with it.

Agreed the resolution is set to 1920x1080.

The fisrt image shows HDMI for DVD at that resolution, this is correct.

The second image shows the recorder is set to 1920x1080.

You have Sky+ connected via scart to the TV, how do you select Sky+, does it auto switch to AV1 or AV2 when you switch it on or do you select it some other way?

I stopped using the TV's scart sockets as I was very disappointed with the picture quality. The only thing going into the TV is the HDMI lead from the DVD recorder.

The Sky+ box is connected by scart to the recorder's Line 1 input. This means I watch everything processed through the DVD recorder on HDMI1. Sky+ doesn't auto-switch anymore, but that's a small price to pay for the improvement in quality.

In that case then the recorder will be doing something to the analogue signal so it can be passed through the HDMI.

To be honest I'm very surprised it can do this.

I would have to agree with you then, it does look like the Sky+ pictures could well be upscaled.

You have a bargin recorder there as features like this are only found on much more expensive equipment.

All I can say is enjoy Sky+ at 1080.

My LCD with Freeview build in seems to have a clearer picture than my Sky HD on SD channels.

Some of the poor picture could be down to the bitrate of some channels for example Virgin Media channels look awful on Sky HD very grainy or soft on some of the programmes.

It's only worth getting a LCD if it's used for some kind of HD either DVD or Sky HD. The HD channels look excellent on my HD box.

Really don't know why that arsey post is needed. You are not going to any great benefits by going from sky+ to sky HD for SD programmes, that is all I said. Sorry you can't cope with that.
I have a panasonic BTW, love it. I am also well aware of it's limitations and those of the sky boxes and that I'd need to spend rediculous amounts of money to see REAL improvements.

The reason you do in fact see an improvement with skyHD is the incredibly cheap and nasty scart circuitry on many modern TVs. They get the price down by leaving stuff off, they put all their eggs into the HDMI basket, and leave a large number of people very unhappy. All I can say is INSIST on a proper demo of your TV, take your own DVD player and a scart lead to the shop, and see a bit of a flim you know. Harry Potter and the goblet of fire is a favourite test DVD, the underwater scenes are hard to do, and will show up weaknesses in the set.

As I've already explained, he has an ANALOGUE recorder, not Freeview - so it digitises all inputs to record, or upscale them - AV inputs are no different to the internal analogue tuner.

Which means the box does video up-conversion, it converts analogue to digital, the signal can then be passed through the HDMI for upscaling.


I find this surprising considering the box cost less than £100.

Video up-conversion is generally found on mid - high end equipment.

Not really, the important thing is it has to be an analogue recorder, not a digital only one - but generally all DVD recorders are analogue, it's mostly only PVR's that are digital only. A combined Freeview/Analogue recorder (like the Sony 870 series) does both, and also provides upscaling as well - but (like pretty well everything else) no better than a decent TV.

The OP seems reluctant to tell us what TV he has, but if he's getting a noticeable difference, then it's got to have a poor upscaler.

But talking about the RDRGX350, it's amazing how many are been sold, considering DSO is under three years away round here - I can only presume it's because of the very reasonable price?. Incidently, they have been EXCEPTIONALLY reliable - I don't think I've seen a faulty one yet? (not counting people who can't work them!).

I'm using a Samsung LE40A559P4F. Analogue signals are uniformly poor and the picture from the built-in Freeview tuner is surprisingly bad. I have fiddled with the picture settings to no avail.

I can only get a decent picture through the HDMI inputs.

What you said is your opinion and nothing more and you tried to put it across as fact.

I switched from Sky+ to SkyHD because the display on my Panasonic Viera was poor from Sky+ and the second I put the HD box onto the same channels I noticed the improvement instantly

What is fact is that as seen on many threads some tv's offer improvements in upscaling and on other tv's its best left to the boxes.

The fact that my tests involving switching Sky HD between AUTO and 1080i ,and testing an HD DVD player and PS3 for upscaling against scart connected dvdrs from Pioneer showed instant improvements means your comment is null and void except as your own personal opinion

Opinion is fine - but not when its posted as if it was fact.

Just trying to clarify that its not a done deal.
As I said - the post you quoted and the one above yours both disagreed with you as do I- surely that shows something

Don't worry m8 some people just are not happy unless they are arguing or disagreeing with people, we noticed an immediate improvement when switching from Sky+ to SkyHD on SD channels, I couldn't care a less if anyone disagrees or not, how it was achieved is irrelevant to me the result is there which is all that matters.

