[MattWeth]

Really sorry about this - I'm probably going to sound a complete idiot, but here goes...

Prompted by the digital switchover in our area (Cheshire Granada region) our household ditched the aged analogue kit we had and have bought some new digital gear - Sony Bravia 37" 'V' 5550 TV and a Hitachi HDR253 PVR (connected via scart). Installation all went fine and both boxes tuned ok. I've just used the original aerial (unknown manufacturer / age)

All this happened last Thursday and I set the pvr to record a couple of programmes while we were away this weekend (missus can't miss 'Strictly' ). Last night we watched the recorded strictly and a couple of live broadcasts on BBC (Life and Top Gear). And here is the problem...

Recorded stuff first:
We were a bit unimpressed with the quality - there seemed to be quite a lot of compression noise (jaggy pixellation - especially noticeable around on screen captions etc and colours / detail seemed quite poor (overblown, flat flesh tones etc) and a general poor quality look to the image (if you know what I mean).

Live broadcasts:
Some compression noise again (although not as bad as the recordings) and colours looked overblown (especially reds) with generally poor detail.

I've left both devices on pretty much standard settings (TV on 'standard' picture settings etc) and the invcoming aerial is cabled : incoming coax > pvr tuner 1 > pvr tuner 2 (via the little provided jumper coax) > TV incoming aerial socket. The PVR is connected to the TV via the scart lead which came with the pvr. Subjectively picture quality seems appreciably worse than our 7 year old Sony CRT and HD recorder - not what we were expecting and a bit disappointing given what we've just spent (!) ...

As I say above, I'm a complete novice when it comes to digital and wonder if perhaps I'm expecting too much? Any advice / pointers as to how I could improve things would be greatly appreciated - my first thought might be the aerial - will it make that much difference (everything seemed to tune fine)?

many thanks
Matt

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by MattWeth

Really sorry about this - I'm probably going to sound a complete idiot, but here goes...

Prompted by the digital switchover in our area (Cheshire Granada region) our household ditched the aged analogue kit we had and have bought some new digital gear - Sony Bravia 37" 'V' 5550 TV and a Hitachi HDR253 PVR (connected via scart). Installation all went fine and both boxes tuned ok. I've just used the original aerial (unknown manufacturer / age)

All this happened last Thursday and I set the pvr to record a couple of programmes while we were away this weekend (missus can't miss 'Strictly' ). Last night we watched the recorded strictly and a couple of live broadcasts on BBC (Life and Top Gear). And here is the problem...

Recorded stuff first:
We were a bit unimpressed with the quality - there seemed to be quite a lot of compression noise (jaggy pixellation - especially noticeable around on screen captions etc and colours / detail seemed quite poor (overblown, flat flesh tones etc) and a general poor quality look to the image (if you know what I mean).

Live broadcasts:
Some compression noise again (although not as bad as the recordings) and colours looked overblown (especially reds) with generally poor detail.

I've left both devices on pretty much standard settings (TV on 'standard' picture settings etc) and the invcoming aerial is cabled : incoming coax > pvr tuner 1 > pvr tuner 2 (via the little provided jumper coax) > TV incoming aerial socket. The PVR is connected to the TV via the scart lead which came with the pvr. Subjectively picture quality seems appreciably worse than our 7 year old Sony CRT and HD recorder - not what we were expecting and a bit disappointing given what we've just spent (!) ...

As I say above, I'm a complete novice when it comes to digital and wonder if perhaps I'm expecting too much? Any advice / pointers as to how I could improve things would be greatly appreciated - my first thought might be the aerial - will it make that much difference (everything seemed to tune fine)?

many thanks
Matt

Firstly the aerial won't make any difference provided you don't get picture breakup. Digital is not like analogue it either works 100% or not at all with a narrow band of signal level that causes pixellation and sound drop outs.

First thing to check is that you connect the pvr using a fully wired scart cable to a scart socket on the TV that is rgb capable. Now check the TV scart on the recorder is set to RGB and that you have not used the vcr scart which won't output RGB

[MattWeth]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

Firstly the aerial won't make any difference provided you don't get picture breakup. Digital is not like analogue it either works 100% or not at all with a narrow band of signal level that causes pixellation and sound drop outs.

First thing to check is that you connect the pvr using a fully wired scart cable to a scart socket on the TV that is rgb capable. Now check the TV scart on the recorder is set to RGB and that you have not used the vcr scart which won't output RGB

Thanks for the reply Graham - I'll check this tonight.

[fernandez]

Originally Posted by MattWeth

Live broadcasts:
Some compression noise again (although not as bad as the recordings) and colours looked overblown (especially reds) with generally poor detail.ity - there seemed to be quite a lot of compression noise ....

I've left both devices on pretty much standard settings (TV on 'standard' picture settings etc) and the invcoming aerial is cabled : incoming coax > pvr tuner 1 > pvr tuner 2 (via the little provided jumper coax) > TV incoming aerial socket. The PVR is connected to the TV via the scart lead which came with the pvr. Subjectively picture quality seems appreciably worse than our 7 year old Sony CRT and HD recorder - not what we were expecting and a bit disappointing given what we've just spent (!) ...

You don't say what size the CRT was, but the clue is in 'Subjectively picture quality seems appreciably worse..'
Unfortunately compression effects will be more noticeable on a larger display and flat panels give a better account of themselves with HD material (which is what they were meant for).
Also, I think that the picture quality of Freeview has worsened since the September 30 retune

Careful adjustment of the controls on the TV may/should help as will following grahamlthompson's advice.

There is a good illustration of what you're experiencing here
Televisions and ProjectorsÂ*|Â* Sony Support Europe

[MattWeth]

Originally Posted by fernandez

You don't say what size the CRT was, but the clue is in 'Subjectively picture quality seems appreciably worse..'
Unfortunately compression effects will be more noticeable on a larger display and flat panels give a better account of themselves with HD material (which is what they were meant for).
Also, I think that the picture quality of Freeview has worsened since the September 30 retune

Careful adjustment of the controls on the TV may/should help as will following grahamlthompson's advice.

There is a good illustration of what you're experiencing here
Televisions and ProjectorsÂ*|Â* Sony Support Europe

Thanks Fernandez - our crt was 32" and yes, the Sony page you link to more or less shows the problem (although it's most noticeable around on-screen captions). I might try an HDMI lead between the pvr and the tv (the pvr is hdmi capable) although I have read that there shouldn't be much (if any) difference.

cheers
Matt