Why does my blu ray player not look as good as I thought it would.?

Question

I am using the blu ray on a samsung 1080p 40" lcd I saw the same tv in best buy with blue ray and it looked like I could grab what was in the screen. But at my house it does not look any better than the samsung dvd upconverter.

Answer 1

All the posters gave great suggestions. But you failed to say HOW do you have your bluray player hooked up to the TV?

Could you be using SVideo cables?  Or are you using good Component cables or HDMI?

Answer 2

When you're in the store, Best Buy has the Geek Squad calibrate the TV so that the colors, settings, etc. are optimized.  

Best Buy also has better lighting than you would at home.  Best Buy sets it up so that lights shine on the TV to give it the best resolution.  There's a reason why the TV is where it is.  Even notice that the Magnolia Theater has the lights dimmed, how it's always in a corner, away from everything else.  When you're at home, you don't think about these things.

Answer 3

3 things it could be,

1: the cable, You do need an HDMI cable to connect from the Blu-Ray to the TV and only the HDMI. Sometimes people connect the HDMI and the other cables. Then they don't realize that they are watching through the lower grade cables. and contrary to popular belief there are differences in the image quality between cables. If it is a short run it shouldn't hurt you too badly.

2: the settings. Make sure the output resolution is 1080P to get your best picture. The BD player has lower resolution settings in case your TV can't handle it's highest resolution. You need to change the resolution to 1080P during the setup or with the HDMI or resolution button.

3: The movie. While BD is certainly capable of much better picture quality than DVD, some movies don't look so much better. Sometimes it's on purpose, like a grainy effect to give the movie a grittier feel. Sometimes it's an older movie that wasn't filmed that well to begin with. Or sometimes it's just a bad transfer from film to digital. Try the movie UltraViolet for some of the cleanest, and sharpest lines and most vibrant colors to be sure.

hope this helps.

Answer 4

It could be a settings issue.

HDMI will transfer a lower quality signal, so you need to make sure it is set to 1080p output. It could also be what you are watching. It could be a number of things.

What TV model number? BluRay? More detail is needed to tell you exactly where to look for a problem.

p.s. geek squad does not calibrate the TVs. And what lighting?

Answer 5

The most likely reason is the picture you saw at the store was HD video (not a movie tranferred from film).

The truth is that Blu-ray and HD DVD don't look that much better than upconverted DVD .. at least not a good DVD and a mediocre HD Disk ... of which there are plenty. The biggest difference is in the colour, not the resolution (HD disks use a different (expanded) colour space to DVD).

I suggest checking your settings to be sure everything is 1080p (including making sure you are using an HDMI connection)... but also try different disks ... you will probably find some look better than others.

Also be sure to watch from an optimum distance and with the lights dimmed (or better yet off). Most people watch from too far away and waste the advantage of HD. To get maximum benefit for a 40" 1080p HDTV you should be about 5'-7' from the screen.

Other than that I suspect your expectations were just a little too high.