LG 32LX2R and Freeview

A

Axegrinder

Guest
Hey all,

Could someone please answer a few questions for me?

1. From what I can gather the LG 32LX2R mostly gets the thumbs up and I'm on the verge of buying it. I've seen the HD demo running in Currys and it looks fantastic but as I'm only going to be watching Freeview through my Topfield will I be dissapointed with the PQ?

2. Does Freeview look crap on most LCDs? If so, do plasmas fair any better?

3. I have a Panasonic DVD recorder with progresive scan. Will this look good? Or at least, be better than Freeview?

Thanks
 
Can't tell bout freeview, since we don't have such a thing here...

But it looked pretty good on an analog RF feed
 
I too would like to know what the PQ of the LG 32LX2R is when fed from a freeview box.

Surely somebody out there must be running that kind of setup and be able to respond, please.
 
Just my thoughts!
I dont have Freeview but I do have Sky and the picture quality with that is pretty good,dont get me wrong it isn't bad but obviously not as good as it is with DVD.
I connected my Sky box with RF to try it and I did notice a loss of quality but not to the point of being un-watchable.
Bear in mind that Freeview boxes in general dont output in RF so you woud need to connect them with SCART to the screen and far as I know Freeview boxes in general output RGB on the SCART ans that is the best connection you can get from them.
 
Hi

Does Freeview look crap on most LCDs? If so, do plasmas fair any better?

Freeview quality is quite poor in my opinion, and suffers terribly from blocking due to bit starvation so that we can have a dozen or so channels showing complete and utter rubbish (shopping channels, QuizCall, and channels that show repeats, or run an hour behind).

Any programs that might be worth watching on the new channels are covered with on-screen logos and "brand new" or "second chance" messages and taunts to make us press “Red”. Did we have “press teletext button” in the 80s for Ceefax and Oracle flashing up on the TV screen or left there permanently as News24 seem to do now, of course not, and was teletext any less successful, no.

Quality is getting worse by the week with new channels being added without any extra bandwidth, so "Quantity" rather than "Quality" is what Freeview is about and the governments determination to sell the analogue space in a few years time to the highest bidders, where we then pay more for those services and for replacing our equipment, it's nothing more than a stealth tax.

Unfortunately LCD/Plasma TVs by their very nature show up this bit starvation more so than traditional TV. You can’t have an LCD panel capable of high-definition without it also showing the shortcomings of highly compressed and bit starved data feeds that are the joke of digital terrestrial. What the TV can do is provide extra processing to try and hide this mess, however that results in blurring of any movement as it tries to blend and smooth the visible blocking away, which looks almost as bad.

Regards

Phil
 
Freeview quality is quite poor in my opinion, and suffers terribly from blocking due to bit starvation

Surely one of the distinguishing features of a good LCD TV is that it can produce good PQ even from less than ideal feed. After all, Freeview looks fine on my CRT, with no signs of blocking.

I have looked at many LCD TVs running off HD feeds and, to be honest, I can see very little difference between most of them. However, on non-HD feeds I have seen huge differences in PQ. On some sets the blockiness is very visible and annoying.

So, getting back to the original question, has anybody tried the LG 32LX2R on a freeview feed?
 
Hi

Surely one of the distinguishing features of a good LCD TV is that it can produce good PQ even from less than ideal feed.

A good LCD does produce a good picture, that is the problem, as it also shows more of the compression artefacts. A CRT TV hides a lot of the nastyness of Freeview (or other highly compressed video streams) due to the way they work and it is this that MPEG compression takes advantage off. Don't get me wrong, Freeview on a good CRT TV can look bad as well!

However, on non-HD feeds I have seen huge differences in PQ. On some sets the blockiness is very visible and annoying.

The LG has an MPEG filter and is user adjustable so you will be able to remove some of the obvious blocking.

The blocking on Freeview or other compressed sources is due to lack of information, those blocks only contain a rough representation (maybe just the average colour) that was there originally as there is no room in the data for anything more, no TV can reconstruct those huge blocks back into anything meaningful, the best they can do is try and guess where the edges of these boxes are and blurr them together (that is what the filter options are essentially doing), so you don't see the outlines of each block, but just get a general haze instead.

Regards

Phil
 
A good LCD does produce a good picture, that is the problem, as it also shows more of the compression artefacts.

I've got a Nebula DigiTV decoder in my living room PC. Playing back the recordings on an LCD monitor over DVI produces excellent PQ most of the time. Occasionally some artifacts are visible, but the PQ is not anywhere near as bad as I have seen on some LCD TVs in shops.

So either
a) my freeview feed is much better than that in most shops, or
b) the decoders in freeview receivers are producing far worse results than I get decoding/playing back freeview on a PC, or
c) the panels in LCD TVs are substantially different from panels in LCD monitors and are more prone to showing decoding artifacts, or
d) transforming an MPEG stream into an RGB feed (in the freeview receiver) and then processing that feed (in the LCD TV) results in more decoding artifacts showing up.

All of these seem pretty unlikely. What other explanation could there be for my observations (i.e. crap PQ on some freeview-fed LCD TVs in shops, good PQ on PC-based setup)?
 
hi ive had the lg, dont buy it its a very poor panel, anyone who says diff is telling u porkys.
try the sharp pe50 range.
 
knobbs said:
hi ive had the lg, dont buy it its a very poor panel, anyone who says diff is telling u porkys.
try the sharp pe50 range.

I have this LG and with all feeds, I find the picture excellent, especially with DVD. I can't say about freeview as I cannot recieve it, but I am very happy with the picture.

I have a DVD that upscales and although not true HD, it does show off my DVD's in a whole new way.
 

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