# New HDTV...Now TiVo Grainy



## Cintoman (Jun 16, 2005)

Hi everyone,

Hoping someone might be able to help me out as you always do.... I just got a new 720P Panny Plasma 50" HDTV, ran all my wiring, got everything hooked up, and after days of work, was ready to turn everything on. And that's where the excitement ended. When the D* Non-hd Tivo box (R10) powered up on-screen, I noticed that the "Welcome Powering Up!" screen was really grainy looking, especially noticeable on the bottom 1/3 of the screen, which is black, where the wording is located. Not as noticeable on the upper 2/3 where the screen is bright yellow.

The box continued powering up, and the graininess remained. Reminds me of the old rabbit ear days where you're trying to tune into a further away TV station. Not so much snowy, but instead grainy

Here's what I noticed and done so far:

All the D* Tivo screens/menus are fairly grainy. Not really really bad, but picture-quality-wise, it's worse than my old Panny 32" tube tv. The menu screens have noticeable ghost images. While watching a TV show (both live and pre-recorded), the quality is not great. Again, it seems the old tv looked much much better. Also noticeable when pausing TV.

However, the TV's menus look great (the setup screens, contrast/brigtness/adjustment screens, etc)

I thought there may have been some problems with the COAX cables I ran from the existing 2 coax cables from the LNB, but the fact that the welcome screen is grainy means it's not the SAT signals/coax.

So it then appeared to be some sort of interference or something.

Everything is connected the way it was previously (DVD, R10 DTivo, VCR all plugged into a powerstrip). I then plugged only the R10 into a separate electrical outlet. No change in quality.

Does anyone have any ideas? This is not boding well in winning my wife over on this new plasma TV and its' significantly worse picture quality.

Here's what I have in terms of wiring:

Panny 50" 720P plamsa plugged into a Monster In-Wall power center.
2 new RG-6 coax feeding from the existing basement/LNB coax wires up to the back of a lower coax wall plate below the TV.
2 new RG-6 from the lower wall plate going into SAT1 and SAT2 of R10.
1 RG-6 coming out of R10 going into the VCR.
1 RG-6 coming out of the VCR going into another coax jack on the same lower wallplate.
From behind the lower wallplate, 1 RG-6 going behind wall up to Monster power center coax plate. 
Finally a tiny RG-6 coming from Monster coax to the TV's ANT IN coax connection.

Finally, I also hooked up my R10 directly to 1 coax it was previously connected to at the old tv location. Same graininess.

Actually.....Just thinking back right now, the only thing I can think of is that the RG-6 wire that runs behind the wall from the lower plate up to the upper Monster plate behind the TV may not be good. Again, looking back, when I made the run, the wire ended up being a hair short, so it was a pinch trying to twist it onto the back of the jack. Maybe that might be it. Of course, I just thought of this right now, and don't remember completely bypassing this and running a coax directly to the TV. Well....now that I wrote all this, I guess I might as well ask if some of you have some ideas...

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Playing around with the TV settings (Vivid, cinema modes, etc, as well as the sharpness) didn't help.

Your help is always always appreciated greatly !!

Thanks,
Paul
(Cintoman)


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## rlj5242 (Dec 20, 2000)

Cintoman said:


> Panny 50" 720P plamsa plugged into a Monster In-Wall power center.
> 2 new RG-6 coax feeding from the existing basement/LNB coax wires up to the back of a lower coax wall plate below the TV.
> 2 new RG-6 from the lower wall plate going into SAT1 and SAT2 of R10.


 You wasted your time and money doing this. Changing the cables on the feed from the dish to the receiver does NOTHING to change the picture quality. It's digital. You either get a signal or you don't. There is no in-between.



Cintoman said:


> 1 RG-6 coming out of R10 going into the VCR.
> 1 RG-6 coming out of the VCR going into another coax jack on the same lower wallplate.
> From behind the lower wallplate, 1 RG-6 going behind wall up to Monster power center coax plate.
> Finally a tiny RG-6 coming from Monster coax to the TV's ANT IN coax connection.


 That's your biggest problem. You are using the RF output of your R10. The RF (channel 3/4) output is the worst possible connection. Use the s-video output on the R10 along with the analog audio and connect them directly into one of your TV's inputs. That will improve the picture dramatically.



