Virtual Thoughts for a Virtual World
Television Annoyances
Posted September 13th, 2007 at 01:23 AM by RobRich
After a few days of calibration and tuning, I could get the new Vizio 42" 1080p LCD HDTV in the den to look "about right" on some channels, while far from optimal on other channels. 
Using a basic DirecTV SD receiver, I tried a lowly composite connection instead of s-video. Now it seems the feed has more consistent levels across channels, along with potentially even better color response.
The problem could just be a faulty s-video cable, but nonetheless, I have wasted a few hours of time because of what appears to a connection issue.
Now I get to spend a few minutes restringing a new s-video cable and hoping the issue is resolved. Then again, I am almost tempted to just to leave the composite connection in place, as the Vizio model in question has a MediaTek chipset with Faroudja DCDi processing anyway.
Using a basic DirecTV SD receiver, I tried a lowly composite connection instead of s-video. Now it seems the feed has more consistent levels across channels, along with potentially even better color response.
The problem could just be a faulty s-video cable, but nonetheless, I have wasted a few hours of time because of what appears to a connection issue.
Now I get to spend a few minutes restringing a new s-video cable and hoping the issue is resolved. Then again, I am almost tempted to just to leave the composite connection in place, as the Vizio model in question has a MediaTek chipset with Faroudja DCDi processing anyway.
Total Comments 19
Comments
 |  I have never really been able to see a clear difference between s-vid and composite from an low-quality source like DirecTV. Even on DVD players and the like it's not really noticeable. Even if you don't have an HD package, you should look into an HD box so you can use the component outputs.  |
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| |  I would consider the migration, but the MediaTek chipset in the display is probably a better scaler and deinterlacer than whatever entry-level solution DirecTV is likely offering in its affordable STB models. I am still dealing with some annoying color balance issues with some channels. I might have to walk through a more thorough calibration process. Anyway, the new Vizio GV42LF 42" 1080p LCD HDTV sports some decent specs for an $1100 model. Made in Taiwan. LG.Philips display panel. MediaTek chipset. Faroudja DCDi scaling/processing. Check it out if you have a chance. The bigger Sears stores should be stocking it now. |
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| | Yeah, there's a Sears here in town. I think they still have the same three year old LCD RPDs on the floor. We could fit three of their entire floor in our upstairs, and they have all the washers and dryers and lawnmowers and grills and stuff too. We just got the new LG 50" 1080p plasma. I haven't had a chance to sit down with it yet, but I'm already annoyed by the input readout LCD in the bottom of the bezel. Hope you can turn that off. It's not a Faroudja, but the XD Engine does good work. I want to get my SFF hooked up to it and see what it looks like in true 1080. |
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| | The more I look at the issue, the more I want to blame DirecTV. The channel levels are all over the place. My Philips 32" 720p LCD HDTV has enough post-processing to largely deal with the issue, and the RCA 52" HD RPTV previously in the den was probably well over saturated anyway. I intend to try the LSI scaler/processor in my DVR to clean up the feed, as it has done good work in the past. If it does not settle out the levels, then I am beginning to possibly foresee an HTPC running DScaler making its way into the den. |
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| | I honestly feel that DirecTV has one of the worst broadcast pictures period. I don't know if it's equipment or signal problems or what, but when I, say, play a compressed hi-def anime or ripped Stargate episode or whatever, the picture is so much better, even with the compression and all. Charter's HD picture blows DirecTV's away. |
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| | DirecTV has compression issues, along with other problems, especially for SD content. I have DirecTV because cable was not available in this new development area until something like a year or two after moving here. |
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| | The saga continues. Dropped back to a coaxial connection (?! ), and the DirecTV color pallete seems to smooths out considerably. Hmmm.... |
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| | The RF signal might be doing some smoothing of its own, since it's basically just a big jumble in there. Heh. |
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| | Likely so. Analog smoothing, or more like analog loss.  |
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| | Hooked up my DVR with its LSI scaling/processing chipset. I am using it for the initial scaling of 4:3 to 16:9. The television is taking care of the 480 to 1080 conversion. I am trying to make a decision on which to handle de-interlacing. As usual, my DVR (i.e. makeshift external scaler) cleaned up DirecTV SD considerably. There are still a handful of channels that could probably benefit from further tweaking, but at least DirecTV is now something more akin to being watchable in the den again. |
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| | The fact that you have to bother with it at all makes it worth getting rid of. Heh. |
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| | I am considering a 5-LNB dish with H20/H21 receivers. DirecTV generally uses H.264 at 1280x1080i for HD feeds, and there should be a bunch of DirecTV HD channels made available in the upcoming weeks/months. 1280x1080i is not 1920x1080, but compared to 480i.... |
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| | Hauled my personal desktop into the den for a quick DScaler test. Hooked it up via VGA, bumped the output to 1920x1080 native, and fired up DScaler. Greedy high motion deinterlacing. Non-linear strech/correction for the 4:3 to 16:9 scaling. The automatic gain control provided by my "outdated," yet venerable WinTV card also considerably smoothed out the color and brightness. DirecTV SD finally looks decent enough at 42" 1080p that I might not feel totally embarrased for someone else to watch television in the den. My SFF box is currently running BSD, my personal desktop is too noisy to keep in the den, and I don't really feel like building a new computer right now. I might swing by a retail store this week to buy a cheap desktop to spare the hassle of building one. |
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| | Well, the 1080 stuff, and even the 720 stuff from DTV is leagues better than their SD stuff. I'm hoping to, next week, throw my computer on that new 50" 1080p LG we got. I can't play real HD stuff off the laptop, it's not powerful enough, but I've got some 720 compressed source that always looked stellar on the 720s. |
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| | Reset the receiver, restrung the cables, further tweaked some calibration settings, and I am now back to using the receiver straight to the television.  Admittedly, DSscaler seems to do a slightly better job with some content, probably due to the intensive deinterlacing method I was using, but at least I can now remove the desktop running DScaler from the den. |
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| | You sound like me when I'm setting up a sound system. Heh. |
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| | Think I am going to buy a heavily shielded s-video cable and maybe install a ferrite choke for good measure. Ideally, I might look into finding a s-video filter to perform automatic gain control. AGC via my WinTV card cleaned up the levels considerably. It is disappointing I should even have to deal with the issue, but DirecTV's output levels are all over the place. I suspect most people don't care, while many others don't even notice it due to their televisions being extremely oversaturated for contrast and/or color. |
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| | Some of the pickier plasmas here get all nuts on certain HD channels. That 50 that I blogged about smoothes everything out pretty well, though. |
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| | I have a pretty good balance going now. A limited few channels are not what I would call optimal, but they are still watchable, so whatever. Getting beyond the annoyances of DirecTV SD, the television in question has thus far performed superbly for my other purposes. I was watching some 720p content the other day with excellent results. Even 480i/p (DVD) looks great. Basically, pretty much what I would expect from a LG.Philips display panel paired with Faroudja DCDi scaling/processing when fed decent quality video. |
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