I found this as well, even though the 576i was being fed to a HQV upscaler which in principle should murder it. I wonder if there is something off about its 576i output?

It seems that the HDR and Sony Bravia are well matched. Shame the Sony Bravia doesn't support automatic aspect ratio switching on HDMI, only SCART.

Have you tried setting the HDR display format to '4:3 Pillar Box' and keeping the screen aspect ratio set to 16:9? This works for my Sharpe Aquos TV with HDMI. Don't know why this should work unless the HDR adds the 'black bars' to the output and sends a 16:9 picture. I set the HDR to 1080i as I could not determine a difference in quality between that and 'original'.

The HDR sends a 16:9 picture with black bars at the sides. That's not what I want. The Sony Bravia has a width option it calls "Smart". This gives something between the HDR's "Anamophic" and "Centre cut-out" settings. I.e., the picture isn't stretched as much as anamorphic, and you don't lose so much from the top and bottom as you would with centre cut-out. it's a half-decent compromise. Trouble is this only works fully with the TV's SCART input as the TV doesn't support aspect ratio signalling on the HDMI input. You can switch it manually, but only if it is receiving 576i.

At present I've got the HDR set to send 1080i on HDR and RGB on Scart with aspect ratio set to auto. The TV defaults to Scart it is active and uses the "Smart" setting if it gets a 4:3 picture. If I watch BBC HD or want the slight improvement in SD PQ that HDMI gives, I manually switch to HDMI. I don't need to change it back to SCART unless I get stretchy-vision from a 4:3 transmission.

That's not as complicated as it might sound, but things would be a lot simpler if either Sony implemented aspect ratio signalling on the HDMI input or if Humax implemented an aspect ratio setting similar to Sony's "Smart".

The DOGS are an integral part of the video stream- how could the Humax be treating them any separately to the picture?

Sorry, that is me misleading you. I meant "DOGs" in the generic sense; meaning: any digital on-screen graphic on screen; over and above the TV picture. Bad choice of expression I suppose. I could have used EPG I suppose but that would have limited it to the program guide and that's not what I meant either...

What I really mean is the whole HDR menu system generated by the HDR itself. (including the EPG and iBar system)

...and that is high up on my own "wish list" that I sent to Humax. Sony's "SMART" mode should be made an industry standard in my opinion...

Colin

Is this a Humax pvr setting in MENU?

It's on the remote control. V-format (bottom row, second on right) cycles through Orig, 576i, 576p, 720p, and 1080i. The box remembers the last thing it was set to.

Is this all dues to a mismatch between the horizontal pixels on the screen and the horizontal dots coming out of the box?
What resolution screens are we talking about here compared to
a) in HD modes the 1280 dots across
b) in SD modes the 720 oblong pixels across
or does the Humax box output 1024 square pixels instead?

Also .. does anyone here have an excellent analogue signal to compare picture quality without artifacts and smothing etc

It's largely down to personal preference. SD programmes are transmitted at 576i. The HDR decodes the compressed signal and will perform some smoohting to reduce compression artifacts. It can then either send the result to TV (Orig) or upscale it (to, say, 1080i) and send that to the TV. With Orig, the TV will upscale to it's native screen resolution and perform smoothing to reduce jaggies and some sharpening. This is where the personal preference comes in. Some people prefer the smoothing/sharpening their TV give, others prefer the HDR's. Another complication is that many TV's have a native screen resolution less than 1080 vertical pixels. If the HDR upscales to 1080i, the TV then has to downscale to its native resolution.

Horizontal resolution also comes into things. SD programmes are always transmitted with non-square pixels and these also have to be scaled either in the TV or HDR or a combination of both.