Cintoman said:


> Playing around with the TV settings (Vivid, cinema modes, etc, as well as the sharpness) didn't help.


 You don't "play" with these. There are calibration DVD's that have the appropriate test signals so you can properly set these. Avia and Video Essentials are two of the most popular DVDs. This will further improve your picture quality.

That being said, you just upgraded to a very high quality display device. It will not show flaws in the video signal that you never knew existed when using your old TV. It's like going to the eye doctor and getting new glasses only to find out that your wife now looks old and ugly. Your only options are to cover her in makeup (the s-video connection and TV calibration) or upgrade to a prettier woman (upgrade to a high definition signal). Basically, you have found out that DirecTV's standard definition signal is crap. They overcompress it to squeeze in more content rather than optimize it for quality. Feed your TV an HD signal and you will see amazing results.

-Robert


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## Cintoman (Jun 16, 2005)

rlj5242 said:


> You wasted your time and money doing this. Changing the cables on the feed from the dish to the receiver does NOTHING to change the picture quality. It's digital. You either get a signal or you don't. There is no in-between.


Thanks for your comments/suggestions rlj5242. Actually, I think you might have misunderstood me on the above comment. I didn't run new cables from my dish. I used the existing cables that come from the dish down into the basement and connect to the top of a coax grounding block. I then unhooked my 2 old coax that were going to another area of my living room from the bottom of this block, and then connected my 2 new coax runs I made to the new TV location to this block.



rlj5242 said:


> That's your biggest problem. You are using the RF output of your R10. The RF (channel 3/4) output is the worst possible connection. Use the s-video output on the R10 along with the analog audio and connect them directly into one of your TV's inputs. That will improve the picture dramatically.


I'll try this out. I'll have to figure how to get my VCR hooked up under this new scenario.



rlj5242 said:


> Basically, you have found out that DirecTV's standard definition signal is crap. They overcompress it to squeeze in more content rather than optimize it for quality. Feed your TV an HD signal and you will see amazing results.


I can understand what you mean about their compression. However, would an HD signal also improve SD channels?

The other part I'm not sure about is why the initial startup screen and TiVo menu screens are all grainy. Like you said, the signal quality is digital...it's either all or nothing, no in-between. Which I can understand when it comes to the TV feed. But the startup screens are not being fed thru satellite, so why the graniness/ghosting? In fact, I had only the R10 going into the TV, no satellite inputs going to the back of the R10. Is the RF out coming from the R10 THAT bad? I mean my old TV looked perfectly sharp. I would think 480p on a regular TV and 480p on a plasma *should* look the same? Ok, the plasma is bigger, but still.

Thank you again for your comments so far. Very helpful.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

The brightness, contrast and sharpness settings on new TVs are set to the max. Reduce these to at least 50&#37; to help reduce the graininess you see. For the R10, the PQ is the best from the s-video, followed closely by the yellow composite, the RF output is the worst. Also, using the RF loses the stereo audio. Ghosting can occur using RF.

To connect the VCR, use the second set of composite outputs.


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## rlj5242 (Dec 20, 2000)

Cintoman said:


> I can understand what you mean about their compression. However, would an HD signal also improve SD channels?


 I don't watch SD channels any more. Now that DirecTV has started broadcasting the new HD channels, everything that I want to watch is now available on an HD channel. Either in true HD or upconverted SD. Even the upconverted SD looks better since there are no compression artifacts to degrade the picture.



JimSpence said:


> The brightness, contrast and sharpness settings on new TVs are set to the max. Reduce these to at least 50% to help reduce the graininess you see.


 Actually sharpness needs to be turned to its lowest setting. The sharpness circuit adds an artificial outline to objects to make them "pop" off of the screen. Make them look "sharp". It can't tell the difference between objects in the program and compression artifacts so it outlines every difference. I have calibrated both of my HDTVs for an HD source and the sharpness is turned to its lowest setting on both. This was confirmed using Video Essentials.

-Robert


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

years ago I got the Digital Video essentials DVD (i'm sure there is a new version by now) and just using it for bright and contrast made a huge difference for my crt. If you take the time to do the rest of the dvd, id imagine you'd get even better results.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

True about the sharpness setting. I just got on a roll with that reply. I have the sharpness on my CRT HDTV set to its lowest setting. Also look for other settings that have to do with sharpness to turn off.


