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cdtv_admin@cdtv.ca
04/04/2021
12:42 PM
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Comments/questions regarding HDTV from cable TV sources
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cdtv_admin@cdtv.ca
04/04/2021
12:44 PM
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teris@ica.net wrote on 040325
I recently purchased a 42" Sony Grand Wega and HDTV Digital Cable through Rogers. I'm finding that the HDTV channels are fabulous, but the (much greater number of) analogue channels are significantly worse than with my old TV; very fuzzy. I had cable service in to check it out and was told I have to live with it... that my new TV is "too sensitive" and basically reading "noise" in the signal it receives from analogue cable. Is this true? Am I stuck with lousy reception on analogue channels?
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ulmer@shaw.ca
04/18/2004
6:57 PM
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teris, this is a question I've asked many times and never gotten a good answer to. The standard answer seems to be that HD sets show up deficiencies in analog signals; I don't buy it. A higher-quality, higher-res display should be able to show a better picture from any source.
My cheap old 27" RCA has generally great picture clarity with good cable input ("digital" box, but mostly analogue channels); but HD sets always look muddled. HD enthusiasts tell me to abandon analogue channels and just watch HD, but that's 6 out of 60 or so channels on my current cable provider. This is the main reason I haven't yet bought an HD set... I'd love to start benefitting from HD broadcasts, and getting the best from my dvds, but I'm not willing to sacrifice quality of my old analog channels, which are likely to be most of my viewing for some time to come. The manufacturers might get better buy-in if they figured out how to optimize their sets for both HD and regular-old-analogue signals.
My 2 cents; anybody wish to rebut?
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nyk0n@shaw.ca
05/26/2004
5:09 PM
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ulmer@shaw.ca wrote:
"The standard answer seems to be that HD sets show up deficiencies in analog signals; I don't buy it. A higher-quality, higher-res display should be able to show a better picture from any source.
"
try this analogy:
if you record and audio cassette to CD will it sound better?
answer: no
the reason HD-Ready or compatible TV's look worse on Analoge channels is the resolution for these TV's is much greater than the original source so the "imperfections" in the original picture become apparent. Various TV's offer some solutions to this like dulling the picture or "squeezing the picture to the original 4:3 aspect ratio"
with my new HDTV on regular Digital Cable I see a slight degradation of picture quality when my TV is set to Wide screen mode in 4:3 the picture is nice a clear much like my older Non-HDTV.
the prices on HDTV's are dropping fast i picked my 30" 19:9 for only $800 and the quality of DVD's are much improved.
hope this clears up some confusion
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chris.georgiou@td.com
05/31/2004
1:02 PM
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I recently purchased a Samsung 56" HDTV DLP and have "digital" cable from Bell. Analog pictures are fuzzy and do not look nearly as good as my old 27". After much research, I was told that all HDTV's suffer from "Garbage In Garbage Out"; meaning if the signal is inferior then the T.V will magnify the inferiority of the signal. Basically have to live with it until more HD is available.
Right now I haven't made the jump to HD for only 11 channels, but I must say my DVD's look incredible.
As well, the only reason I purchased this $6000 t.v was because I got it at half price through a Samsung promotion.
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chris@supermegaultragroovy.com
06/23/2004
10:29 AM
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Perhaps I can add some further information to this discussion.
I, too, will be purchasing a Grand Wega 42" set, and picked up a thing or two about pixels from my day job.
A standard NTSC signal (480i, comes from cable, over-the-air, standard non-progressive DVD players) has a resolution of 720x480.
The native resolution of the Grand Wega set is 1386x788, which would display the 1280x760 pixel 780p resolution quite nicely.
The screen size of the Grand Wega (by deducing the width and height from the 42" diagonal from a 16:9 aspect ratio) is about 36.6" wide by 20.6" tall. My math may be off, but I hope you're just getting the picture.
If you want to show TV in its perfectly native signal format, it would be about 19" wide by 12.54" tall, and it would look absolutely fantastic!
Once you scale that tiny square to the much bigger square, you make each individual pixel of the image bigger. So the "tiny dots" will become "not-so-tiny squares" that are smoothed together to be more pleasing to the eye.
Different TVs handle this conversion differently, of course. Regardless, the idea is that the TV was made to display HD signals as perfectly as possible, and hopefully do a decent job on the non-HD signals.
This is the primary reason that most people don't buy these sets right now. You have to pay a premium for the HD ("proper") content that will be displayed on your TV, on top of the already-high price of your TV. Alternatively, you can try your darndest to get an HD signal over the air for free, which is possible in locations closer to Toronto and the US border.
Often you will hear people suggest that the "older" big-screen TVs were much better at displaying the signal. Since they were primarily analog, and their native format was 480 lines (or some multiple of 480), they just displayed the raw analog lines in a very large format. If you walk up *really* close to those TVs, you can see giant scanlines across the screen, and can tell how terrible the signal actually is.
The same test, when done on an HDTV displaying HD content, would not yield the same result. By watching HD from a distance of 5' or more, the results are that much more stunning.
Hopefully I've cleared some of this up, and didn't confuse people more.
