Whenever I go home I am always struck by the big difference between the standard definition channels there and mine here in raleigh. They have digital TWC and my apartment provides what I am guessing is just TWC standard. What I would like to know is:

1) Is the digital signal the reason for the difference in quality?

2) I'm pretty sure that the cablebox upconverts 480i signals as every channel is listed at 1080i (its the standard atlantic science box). Is this the reason for the difference and if so can I buy something that will upconvert my signal?

3) Is it purely a difference in TVs? His TV is a very nice 42" one from dell and I have a cheaper 32" Westinghouse. Watching a show in HD is very comparable between our 2 TVs, though his is still admittedly better.

Watching an upconverted Xvid file of a TV show on my media player even looks a lot better than cable television does as does an upconverted DVD on my 360 connected via VGA. Is there anything I can do to make standard def. channels look better? Thanks in advance.

4/9/2007 4:30:28 PM

if the cable box doesn't up convert it the tv will.
the cable box may do a better job then your westy.
or his tv might.
When i get home i'll tell you what the 8300hd outputs on an sd channel (i've never really checked it)

4/9/2007 4:33:15 PM

yep the box up converts

4/9/2007 5:18:59 PM

Thats what I thought. On my dad's TV every channel is listed at 1080i b/c that is what the box is putting out. Also, I live at Uhouse so they maybe be splitting 1-2 actual connections a couple hundred times. Maybe thats it?

4/9/2007 5:21:43 PM

I let my TV do the upconvert rather than the cable box. When TWC installed my boxed, they forced output to 1080i which does not make sense for 720p channels.

4/9/2007 5:34:16 PM

the 8300 is supposed to switch between 720p and 1080i depending on what format the channel is in.

If you disable that format in the advanced settings panel, then it will only upconvert to what you're allowing it to.

sumfoo1, the box won't automatically upconvert a SD channel to 1080i, it wants to display it at 420p or whatever, I believe - you've just disabled that option in the list of allowable formats

4/9/2007 6:08:35 PM

mine goes 720p on channels in 720p and 1080i on everything else

4/9/2007 7:12:02 PM

So which of the three reasons accounts for the difference between my dad's SD quality and mine?

[Edited on April 9, 2007 at 7:36 PM. Reason : .]

4/9/2007 7:36:07 PM

uhouse uses TWC tap boxes (at least they did when i lived there 3 years ago), so they have multiple feeds going into the complex and multiple taps on each building. When I lived there, the quality was great.. about the same as the quality up in N. Raleigh.

1) digital, in most cases, will look better than the analog equivalent. The few cases it doesn't is when the cable co lowers the bit rate to save on bandwidth.

2) upconverting 480i channels to 1080i may make things worse. I'm guessing your dad has an HD box and you have standard cable going into your tv and using an antenna for HD? If that's the case.. then the upconverting isn't affecting the quality much.

3) just because your parents have TWC in another town, doesn't mean you get the same TWC here.. each division of Time Warner does things differently.. some may have more deals with channels thus having to lower bitrates to provide more channels, some may have more HD channels than others.. so one channel here in SD may look better/worse than the same channel at your dad's.

4) TV's can make a difference. CRT projection doesn't handle SD very well, whereas an LCD or plasma might handle it better.

[Edited on April 9, 2007 at 9:54 PM. Reason : ]

4/9/2007 9:52:03 PM

For some reason, some HD channels are carried over our coax. I get all the local channels including PBS plus some really randoms ones that are on at certain times (even radio stations apparently). My TV finds tons of channels but most show up as nothing most of the time. I have no idea what this means but I thought I'd share incase someone else does.

4/9/2007 10:30:33 PM

Quote :

"I have no idea what this means but I thought I'd share incase someone else does."

Not sure why, but 69-75 on time warner were NEVER scrambled, even when we didn't have cable tv, just internet. I've also heard about a lot of people being able to get local HD channels and discovery HD without a box or paying for the HD services.

4/9/2007 10:49:21 PM

i think it's called a qam tuner

4/9/2007 10:59:32 PM

Quote :

"mine goes 720p on channels in 720p and 1080i on everything else"

If you put a little selected dot next to 480p in your allowed display formats in advanced settings, you'd see that it displayed normal cable at 480p

4/9/2007 11:03:29 PM

another difference maybe the connection type. if u're running standard then u just have a coax if it's coming from the box it's dvi,hdmi, or component witch are all fuckton cleaer than just a coax.

4/9/2007 11:10:46 PM

^^ dear dude... my tv will tell me what its getting for an input signal

right now i'm on speed "1080i @ 60hz"
kk thnx

4/10/2007 1:35:14 AM

^^ HD over the QAM tuner in a TV will look the same if not nicer than an HD channel decoded from a digital cable box sent of DVI/HDMI/component.

connection type sometimes makes a difference depending on the application, but in this case.. it's not.

Quote :

"Not sure why, but 69-75 on time warner were NEVER scrambled, even when we didn't have cable tv, just internet. I've also heard about a lot of people being able to get local HD channels and discovery HD without a box or paying for the HD services."

Sounds like TW put a bandpass filter on your line to allow the bandwidth needed for Roadrunner.. so essentially you'll be getting any cable channels in that frequency range.

Quote :

"For some reason, some HD channels are carried over our coax. I get all the local channels including PBS plus some really randoms ones that are on at certain times (even radio stations apparently). My TV finds tons of channels but most show up as nothing most of the time. I have no idea what this means but I thought I'd share incase someone else does."

You are getting the digital channels that are clear to air (not encrypted) that are sent over the cable feed. All local networks, their subchannels(weather, etc.) and their HD feeds are clear to air.. you will also get stuff like QVC, Shop at Home, News14, WGN, Telemundo.. digital feeds as well.

4/10/2007 4:05:24 AM

if you are living in raleigh and using a TWC box you should be getting digital cable

4/10/2007 12:23:32 PM

Quote :

"4) TV's can make a difference. CRT projection doesn't handle SD very well, whereas an LCD or plasma might handle it better."

I'm almost positive the exact opposite is true. LCD and plasma must upconvert to display as they have a fixed resolution. CRT does not and can display any resolution "perfectly".

4/10/2007 12:34:24 PM

That is what i was thinking too....

4/10/2007 12:56:19 PM

My apartment just has a flat cable plan (I don't think I have any options outside of cable or no cable) otherwise I would try to get something better. To make matters worse, I'll be living in Ivy Chase next year and they don't even give you the option of no cable (so maybe I could get a dish). Should I just go ahead and make peace with bad looking SD until 2009 gets here or can I do anything to improve the way it looks?

4/10/2007 3:57:25 PM

Quote :

"^^ dear dude... my tv will tell me what its getting for an input signal right now i'm on speed "1080i @ 60hz" kk thnx "

I'm not saying that you're not getting 1080i, i'm saying that you're getting it because you've disallowed the cable box from outputting 420p

Like I originally stated:
sumfoo1, the box won't automatically upconvert a SD channel to 1080i, it wants to display it at 420p or whatever, I believe - you've just disabled that option in the list of allowable formats

4/10/2007 6:56:22 PM

.

4/12/2007 7:09:52 PM

Quote :

"4) TV's can make a difference. CRT projection doesn't handle SD very well, whereas an LCD or plasma might handle it better"

Any CRT that can scan 480p and has a deinterlacer made in the last 5 years would destroy any kind of fixed panel display in rendering 480p. It isnt rocket science.

4/13/2007 8:18:41 AM