I was suprised to read the original post - as I have a Sony (although a smaller LCD) and I think it does a great job with SD pictures. I have compared it with the previous Sony widescreen crt, a "newer" sony crt (flatscreen), and a 100HZ Wega crt, and my LCD sony is better than all of them.

I would say that settings are the key. You do need to set them up - BBC News Studio shots are a good demo for this. And never ever use the "vivid" picture mode as its cr@p. Some of the settings you may need to change depending on whats on the screen. Prime example is the "Theatre" mode operated via the Orange button on the remote. It makes studio shots go a strange shade of yellow-orange, but on films you need it to get the black backgrounds to be black.

My settings are...
Picture Mode: Standard
Backlight: Max
Contrast:71
Brightness:70
Colour:58
Sharpness:26
Colour Tone:Neutral
Noise reduction:Low
Adv Contrast Enhancer:On

Dont forget that there's also a Power Saving mode for the screen - 3rd item down on the main menu - set to Standard to avoid reducing the picture quality.

Turn the "Theatre" function off until you have a film on the screen.

-----------------------

I also have a Panasonic Combi which contains Hard disc, DVD burner, and a single Freeview tuner. And this model has HDMI output (+Upscaler menu). I can and am using HDMI for Freeview live and recorded content, as well as DVD playback. Most shop DVD's look amazing, but even Freeview and freeview recordings look good most of the time. I have removed the scart cable.
My Panasonic combi settings are...
TV Aspect:16:9
Progressive:ON
TV System:PAL
HDMI Video format:1080i
Aspect for 4:3 Video (16:9) -eg, its pillar boxed not stretchy vision for improved clarity.


Dave

I now have the settings sorted and am quite pleased with the picture,
I never thought I would say that when I posted my original post,
these are my settings .

Picture Mode: Standard
Backlight 7
Contrast 66
Brightness 46
Colour 50
Sharpness 05
Colour Tone Neutral
Noise reduction off
Adv Contrast Enhancer off

I think the main thing this thread reminds us about is that some tv's upscale better than some external devices.

When you get your set all you have to do is try the boxes with upscaling off and on to see which you prefer

If all tv's did a better job you have to wonder why the PS3 and Sky HD offer upscaling at all

Presumably it's a requirement for an HDMI output?, nothing else (apart from a sales gimmick). But if you have a really naff TV, using an external upscaler of similar standard to a good TV makes your cheap and nasty TV look pretty well as good as the much better set.

To be fair though, upscaler technology is improving all the time - with the cheap sets probably at least two or three generations behind. So a cheap set in two or three years time will probably have as good a scaler as expensive sets do now - while the expensive sets will have moved ahead as well.

By all means buy a DVD with an HDMI socket (as WELL as a SCART, not instead of), it may not improve anything, BUT it gives you the extra option when connecting it. It's also becoming rare to find a DVD without HDMI anyway!

Glad to see the OP has got the Sony LCD sorted.

These settings will improve the picture quality of various Samsung LCDs which look crappy out-of-the-box:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=757072
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=513376

Why do these TVs need so much calibration by the end user? You have to feel sorry for the poor old grannies and technophobes who daren't fiddle with the controls in case they 'break' something.

How odd to see someone who's supposed to be in the know label my Panasonic Viera tv as "naff" and " cheap and nasty".

Shows what you know - work for Curry's or Comet by any chance?

Where does he label your TV as naff, to me it reads as a generalised coment about naff or cheap & nasty models nothing about Panasonics ?

I'd agree... Nigel was making a generalised statement and not directed at Panasonic.

Many others here have also mentioned the poor quality of scalers in Panasonic TV's, if an RDRGX350 improves your pictures noticeably then your TV is a poor one.

Personally I'm surprised to hear this, Panasonic is a VERY reputable manufacturer, and I would usually recommend them as second only to Sony (and I even purchased a Panasonic VCR at retail).

I earlier mentioned I had a Panasonic tv and in his post he referred to "your cheap and nasty tv".

As he knew I had a Panasonic and he was disagreeing with my posts that my PS3 and Sky HD box made a far better job of upscaling than the tv seems obvious what he was saying

I think the snotty "cheap and nasty" remark was directed at my Samsung TV.

Underwaterbilly

I think you misread Nigel's comments, or misinterpretted it, he said that if you had a cheap and naff TV.... he wasn't actually implying YOUR Panasonic was cheap and naff. I think he was kind of saying it as a generalised comment not aimed at a specific TV