Cheers,
Chris
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adrianpandurevic@rogers.com
07/11/2021
11:15 AM
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if i may add my personal experience...
i ve recently subscribed to Rogers HD( an extra 6 bucks a month which isnt too bad at all given what i got in return),plus i still the free view of the entire channel lineup, so i did some visual comparison between all the channels. It really comes down to what the broadcaster is sending to your terminal. If the quality of of the analog signal is low, the tv set will make it look even worse.However, a number of channels do broadcast high quality, all digital program, such as TMN. The TMN 5 channel linep looks DVD-like if i use either 480i, or even 1080.To the average viewer eye, it comes very close to HD quality.
Some new channels, such as IFC, also boast great quality, and i am absolutely sure these channels look far better on HD tv sets, than they do on ordinary CRTs.I have a 36 inch Toshiba Cinema Series
And trust me,getting an HD set, and just watching PBS program in HD is worth every cent spent on the system. The quality of the picture and the program is simply stunning.I havent rented a DVD in a month, because all my favorite shows are now in HD(Law & Order, CSI, Leno etc), and i cant get enough of it -)
enjoy!
adrian
Mississauga
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cdtv_admin@cdtv.ca
09/15/2004
10:42 PM
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gton@allstream.net wrote on 2021/09/08
Just purchased the RCA HDLP61W151 w/ integrated ATSC / QAM-in-the-clear tuning capability. Being new to this, my question to Cogeco Cable was whether or not I required their set top box in addition to my integrated tuner of which they replied that I must purchase their box to recieve HDTV.
Based on what I've read here at CDTV, I think Cogeco is incorrect. Am I correct in assuming that all i require is their basic cable?
TIA
Comment from Admin.
Your receiver will receive “in-the-clear” cable channels IF the cable provider operates with single programs at 19.3 Mbps in each channel. QAM cable channels can support 38.6 Mbps and hence cable operators tend to multiplex two HD programs into a single channel to get the increased capacity, something a normal TV set cannot decode. Some channels may also be encrypted and not “in-the-clear”, further complicating things. The STB can be programmed to sort all this out and to deliver to the TV the correct signals. In any event, try it and see. There are usually one of two channels on the cable system, usually promotional stuff, that are in-the-clear and not multiplexed.
Good luck.
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rgeast@shaw.ca
10/21/2004
5:42 PM
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This is in reply to the "gton@allstream.net wrote on 2021/09/08" query regarding the RCA DLP integrated HDTV tuner. I have the normal cable feed split to the 2 tv set inputs. I can display the HDTV channels on one input but they don't seem to be in HD. The TV info display indicates that they are 480i sd. Am I doing something wrong?
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dave_brown14@hotmail.com
10/22/2004
4:39 PM
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Hi everyone. I'm not a TV tech enthusiast but about a year ago I purchased a Toshiba 42H83 Projection HDTV from an online store. I think the set is fine but the images from my dvd's and digital cable look pixelated. Is the problem an inferior set or is this something that i can control? I've alreay adjusted the convergence and focus on the set, but besides correcting some minor color issues, the pixealtion is still evident. Can anyone help? Thanks.
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cdtv_admin@cdtv.ca
02/23/2005
6:01 PM
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mikerochefort@sympatico.ca wrote on 2021/02/19
HDTV Connection
I just bought a 51" Toshiba and currently have Rogers Digital. When hooking it up the instructions in the Toshiba instruction book said that I should connect directly from the wall into the back on my hdtv set, then out to my digital box, into my vcr/dvd combo device then back into the tv. Is this really nessisary? Right now I have it hooked up as follows: from the wall into my digital box, into my vcr/dvd device then into the tv and from what I can tell is working fine. I have the tv on ant 1 and am receiving all my digital channels. Is there a right and wrong way of hooking it up. Also am hopefully upgrading to rogers hi-def package soon. Is there a right and wrong way to hook that up as well?
Comment from Admin.
Hard to tell which way is best without some more detail, but if it all works for you and you are happy with the picture and sound quality, then so be it. For HDTV though, you will need to connect at the component level from the HDTV digital box (in the case of Rogers, an SA 8300 PVR probably) using the HDMI connection, if your HD set can do it, or analog component Y, Pr, Pb if not. Component connection to your other devices, such as the DVD, will also improve the quality and is worthwhile. Have a look at cdtv.ca in the Connecting HDTV pages are for more information.
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terrylee100@msn.com
03/09/2021
5:41 AM
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Great Site, so glad I found it. In November of 2003 I purchased a Samsung 43" DLP (HLN4365W) and connected it to a Roger's HD Explorer 3250 terminal. This past Boxing Day I purchased a Sharp Aquos 32" LCD TV (LC32GA5U) on a 2nd 3250 terminal for the bedroom. The HD channels are outstanding on both TV, mainly the Rogers Demo Channel 280, NBC, ABC, PBS. They do demonstrate what this hardware is capable of producing, however like so many others the rest looks worst than what my old 1996 27" Panasonic Gaul produced. After many hours of experimenting and tweaking I have managed to accept the quality as ok. I do try to avoid non-HD channels. The real joke is the Canadian HD channel, CTV, Global and CBC, which just send out analog recordings out on a digital signal. This technology I believe is still for the technical inclined. Being an Electronic Technician grad and working in the technical field for 30 years I feel sorry for the average couch potato that has no technical or computer knowledge. This technology must be more standardized. So many variants at play here. My advices, if you want to have leading edge technology start learning or stay with the tube. Cheers.
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