Improving LCD picture quality?

Question

Hi, I have recently bought a new Samsung LE32A457C1D 32" LCD tv. I plugged my old ariel coaxial lead into it (i live in a basement flat and have never seen my ariel! don't even know what else is connected to it!) and the picture quality is worse than my old TV ( iguess my old tv was a crt)! Can i buy a better cable or will the picture be poor until everything does digital? I have heard/read that there is some problem with TVs having to receive analogue signals and then upscale to digital within the tv set? Have i understood correctly? Will better ariel leads enhance viewing pleasure?

Answer 1

You could try and buy a little box called a signal booster which may help improve the quality of your picture.

Obviously if you are in the UK, then get a freeview box which will improve the quality of your picture as analogue signals generally look poor on LCD tv's including mine.

I heard that the digital signal transmited at the moment is only at about about half strength as it would interfere with the analogue signal or something. So they will be turning it up to full when we switch over which should improve everyone's picture and those people who can't recieve freeview atm should then be able to get it.

Oh and i don't think getting a better cable would make much difference, although you could check the end of the coax cable and unscrew then end to check the copper wire is tightly wrapped around where it should be etc.

Answer 2

Have you checked your ariel lead? Is there a rooftop ariel on the end of the cable? CRT's can pick up a signal far better than digital. Remember we used to use screwdrivers as ariels. Check out your rooftop to make sure your cable is connected.

Answer 3

Hi, I know you are perhaps frustrated with the picture quality you have right now.  Let me help out as best as I can.  If the picture coming in is looking better on your CRT TV it may be because that is the native resolution.  If you have a low quality signal coming into an HDTV, the signal has to be converted to fit the resolution of your TV.  Most of the time the software it is hard to do this and may make a picture look bad on an HDTV.  First let me say that 720p is an HD signal.  When a TV says HD ready that is simply saying that it can take an HD signal, but does not have an HD picture.  When it says HD, it is 720p and Full-HD is 1080p.  It may the case that you would have to wait until everything is broad casted in digital to get a cleaner picture.

I hope that answers your question

Answer 4

My suggestion is you have been sold a LCD TV which will need upgrading when digital is introduced. You have unknowingly bought a set which is described by the shop as "digital capable", not "digital ready"

About your antenna I do not know, but write to or telephone the BBC Engineers at Broadcasting House London, and they will give you all the information you need.

It's a case of buyer beware.  Shops will be attempting to unload, sometimes cheaply, analogue and "digital ready" TV's which mean you will have to buy a set top box sometime soon,  to make it work when everything is digital.

Answer 5

Due to its construction, an LCD screen is capable of correcty displaying only one resolution image (called "native" resolution). Picture in every other resolution must be scaled to this resolution prior to being displayed. Special filtering software is then applied to the resulting image to hide the effects of the scaling. In the CRT screens any image resolution, for which the correct refresh rate can be established, can be correctly displayed with no image quality loss. In short this means that LCD screens are c**p.

Newer LCD TV sets are made to support either HD Ready (720p) or Full HD (1080p) resolution, with some HD Ready (720p) resolution sets capable of displaying Full HD images with interlacing (1080i). The numbers mean the number of lines the TV set  must display for the whole picture. For digital TV signal this is either 720 or 1080 lines. Every other resolution image must be scaled - including analogue TV signal, which is sent at 576i (in European PAL) or 480i (in North American NTSC). In short this means that LCD screens are c**p for analogue signal.

In the shop you were probably shown a demo DVD, which was engineered to give good quality picture using the filters applied by Samsung or a HD DVD or BlueRay demo, sporting the correct resolution for the TV set. In short this means that your salesperson was good.

The image quality will improve as soon as you supply the correct resolution signal.

EDIT: Just read up on the digital tv standard in the UK. It appears that all the channels currently transmitting digitally in the UK are using the SDTV format. This means that the signal is supplied either in 576i or 576p for PAL-like signal or 480i or 480p for NTSC-like signal. This means that HD Ready and Full HD LCD sets will keep scaling image after the switch to digital (which means continued crappy picture) unless the picture format changes to 720p.

Your set is HD Ready (720p resolution), so the only way of getting a decent picture is attaching a BluRay player and using it to play BluRay discs on it.

Sorry mate - you've been had by the TV industry and its digital fad.

SECOND EDIT: No amount of top boxes will improve your reception. If the picture on your CRT TV was good enough and by changing just the TV set, leaving the rest as it was, you get a crappy picture, guess what is wrong with your setup. By the way the old saying goes "If it's not broken - don't fix it".

Depending on the filters used you get either blurry contours, jagged lines, smudges after movement, jerky movement, ghost images after an object moves or any combination of the above. If it was a problem with reception you'd get square artifacts, displaying a piece of old image, with the rest of the screen displaying new image or bits of new image imposed on the old image.

Unless the TV stations in UK change the newly established SDTV standard to display the native resolution of your LCD set (720p) you will get crappy picture you get now. I doubt such a change will be enacted however, since establishing the SDTV standard must have cost them a bunch. By the time this money will be earned back the next logical step will be Full HD (1080p) or a next level standard (guess what - your TV will have to scale this new image standard down - you'll be getting crappy picture).

Truth on the matter is that LCD technology is a huge step backwards in terms of image reproduction. It is sold in the shops, because the TV industry must get the money it spent on researching the technology back in their pockets. The next step technology (OLED) is waiting on the sidelines, shuffling its feet to get in (first OLED TV sets were to be introduced this year) and the next step technology after it is in advanced development stage.

The only way you will get a decent picture is connecting a BluRay or HD DVD player and playing HD discs on it. You can use an XBOX 360 or Playstation 3 as well.

THIRD EDIT: As to your question about another Freeview Box - I don't know if such a box even exists, I don't live in the UK. Consider this before you buy such a box: by adding a box, which is capable of supplying the correct resolution you may ommit the scaling and filtering inbuilt in your TV set. But the only way such a box would work is by scaling and filtering the signal itself. So you will be changing the filters in your TV set for another set of filters - in the box. The box will get an analogue signal, scale it up, filter it, code it and send through the HDMI cable. Your TV will receive the coded signal and decode it. Even if such box exists the coding/decoding will erode the signal quality, in addition to the damage done by scaling/filtering. It is quite possible that the image would be even worse.