# SD picture quality in 15.2



## Mimizuku no Lew

_Cross-posted from Cable Forum_

OK, I've taken a few comparison shots on the same TV between the TiVo and the Samsung V+ box.

For info:

The TV is a Sony KDL-40EX403 1080P LCD with both boxes connected via HDMI. The settings for each input are set identically.

The camera is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8 set to full manual mode, f8 1/3.2 mounted on a tripod and on a 2 second timer to prevent shake.

There may be some minor differences that are due to the TV's backlight changing due to the on-screen picture. I've tried to avoid this where possible.

Firstly, here's my original shot of channel 999 on the 15.1 software from this post.










This is the TiVo on the 15.2 code.










This is the Samsung V+ box.










And a close-up on the word "help"; TiVo first, followed by the Samsung V+ box.



















Here are a few more shots of some other SD channels. In all cases the TiVo is shown first, followed by the Samsung V+ box.

ESPN America:


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## Mimizuku no Lew

Sky Sports News:





































BBC News:


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## smokie

Quiet day was it?


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## Mimizuku no Lew

I was asked to update the pics so I did. No-one forced you to post.


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## jethrouk

V+ still looks marginally better than Tivo


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## Mimizuku no Lew

Funny, I think it's the other way round personally. The letters on text look slightly better defined and compression artefacts are slightly less visible on the TiVo. I don't think there's much in it though, and it's still miles better than the 15.1 software was.


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## TIVO_YORK99

Have to agree with you.

I looked at the pictures before I read which was which and the first is definitely better (in my opinion). 

Good of you to take the trouble to do this.


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## drummerbod

15.2 is far better. Less artefacting. Better saturation, especially of the blacks. 

The de-interlacing of 15.1 looks to be horrendous. But oddly, if you are outputting at 1080i, then the de-interlacing should be done by the TV. Odd one that.

Thanks for your time in doing this.


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## louis wu

Thanks "Mimizuku no Lew". You have done good work on getting to the bottom of this problem. Personally I can't see any difference on my tv but then maybe I'm just not great at seeing pq differences. It's not like my box didn't have the problem because I could see that the text was fuzzy on channel 999 when it was pointed out in a previous thread. I couldn't see a problem when watching programmes though.


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## Mimizuku no Lew

drummerbod said:


> 15.2 is far better. Less artefacting. Better saturation, especially of the blacks.
> 
> The de-interlacing of 15.1 looks to be horrendous. But oddly, if you are outputting at 1080i, then the de-interlacing should be done by the TV. Odd one that.
> 
> Thanks for your time in doing this.


The problem on 15.1 was due to the fact that PAL and NTSC have different field orders and the coders at TiVo weren't aware of that and assumed they were the same, so when converting from SD to HD they flipped the field order (which doesn't need to be done when converting 576i to 1080i as they are both the same field order). This is what caused the problem in the first screenshot.


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## Mimizuku no Lew

louis wu said:


> Thanks "Mimizuku no Lew". You have done good work on getting to the bottom of this problem. Personally I can't see any difference on my tv but then maybe I'm just not great at seeing pq differences. It's not like my box didn't have the problem because I could see that the text was fuzzy on channel 999 when it was pointed out in a previous thread. I couldn't see a problem when watching programmes though.


It seems that some TVs are affected by the problem and some aren't. It could be that some TVs are able to spot and correct the problem as part of their picture processing.


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