LCD TVs - analogue v digital

[Bunter1815]

Hi all

I'm after a replacement for my 13 y.o. Sony Trinitron 21" CRT set, and have been checking out some LCD sets in high street stores.

One thing I've noticed on a Panasonic set is that the picture from an analogue broadcast is much better than the same picture via a freeview broadcast. This is directly opposite to my experience with our CRT set - the picture via digital feed is much better than the analogue picture. Since we mostly watch Freeview broadcasts I wondered whether or not this is a common observation on LCD sets? Or whether I was seeing some product of set-up and or signal strength differences?

Thanks in advance

Bill

 

[LV426]

It's not the case with my 22 inch Samsung. I'm in a good reception area for both so I discount that completely. However - in what way do you evaluate better or worse in what you've seen?

 

[Rob1698]

One thing I've noticed on a Panasonic set is that the picture from an analogue broadcast is much better than the same picture via a freeview broadcast. This is directly opposite to my experience with our CRT set - the picture via digital feed is much better than the analogue picture.

The problem with your old set is that it uses old technology to demodulate the analog PAL signal, and produces a sub-optimal picture.
Your digital receiver is connected via RGB and bypasses this PAL demodulator, so its newer technologies produce a better picture on your old TV.

A new TV (be it CRT or LCD) has a much better PAL demodulator and produces a better picture from an analog signal. This is when you start noticing that the highly compressed digital picture isn't all that great.
"upscaling" technologies used in LCD TV's to increase the resolution from PAL standard to the panel resolution tend to amplify the defects in the compressed picture as well.

You will see this effect with all modern good-quality TVs, but on some it is more visible than on others (because the processing on the video signal differs between manufacturers and quality classes of sets).

 

[Bunter1815]

It's not the case with my 22 inch Samsung. I'm in a good reception area for both so I discount that completely. However - in what way do you evaluate better or worse in what you've seen?

I guess the words which spring to mind are blocky, pixellated and posterised for the LCD display.

Bill

 

[SteveI]

I've always thought analogue tv is better quality than freeview. Formula 1, for example, really shows up the difference, or football where you can see much better fine detail in the grass with an analogue broadcast. Freeview used to be better than it is now, e.g. Five in particular was more or less dvd quality in the past, but nowadays they've crammed far too many channels on there and the quality is dreadful. I currently have a Samsung LE32R41BD LCD and analogue is better than freeview on it, just like it was on my old CRT as well. I really do wish they'd drastically cull the number of channels and get the remaining channels all up to somewhere in the region of 5Mbps bitrate.

 

[LV426]

I guess the words which spring to mind are blocky, pixellated and posterised for the LCD display.

Bill

OK Iguess you would see those artefacts, which are an unfortunate side effect of digital TV in too narrow a bandwidth, and a very revealing TV set. What I'd say, though, is if these artefacts are so obvious, you're probably watching from an unrealistically close distance. Hard to be sure, but I guess that, watched from a (perhaps) more typical viewing distance, these things may begin to recede into insignificance.