OT:t.v. help?

jbone · Post #1 » by **jbone** » Sat Jan 5, 2008 12:41 am

well as you guys might remeber i was looking for a t.v. about a week ago and i ended up going with the samsung 40" lcd 720 nice t.v. and the blueray and ps3 are incredible, but most of my regular cable channels are blurry or fuzzy like worse than by tube tv. MTV comes in like it should but all the rest are crappy. my situation is that i have digital cable and i am on a 3 way splitter and i dont have the box on this tv the box is on a tube tv upstairs.

so my question is how do i imoprove my viewing?is there some device that i dont have that i can buy or what?

any help is greatly appreciated i am dying watching crappy channels on a nice tv.

Chapter29 · Post #2 » by **Chapter29** » Sat Jan 5, 2008 12:52 am

Well for starters digital TVs don't do well with analog signals. Time Warner Cable and all stations 99 and under are essentially an analog signal converted to digital. So it will never look very good on a big screen TV.

Cabling and splitters of course can impact the quality of your signal.

When I got my first HD TV I though those stations were down right terrible. I essentially had everything rewired. From the poll in and that helped some. I had them boost my signal that helped some. In the end the picture was never very good on these channels. Regular digital was pretty good and HD was very good.

I fixed it by moving to Direct TV.

Post #3 » by **MickeyDavis** » Sat Jan 5, 2008 12:57 am

Yeah DTV has by far the most HD channels, it's great. Once you start watching HD you don't want to watch SD.

Cold Crush 24 · Post #4 » by **Cold Crush 24** » Sat Jan 5, 2008 1:22 am

I have a 61 inch DLP samsung and know what you mean. The only option at this point is the HD package but there are only about 30 or so HD channels. You'll get used to it after a while. Just sit really far back.

BrewersGM · Post #5 » by **BrewersGM** » Sat Jan 5, 2008 2:25 am

The channels cant be split three ways. If you want the channels you need to have a box directly hooked up to that tv. That is your problem! If you not stealing cable it should only cost you an extra 8 bucks a month for another HD cable box for your tv in your room. There is no way around it. You cant split HD channels and expect them to look good. It doesnt work. You can split to another tv from a hd box, but you can only change the channel from the room that has the box...

There you go......

jbone · Post #6 » by **jbone** » Sat Jan 5, 2008 3:07 am

thanks BGM i have no problem witht he extra 8 bucks, but i will be moving shortly and would have to forfeit the box and just get an all new hookup in my new place. which is what i will do.

by the way what are the disadvatnages with dtv compared to digital?

beyond_the_arc · Post #7 » by **beyond_the_arc** » Sat Jan 5, 2008 4:08 am

Read this forum jbone www.highdefforum.com

BrewersGM · Post #8 » by **BrewersGM** » Sun Jan 6, 2008 12:02 am

jbone wrote:thanks BGM i have no problem witht he extra 8 bucks, but i will be moving shortly and would have to forfeit the box and just get an all new hookup in my new place. which is what i will do.

by the way what are the disadvatnages with dtv compared to digital?

Just the basic stuff, like you wont get that great of a signal in crappy weather... ANd Cable is better but more expensive....

Post #9 » by **MickeyDavis** » Sun Jan 6, 2008 12:09 am

Cable is not better. Not in any way. Worse picture, terrible customer service, lousy HD selection and more expensive.

Cable BLOWS.

Chapter29 · Post #10 » by **Chapter29** » Sun Jan 6, 2008 2:53 am

MickeyDavis wrote:Cable is not better. Not in any way. Worse picture, terrible customer service, lousy HD selection and more expensive.

Cable BLOWS.

No doubt.

When we spoke about this 4, 5 months ago or whatever, I said lets give it a try. You sounded pretty convinced. You are indeed correct. I liked my Cable TV and its picture wasn't bad overall, but Direct TV is better in nearly every way. Most definitely a better picture in all resolutions and channels.

Though I did have 2 instances of snow on the dish with outage. That sucked.

and jbone,

If you don't have a cable converter box on your TV and are splitting the output of a single box, the picture quality is going to suffer. Its called attenuation (weakening signal) due to distance, splitting, etc. Splitting the output is going to lower the Db and then the cabling distance to the TV goes from 3ft to whatever, 30ft or something. The single will suffer a bit there too.

A high quality splitter (less Db loss) at the entry point is ideal. Good quality internal wiring is fairly important as well. Keeping that signal clean and strong is key. I had a 3 way splitter, 1 run to my modem and 1 to each TV. Of course with a converter box on each set. I used the same wiring for my DTV setup and the quality is superb. My Cable is just a direct run now.

BrewersGM · Post #11 » by **BrewersGM** » Sun Jan 6, 2008 3:58 am

I think he was talking in terms of weather problems.... If your talking about overall picture yeah DTV is better....

Post #12 » by **MickeyDavis** » Sun Jan 6, 2008 4:13 am

I had a lot more outages in bad weather with cable than with DTV.

BrewersGM · Post #13 » by **BrewersGM** » Sun Jan 6, 2008 4:14 am

MickeyDavis wrote:I had a lot more outages in bad weather with cable than with DTV.

How? Heavy snow? I never herd of any? Hwat happened?