A little help please...

[FuzzyDuck]

Good afternoon all...

I have been browsing here for a while and the light of aquiring a new system though I would post for a wee bit if help.

Basically, I have recently got my hands on a Panasonic TH42PW7B and AV Board. I have my Sony 1080 Amp, Panasonic DVDS97EBS player and games console(s) connecting into the AV board through a variety of connections. I will be connecting the DVD player via the HDMi cable soon so thats not an issue.

The problem I am having is with the Sky+. Basically, the colour reproduction on the panel when watching sky is terrible. The main issue is with the colour white (although i've never thought of white as a colour) nothing that is white on the screen is defined at all. A white table looked like a big blurry blob with a few vases on top and I have got to the point where I am having to watch the cricket on a CRT upstairs so I can enjoy it. Where other colours are involved it looks like there is a little too much green in the picture and no matter what setting I change it does not make the picture quality any better.

I have spoken to the dealer where I purchased the system from and they have recommended a Scaler (Deinterlacer?) to improve the quality but having spent a lot of money already I am a bit loathe to throw more money at it if I am not going to reap the benefits. I realise that I have written an essay but any pointers or opinions would be appreciated. I am a noobie when it comes to this sort of thing but I will try to explain anything required.

Thanks....

[loonatic]

You may also have trouble with the HDMI blade as it seems it will not support 720p and 1080i at 50Hz...have a look in the Plasma section for more information on this.

Have you calibrated the screen using either the DVE or AVIA test discs ? that may help improve things on a budget...oterwise you could think about getting it ISF calibrated by a professional.

A decent scaler will set you back anything from £1000 inc cables to over £2000.

Cheers, Lee

[FuzzyDuck]

Thanks for your reply Lee,

I will have a hunt for the DVE and AVIE test discs. I can say for certain that these were not used when the dealer installed it for me. I guess it was a little stoopid of me not to check I am happy with settings and quality of the install before letting him walk out of my door...

With regard to the HDMi are you saying that it won't work at those levels? It is currrently set up at 575p? and looks good using the standard cables that were packed with the DVD player.

All I am trying to do is get the best possible picture quality on Sky+, DVD and the games consoles and am currently dissapointed with it.

Thanks again.

[sparkz]

For starters you might want to turn down the contrast and brightness to a normal level. I know my Panny (THD7) came with ridiculously high settings. I use -1 and -7 on mine and turn off all the automatic picture adjustment features (I'm not too sure what you may have on your model).

As loonatic says DVE is a good way to go for sorting this out.

I did read somewhere that Sky is prone to this green tint problem. It's not really a problem on mine although I do have a scaler (iScan HD).

Have you tried different connections/cables to see if there's any difference in quality?

Mark

[FuzzyDuck]

Hi Sparkz..

Yes I have fiddled with all the settings with regard to contrast, brightness, sharpness etc but to no avail. The only picture options are Automatic, Warm and Cool. None of them make a noticeable difference to the quality even when coupled with the contrast etc fiddlin.

I haven't tried the different connections yet. The Sky box is currently plugged into the tuner board via SCART (RGB) so maybe a change of input to narrow down the possibilities is required

The picture quality is only bad with Sky. When watching DVD's it looks lovely even using the crappy componant cables supplied as is.