Toshiba DST3000 improve video on a standard TV? (1 Viewer)

[Doug_H]

I was told by a salesman today that the DST3000 will improve the picture on my 36" Toshiba standard TV. i have never heard this before and he went into how it would enable my TV to utilize the extra resolution available.
Truth or fiction? What do you think?
------------------
The Mischievous Rogue Strikes Again! The Humble Hanson Theater

 

[Andy L]

Truth.
I had a DTC-100 hooked up to my analog TV via s-video for a few weeks last spring. The picture quality was similar to that of a DVD, thus far superior to analog cable or DirecTV. I sold the DTC-100 because there wasn't anything on I wanted to watch after the Masters. However, with HDNet coming online and CBS showing SEC football every Saturday, I may plunge back in.

 

[Doug_H]

Somebody must know something?
------------------
The Mischievous Rogue Strikes Again! The Humble Hanson Theater

 

[Brian Mello]

I'm not sure what the guy is talking about. I know I have seen differences in picture quality on different STBs. In HD mode the DST-3000 upconverts everything to 1080i through the componet output. This won't do you any good on your non HD TV and sometimes this upconversion looks worse than native 480i. I don't know why you would want to spend that kind of money on a HD STB for your 36" non HDTV. Unless you are buying an HDTV in the very near future, you are better off waiting on the STB.
[Edited last by Brian Mello on September 24, 2001 at 04:58 PM]

 

[Allan Jayne]

1080i HDTV is 1080 scan lines of picture information by 1920 pixels per scan line. Assuming the program material possesses that much detail, it is theoretically possible to get 1920 pixels of light/dark detail per scan line (480 of the latter) converting HDTV to NTSC and delivering it via composite video into a regular TV set.
Because color resolution especially on composite video is theoretically far less, there may be no point in preserving all 1920 pixels of luminance information but being able to deliver half that many pixels is a lot better than most TV's can resolve. DTV broadcasts in 480p or 480i have at most 720 pixels of detail across each scan line in the material as broadcast. For analog NTSC broadcasts it is about 440 pixels across.
I can't say whether this set top box delivers that much quality but it may well deliver more resolution via composite and S-video than its competitors and what you see depends on how good your TV is and how good the program material is.
Another thing to remember regarding HDTV set top boxes is how they receive analog channels. For this the set top box needs a comb filter to deliver component or S-video. If your TV has a better comb filter, connecting the set top box via composite when viewing analog channels will give you a better picture. The salesman might have been saying that the comb filter in the DST3000 is better than most.
Other video hints: http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm
[Edited last by Allan Jayne on September 24, 2001 at 05:37 PM]

 

[Andy L]

I do know what I'm talking about. I did almost exactly what you are asking about. I used a high definition set top box, an RCA DTC-100, to display HD images on my 36" analog Panasonic set. While not HD, the resolution and color was far better than any picture than I have seen from either from DSS or cable. I expect the results from the Toshiba box would be very similar.
Ignore my input if you wish, but it may be about as close as you're going to come to a scenario close to yours.