HDTV Forum

You'd still be better off getting the HD PVR for $300 (unless you need the receiver anyway). It can output 480p over component video for the SD locals or convert everything to 1080i - and you'd still get 1080i for the HD channels you can get (the box will convert 720p to 1080i - I assume your TV can't take 720p).

Are you sure you don't have HD locals available? What city are you in?

The improvement for SD will be directly related to how good the internal scaler of your TV is and in most cases sources do a better job. That said, garbage in - garbage out, so the concern is how much extra garbage is your TV scaler inducing...

You have yet to tell us the brand and model of display... still licking our fingers...

biglag wrote:and tv is 56" panasonic pt-56hx41p.

lick no more.

confirmed...directv offers no local channels in my area in hd. Baton rouge, la...but i'm pretty sure we have local broadcasts in hd, but for whatever reason, directv does not offer them, yet. what about one of those indoor tv antanaes or dvd recorder with ntsc tuner or whatever. does my tv need an internal antanae? again sorry for being dinosaur. and yes, tv only supports 1080i, not 720p.

whenever i'm playing a dvd or xbox 360, my picture is awesome..only 480p. so if i could somehow upconvert regular tv to 480p, i'd be a happy camper. thanks again for ya'lls input.

gee you did say that didn't you...

Yep, it is native 480P and 1080i plus your TV is 4:3 which is just perfect for your SD application. If you are happy with what you have then all you need is an external scaler in the form of, an external scaler or upconverting DVD recorder. I've used some different models of Panasonic with excellent results and the TV is 4:3 so there is nothing for us to discuss about aspect formatting. For external scaling some of the old DVDO product from that time period can be had for cheap along with more current stuff on the used market.

Happy hunting!

Forgive me for not looking but your Panny may or is a CRT RPTV like my Mits. It also may have two native scan-rates that it's happy with as in 480x and, 1080i. When it sees anything 480i it will attempt to double that (old term) to 480p and from what you say about DVD playback and xbox playback (I assume both are delivering 480p to your Panny) the Panny "likes" 480p because it doesn't have to do anything. Older scanning TVs are infamous for doing an awful job of "doubling" or "de-interlacing" or interlace-to-progressive-scan (i/p) conversion. That's a very difficult job as it turns out and I won't get into it but there are only a few big-boys that do that job well - DVDO/ABT/Silicon Image, Faroudja, a lesser-known National Semiconductor chip related to the boys from Faroudja, Marvell (which also has Faroudja DNA), and Silicon Optics HQV - born of 80s Lockheed Martin satellite video image processing.

Now, for a cheap out-board box that does a heck of a good job of i/p de-interlacing try to find an old DVDO "i-Scan Pro" box. It does/did one thing well and that is, 480i to 480p de-interlacing, some motion-adaptive processing, recognition / correction of film-based 3:2 field cadence vs. 2:2 video-based cadence and the standard range of video quality adjustments. It takes in 480i composite, S-video, or component and outputs clean 480p component or RGB 5. Real simple and small but its old (circa 2002) so might be hard to find. Its chip-set is not near the current finest but it would answer your particular need just fine.

Jim

richard, you mentioned dvd recorder. Do i just run my directv through that? And that will upconvert my sd to 480p? Thanks.

yep

Biglag - how is your Tivo connected to the TV? Composite (red/white/yellow rca plugs), S video (svideo connector plus red/white rcas) or RF (a single coaxial cable)?

If you're using anything other than S video, try that first. It should be a big improvement over composite or RF.

I still think you should get the HD PVR. The quality of the SD channels is about as good as it gets, and your jaw will hit the floor when you see an actual HD program on your big screen.

kirby, tivo hooked up through s video, i probably will end up getting the hd dvr, i just don't like the interface as much as tivo. i started looking up dvd recorders and the terk hdtva antenna. from what i understand i could pick up quite a few hd channels by doing so...does that sound right? thanks again.