High Def Issues (1 Viewer)

[gojays_1]

Hi All,

I finally got it all hooked up- the Plasma T.V., the Oppo upconversion DVD player and the surround system. Thanks to all your help with the surround info. No problems hooking up.

The upconversion DVD player is easy to change HD mode.

Where I am having issues is with the Toshiba HP5086 Plasma. I am not getting a really good crisp clear picture. I think it's only displaying in 480i mode. I cannot get it to display High Defintion (i.e. 720 or 1080) through the digital cable box. I called the cable company and they were no help.
The Toshiba owners manual no help.

Any ideas on how to upconvert to HD on this T.V.?

Any help appreciated.

 

[Bob McElfresh]

If your cable box is only producing standard def - there is nothing you can do.

Standard Def video from your cable box is video backwards compatible for a 1940 using a 9" Black and White tube. You are displaying it on a year 2006 high-resolution display. the soft, washed-out image is not the TV's fault.

Call your cable company to see about a HD cable box (hopefully one with a PVR/DVR feature). Or try putting up an antenna. Use this site to help guide you:

www.antennaweb.org

 

[gojays_1]

I do have an hd box. Motorola 1614. I should get hd from it right? That's what cable guys say.

 

[Phil Taylor]

I can't find a reference for a Motorola 1614 HD cable box on the 'net - are you sure that's the correct model number? Anyways how are you getting the signal to your TV from your cable box - what type of cable/connection?

 

[Bob McElfresh]

The cable box often has a setting on a menu system to control outputing 480, 720 or 1080. Check this.

Also - the network channels (CBS, ABC, NBC, etc.) often broadcast only standard-def during the day, but put out HD after 8 pm for the prime-time. Do your watching then.

Oh - how do you have the cable box hooked up? HDMI/DVI or component cables (3 RCA plugs)?

 

[gojays_1]

Sorry guys, its the 6412; motorola dvr.

I have it connected through the rca plugs as it does not have an hdmi connection. As it states in my toshiba owners manual, i should be able to get hd signal thru component inputs. the connections for video are labelled 'pb.pr. and y' which i had no trouble finding on the dvr and tv.

but i cannot find anywhere how to increase the resolution to 720 or 1080 thru dvr. no problem with dvd upconversion which has hdmi input.

 

[gojays_1]

Success at last! I went to the Motorola website and found the instruction manual. You'd think my cable company (cogeco) would be bright enough to provide one of those with the DVR!

I found out the menu button must be turned on via the box itself only and the receiver must be off! I never would have figured that on my own.

The only downside to using the 720p and 1080i modes is that I cannot select the screen size as I could with the 480 mode on my Toshiba 50hp86. This means I occasionally have black bars on the sides of the screen when watching certain channels. This could be a problem because my Toshiba owners' manual recommends I do not view static images like those bars or other things like scroll screens on certain stations, because they can burn into the screen. So my dilemma appears to be either watch a lousy picture on a stretched out screen or watch HD tv with a crystal clear picture and risk burning out portions of my screen!

Any advice or tips welcome.

 

[Bob McElfresh]

The manual says "..press to get to the General Settings menu" . "Highlight the 'Output Preferences' and press [SELECT]. In the Settings columns, highlight an output format that is compatible with your television and press [SELECT].

"Press A to to accept your modifications and follow the on-screen instructions to confirm your new settings".

Wayne: Here is something important: Write down all the remote-button presses to get into this menu and set the output back to 480i. If you set the CATV box to output something the TV is not expecting - the display will go wonky. You may have to hit the buttons from memory to get back to this menu and put things back.

Another point- I have a Samsung TV that has 3 component inputs. One only accepts 480i or p. The other 2 accept 720 & 1080. I have to be careful to use the 480 jacks for a DVD player and use the other 2 for the CATV box.

Check your TV manual. Component cables are perfect for HD video - but you have to hook them into jacks your TV is expecting to see HD video.

Sometimes the TV is 'auto-detect', sometimes you have to go into the TV menu and tell it to expect 720 or 1080 on some particular input jacks.

Oh - another point. Are you tuned to the HD stations on your cable box? On my unit, Channels 2,3,4,5... network are all Standard Def. I have to jump to channels 401, 402, 403 to get the same stations in HD. Call your cable company and ask what channels carry the HD locals. You may just be tuned to the standard-def version.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

In the Motorola box menu where you switched the HD on (hit menu on the box with the box off), there is a setting for "4:3 override". Set this to 480i or 480p and it will output only native HD channels in HD resolution. All SD channels will be in 480i/p (whatever you set it to). That way you can stretch the SD channels and still get the HD in the right resolution.

 

[gojays_1]

In response to Jeff; that did the trick! How do you guys know all this stuff?
The thing is, the picture looks so bad in analog (that is all the channels in regular cable which is like 1-86) that I won't be watching them much. Most of my viewing will be in the HD channels. I did notice though that some of the HD channels are in widescreen and others are not.

Any ideas on how long it will take to burn in those black bars on the side of the screen depending on viewing habits? Also, I heard for the first few dozen hours of the Plasma's life, we should avoid static images like those. Any truth to that?

In response to Bob: I followed the instructions from the online Motorola manual to increase to 1080i (which my tv does accept). There were no prompts for pushing A and it did the trick just fine. Then I took Jeff's advice to view non-HD channels in 480p mode. Although the same station (CBC for example) in analog (Channel 6) looked horrible. When I switched to HD CBC (somewhere in the 200;s) the picture was crystal clear in 1080.

As for my setup, my Toshiba Plasma has several inputs: 2 hdmi,
2 'ColourStream' hd component inputs and 2 analog inputs. I used one of the HDMI inputs for the DVD player and one of the Colour stream for the Cable box. It seems to be working fine. My cable box does not have hdmi and based on what I've read here and in my owners' manual, component inputs are just as good as HDMI (although I like HDMI because it's just one cable instead of the 5; 3 video/2audio- for component). At least the cable box came with the component cables.