The best advice is probably to try the various settings bearing in mind that the TV also has a sharpness control, and choose the one that suits you best. There is no single right answer. Some people like a smooth picture at the cost of losing a little detail. Others prefer a sharper looking picture at the cost of more extraneous detail. Also bear in mind that, if you chose Orig, the TV and HDR will renegotiate HDMI as you switch to and from an HD channel.

sorry I was talking about the horizontal dots per line rather than the number of lines

I've found with LCDs that a mismatch in dots per line source vs display gives smudginess and shimmering

It's the same story as per vertical lines. Something has to do the scaling. "Smudginess and shimmering" is the result, although I suspect shimmering is more likely to be due to de-interlacing. You either get the TV to do it or the HDR or a combination of both. Results vary and it's a matter of personal preferance which is better.

great

What about setting the TV to native mode i.e. whatever it's pixels are eg 1920x1080
Then set the Humax/whatever box to suit
With an HD programme there should be a direct pixel to pixel match no shimmering no fuzziness just perfect interpolated pixelated digital

If we all did that we could then compare boxes subjectively

Similarly an SD programme on a 1920x1080 screen would be shimmery fuzzily upscaled to suit

Puzzled, the TV can't not be in native mode. It's not something you can change. If it's got 1920 x 1080 pixels then that's how many pixels it will display, irrespective of how they got there. The TV has to scale any signal other than 1920 x 1080 to fit.

I was thinking aloud to explaining opening poster's smudginess

With a 1920x1080 screen in native mode and upscaling in the TV disabled, HD output from the Freesat box should appear as good as it can get.

If it's not a 1920x1080 screen there'll be a degree of fuziness

If the broadcast is SD then I'd have thought the best place to upscale would be in the Freesat box if it's a 1920x1080 screen

If it's not a 1920x1080 screen then it should be best to output 720x576 from the freesat box and let the screen upscale to the screen resolution

Best SD ought to be on a 720oblongx576 screen which doesnt leave much choice apart from CRT

Above assuming HD is 1920x1080 rather than 1280x720

It *should* depend on what's doing the scaling. What would you trust to do it best? A £150 box or a £2500 TV? Or a £3500 video processor?

You can't turn off scaling on a HD TV, the only way to ensure that the TV does not scale is to feed it it's native resolution. As even 1080i TV which has 1440 x 1080 pixels has to be scaled, the only way is to feed it a true 1920 x 1080 pixel picture from a blueray (or HD) dvd player.

In principle, it doesn't matter where the scaling is done. In practice, what counts is the quality of the scaler.

Again in principle, what should be avoided is scaling in both the STB and the TV. But, in practice, scalers vary and many people will prefer the results they get from doing that with their particular combination of STB and TV.

Television is, and always has been, a big compromise. Digital STBs connected to an HD Ready TV give the viewer a limited choice as to how some of that compromise is implemented. You can't ask the generalised question "which is best?". Well, you can, but you won't get an answer that everyone will agree on for all cases.

except when there is no scaler i.e.if it's 1920x1080 all the way through

I'd completely missed 1440 x1080 when did that arrive?
It's another oblong pixel standard - do any displays have it?

In terms of ratios:
1920x1080 = 16:9 (Widescreen)
1440x1080 = 4:3 (traditional TV format)

(so it's actually been with us all the time except that until we started defining picture sizes/ratios in pixcels, it didn't seem to matter...)

got it!
So a 4:3 old tv programme such as The World at War transmitted in HD would take up the centre 1440x1080 with black bars either side

I still think the opening posters fuzziness depends on whatever were the various resolutions

CPN......as you and me seem to have an HDR connected to the same TV (Sony KDL32W4000).....do you get an occasional graininess to the blacks on HD broadcasts at low light levels [on screen not in the room] and if not, what settings to you have for lightsensor,backlight,brightness and contrast etc?....I too prefer the HDR to upscale to 1080i rather than have the output at "original" because the Foxsats own menus are at full resolution and possibly the SD picture is better this way too.
Last edited by KDH : 01-02-2009 at 15:31

See

http://www.digitalspy.com/forums/sho...7&postcount=21

Indeed, you are correct. But you're not going to get that from freesat. You can from a BluRay player, but that's a different topic for a different forum, I guess.