Distance from TV? (1 Viewer)

[Eric Thrall]

I recently got a 52" Toshiba DLP and it looks great when showing HDTV, but looks terrible showing anything else, including DVDs. Now, granted, the room I have it in right now is small (I'm having work done on the living room) and I measured it to be 8 feet, 8 inches from where my head is to the screen. I assume that's closer than I should be for this TV. However, once I move it into the living room, it'll be about 11 or maybe 12 feet at most to the TV, and I question whether that is far enough to hide the flaws in the picture! I certainly understand that watching regular TV or a video tape is going to look lousy no matter what size the TV, but if I can't watch a DVD without noticing how awful the picture is, I should probably return the TV and get a different one - a smaller one. Is that far enough for that size of TV?

For clarification, I have a progressive DVD changer hooked up to the TV via component cables, and my digital cable is connected via HDMI.

 

[PerryD]

8 to 9 feet should be far enough back for a 52" set with a 480p DVD image, that's 2 screen widths away. What exactly looks bad in the picture? Perhaps you need to tweak the image with Avia or DVE (e.g sharpness too high)?

 

[Eric Thrall]

I can see pixels - if there is a section of screen where the color changes from dark to light, it often looks like bands of color with clear lines between them. Everything looks very computer image-like - not entirely natural. I did go in and turn the sharpness all the way down.

 

[John S]

I think there is a setting in your display you need to turn off to fix this actually. Edge enhancement or something like that. Pretty common. I just can't remember what it's called right now.

 

[Ryan Leemhuis]

Velocity scan modulation?

 

[PerryD]

Many sets have a "movie mode" setting that will turn off VSM and adjust the color temperature to 6500K. That would be a good place to start.

 

[Eric Thrall]

Now that you mention it, one of the last things I did before I went to bed last night was change the picture setting - the default was "Sports" mode, and I changed that to "Movie" and it did look better. I don't know if that affected other settings (such as sharpness) but I'll take a better look tonight.

I have a copy of Video Essentials that was put out right when DVD first hit the market, so I don't know if everything it has you do is still valid or not, but I'll have to run through it a time or two and see if I can improve things. I love the set, so I really hope I can make it work for me!

 

[John S]

Thanks Ryan and Perry , my memory had failed me once again.... That is the offending thing that needs be off. Nearly everytime I get the very computerish or cartoonish looking complaint, this almost always ends up being the culprit.

 

[Citizen87645]

The picture quality tests are still valid. Definitely calibrate brightness and contrast and you should see an improvement.

 

[BenK]

Its definitely not the viewing distance. I've got a 62" Mits DLP and I sit about 10 feet from the screen. Absolutely awesome. Even when I lean forward the picture is still beautiful.