[bristto]

Guys which is better?

As standard I have 75% strength and 80% quality....

I have just got an inline amplifier which boosts my strength to 100%! but the quality drops abit down to roughly 70%... So what is preferable? more strength or better quality???

Why do you want to boost a signal that is already very strong. Your receiver should have no problem working with this signal level and the error correction will easily cope with this quality level.
As you have found out boosting an already strong signal can produce a negative result.
Your receiver requires a certain level of signal to lock on to, this is determined by the receiver sensitivity. Signals Stronger than this threshold will not produce any better results, ( a little headroom is desirable for adverse weather conditions ). Boosting the signal also boost the noise and this is likely the reason the signal quality drops.
Both values are important, if the signal is very weak your receiver will not be able to pick it up. If the quality drops, lots of errors in the signal, to the point where error correction can't cope you will get picture break up etc.

Are you having problems with the picture quality?

This is for a digital system only, if your looking at analogue signals then ignore the above.

Jake

[bristto]

Thanks Jake

Just tinkering really to see what works best... I have just upgraded to a 43' plasma and i notice loss of quality when an object moves on the screen (someone said this is always present when a signal is weak - its just noticable now because my screen is bigger!?)

[PhilipL]

Hi

Just tinkering really to see what works best... I have just upgraded to a 43' plasma and i notice loss of quality when an object moves on the screen (someone said this is always present when a signal is weak - its just noticable now because my screen is bigger!?)

Sky is digital, so providing you have no obvious problems such as video/audio drops outs etc your picture quality is the same as everyone elses regardless of signal strength and quality indicators.

Sounds like what you are now noticing is how compressed the transmissions air, when things move or a camera pans etc it requires more data to encode that what is available, so it has to go all blocky as that is all it can manage.

Welcome to the paying of a service to get quantity rather than quality.

Regards

Phil

With digital signals you will get very noticable picture blocking, break up, freezing and sound drop out as the errors increase to the point where the correction can't cope. It tends to be all or nothing. This is very different to an analogue signal where the poor quality signal will be displayed regardless.

The quality of Sat channels vary considerably. You may be getting exactly what is transmitted.

Does your display have problems with other sources?

Your plasma will have quite a few picture tweaks, ask people with the same display what their recomended settings are, this may help.

Jake