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

here's more about DVE for those interested

http://www.audioholics.com/tweaks/calibrate-your-system/digital-video-essentials-dve-review

http://www.videoessentials.com/


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## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

newsposter said:


> here's more about DVE for those interested
> 
> http://www.audioholics.com/tweaks/calibrate-your-system/digital-video-essentials-dve-review
> 
> http://www.videoessentials.com/


I've used both the SD and the HDDVD version of DVE, it does wonders once you know what looks "right".


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## Cintoman (Jun 16, 2005)

Well, I got home and tried hooking up the S-video from my R10 to my TV. I still kept the coax from the R10 into the TV's antenna port to compare. I did notice a difference, but the S-video wasn't extremely better, but somewhat noticeable. I'm not sure if it's worth taking down my TV, removing the lower and upper wall plates, and feeding the S-video and composite audio thru the wall. Especially when, relatively soon, I'll be upgrading to HD service (whether it's D*'s or Cox, or FiOS, I'm still not sure).

The S-video looked much brighter than the coax mode. Even though both were set to the same picture mode (standard), the coax looked like standard mode whereas the s-video looked more like vivid mode.

Still, even with S-video, it **seems** (at least to mine and my wife's unprofessional eyes) that the picture looked better on our old 32" tube TV than it does on this new plasma. Not sure if it's because the screen size is larger (50" for the new TV) or what. 

Will have to borrow my buddy's DVE disc and calibrate my tv...I'm sure it will definitely improve the PQ.

I guess my next thing is figuring out if I should keep D* and reluntantly go with their DVR service, or go with Cox and their DVR service. Hate to lose my TiVo, but at least with COX, they have a firm agreement with TiVo, whereas D* doesn't seem interested in us loyal TiVO followers. But that's another posting...

Thank you again so much !!

- Paul
(Cintoman)


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

In the meantime, before you get the DVE disc, turn the brightness, contrast, and sharpness down. And, the larger size screen will make things look worse.


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## SLOmike (Feb 1, 2002)

The SD TV was designed to make SV video look good.

The HD TV was designed to make HD video look good.

-Mike


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## Alan P (May 16, 2002)

Cintoman,

I'm sorry to break it to you, but with SD video sources, plasmas just plain SUCK! Your old CRT probably DID have a better picture than your spankin' new plasma (with SD sources). I always advise my friends; DO NOT "upgrade" to one of them new-fangled HDTVs unless you do your majority of viewing with HD sources...it just doesn't make any sense.

Plasma TVs were designed to display HD (IMHO, not as well as DLP, but that's another thread/forum/site), the increased resolution of your new HDTV is going to reveal all those flaws in that SD picture that you couldn't see on your old CRT.

Also, your new TV is CONSIDERABLY larger than your old CRT, this more than anything is why you see the flaws in the SD picture more clear than ever. How far do you sit from the TV? Maybe your sitting too close, as well.

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet; are you watching that SD/4:3 material (R10) in stretch-O-vision?? Using ANY of your HDTVs stretch/zoom modes is very bad for picture quality...adds a ton of compression and digital artifacting. TURN IT OFF! This can sometimes come up against considerable protest from the SO..."What's the point of having that big TV if you aren't gonna use the WHOLE SCREEN?"...you'll get used to the pillar bars on 4:3 material and learn to hate stretch-O-vision just like me. 

Also, turn off any "picture enhancing" features...I'm not familiar with your TV, but they are usually called "digital noise reduction" or some such nonsense. You might want to visit AVSforum.com and see if there is a thread for your new TV. You didn't mention your model #, but here's the link to the Plasma Displays forum - http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=167

Just to re-iterate what others have said; never, EVER, EVER use the coax (antenna) connection for anything other than, ummm, an antenna!! 

Just so you know there is hope; my R10 on my 61" Samsung DLP, after calibration and a couple service menu tweaks, has a great picture. Some channels can even come close to upscaled DVD quality, but most are just "acceptable".

Get that DVE disk (the HD version) and tweak that mother up!

Good luck.

BTW, the D* HD DVR is not THAT bad...I've been a Tivo user for 8 years or so and I don't hate it...that much.


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