Watch HD on an SD CRT?

[clemenzina]

In the thread "Is it time to remove this forum?", Alkali has said he watches HD on his old Sony CRT and it gives a better picture.

Can anyone explain to me how best to do this? My Daewoo widescreen DUB2850 has SCART and AV inputs, not Component (I watch one of my Freeview PVRs via S-video, the others via SCART).

I haven't asked this question directly of Alkali because I don't want to stray off topic in that thread.

clemenzina

[JayCee]

Originally Posted by clemenzina

In the thread "Is it time to remove this forum?", Alkali has said he watches HD on his old Sony CRT and it gives a better picture.

Don't believe everything you read.

[clemenzina]

If you say so, JayCee. "If it looks too good to be true..."

clemenzina

[ben12345]

It does give a better picture, just because the bitrate on most Sky SD channels is below par.
Before I had my HD Fury to connect my HD box to my CRT Projector (was using Scart RGBS), there was a noticable difference between the SD channels and the equivalent HD channels.

Its like the difference between watching freeview and SD Sky.

[clemenzina]

I still don't understand. If you have a Sky SD box connected to an old CRT TV, where does HD come into the picture at all?

clemenzina

[ben12345]

You obviously need a Sky HD box to be able to receive the HD channels, even if you only are connecting it to an old CRT television.

You won't be viewing in high definition, but the quality of the picture will still be higher than on normal SD channels due to the bitrate/compression.

[Pontecorvo]

So the better picture on your SD CRT set with HD transmission is only if you have Sky because Sky SD is worse than Freeview SD? (Correct me if I am wrong).

Would the same apply, for example, to Freesat BBC HD, or other (are there any?) Freeview HD channels when it comes to viewing them on a non-HD CRT?

(I don't have Sky and don't want it).

[clemenzina]

Something I've just remembered - I have Tiscali TV (IPTV) with their own PVR. I remember seeing it recommended that if you have an HDMI connection on your TV you might get a better picture connecting with an HDMI cable rather than SCART. Tiscali doesn't transmit HD, so it must be to do with the connection.

clemenzina

[Bossworld]

I had BBC HD through my media centre for a bit on a 28" CRT. Couldn't see any difference between that and normal BBC1. My old thread in the HTPC forum has a couple of pics of BBC HD on a CRT.

[buffyangel108]

Originally Posted by Bossworld

I had BBC HD through my media centre for a bit on a 28" CRT. Couldn't see any difference between that and normal BBC1. My old thread in the HTPC forum has a couple of pics of BBC HD on a CRT.

Well, if I record a movie from Sky HD to my (SD) DVD Recorder via SCART, I get a noticeably better picture from, say, Sky Movies Premiere HD than Sky Movies Premiere.

[NethLyn]

The answer to that is, depends on what you're watching and the tuner involved.

Bleak House, Criminal Justice series 1 (with a man on trial not a woman) and Attenborough's Life are two examples where even though it's a Freeview tuner on BBC1 and a DVD XP recording, it's certainly at the peak of that format's picture quality though a HD set would be different, wider but not automatically better if for example, you're sat too close and would get artifacts that a CRT would be too soft to show.

On both the CRTs I watched it on, you could see the blacker than blacks and the starkly crisp whites of the sky shots in Bleak House, though no other detail to really show it was better in HD.

In Life, when watching the satellite imagery in Episode 3 about Dolphin fishing methods, or Ep2 about the snake mating rituals again no jaggies on a CRT when it was showing the plumes of dust on the sea bed thrown up by the dolphins (fast moving water) but despite looking like the snakes are coming out of the screen in places on the LCD, (great filming), still some artifacts if sat in the wrong place. Again not a problem with a CRT. Again, you're "missing" the extra resolution but on BBC1, a TFT would be better on paper with technical specs side by side, but it doesn't matter if you're happy with what you're seeing. The BBC4 repeat that might not be the full Freeview strength and have an annoying logo, is another story.

Criminal Justice, whatever they did to this it was also well filmed - as an experiment I recorded one of the episodes on the 8hr EP setting- it looked like DVD quality rather than total Legoland when scaled from its original HD, and still no jaggies or noise whatsoever. Whatever circuitry differences there are between Sony TV and Panny DVD Recorder Freeview Tuners, it's the Sony that's winning in this example. I know that it would look mindblowing if I ditched the CRT and went flat before I needed to but in some cases, I'm fine with not getting total ultra-sharpness. I think when the time comes the CRT will be in another room for watching old video stuff where it looks best.

[ben12345]

Originally Posted by Pontecorvo

So the better picture on your SD CRT set with HD transmission is only if you have Sky because Sky SD is worse than Freeview SD? (Correct me if I am wrong).

Would the same apply, for example, to Freesat BBC HD, or other (are there any?) Freeview HD channels when it comes to viewing them on a non-HD CRT?

(I don't have Sky and don't want it).

From my observations on a large CRT projector, The SD Sky picture quality is better than SD Freeview. I notice that on Freeview that some channels are better than others, but a lot of the time I still am put off by the artifacts/blockiness/lack of colour depth. I think that most of the problem is that they are trying to squeeze more channels into the same amount of space, so they have to lower the bitrates to compensate. Maybe when analogue is turned off completely the terrestrial quality will improve.

My girlfriend still has a 32" CRT set, and I have to say that the CRT is more forgiving on freeview pictures than my 32" LCD set.

I would have thought that the picture quality on freesat is exactly the same as on Sky as they both share the same satellite.

[Orbitalzone]

When I connected my SkyHD box to my Sony KV28FX20 CRT tv via scart it clearly gave better results when watching an HD channel on Sky compared to an SD channel on Sky (IE Sky1 vs Sky1HD or BBC vs BBCHD)

However you had to be reasonably close to the screen to notice that the HD channels didn't suffer from the legoblock effect that you get on many SD channels due to them squeezing in too many channels and lowering the bitrate.

I can't really see it worthwhile connecting an HD box to SD CRT though... I only did it as I wanted to do side by side comparisons of my old Sony CRT vs my new Sony W4000 LCD and at the same time compared SD/HD testcards etc.

In all honesty the 28" CRT performed extremely well and SD looked a bit better....but flicker was instantly noticeable on the CRT compared to LCD and geometry was poor (of course) I am still impressed with my W4000 LCD though,

[adnydrum]

Originally Posted by Pontecorvo

So the better picture on your SD CRT set with HD transmission is only if you have Sky because Sky SD is worse than Freeview SD? (Correct me if I am wrong).

Would the same apply, for example, to Freesat BBC HD, or other (are there any?) Freeview HD channels when it comes to viewing them on a non-HD CRT?

(I don't have Sky and don't want it).

Good discussion, people.

My take on it? I recently got a Freesat receiver as our terrestrial goes off early next year, and currently watch it on a Sony 32" CRT. Picture quality is excellent on all channels and the BBC HD demo & programming IS very very good indeed on this tv. (something about 720 instead of 576 lines for PAL? Someone on here will know!) I suspect the processing quality of the Humax Freesat receiver compared to the rather nasty Sky boxes is the explanation: pictures in general and audio in particular blow Sky and Freeview away. HD content on FS will only increase over time, and I too abjectly refuse to give Sky any cash, ever.

[Baseley09]

I watch Virgin HD via component @ 1080i on my JVC tube and I have not seen a better picture from any tv, ever.

And I still feel the need to get a flat panel just to spite myself.