HTDV Artifacts on new projector (1 Viewer)

[Monte Montemayo]

Yesterday I received my much researched HDTV projector, the Panasonic PT-L500U. I noticed while watching the HDTV Olympics (on Comcast) during the 10M Diving competition, I could see the diver “pixelating” while they were free falling. So they would kind of blur with little squares then they would go away when the action stopped. What’s that all about? Some of the other HDTV programming is really awesome but this has me a little worried.

 

[Seth_L]

That's MPEG-2 compression. There's not enough bitrate for the motion.

NBC sends your local affiliate a 45Mbit/sec feed that your local affiliate recompresses to something smaller. The max would be 19.2Mbit/sec. However, usually the local affiliates waste some of their 19.2Mbit/sec on sub channels of worthless crap (like radar feeds).

NBC affiliates seem to have a crappy recompression / bit cropping setup (noticably worse then other networks). This causes what you're seeing.

 

[Monte Montemayo]

So its not the projector? This is a real dissappointment in HDTV. What good is it if it's beautiful watching nature scenes but lousy watching action? The artifacts are so bad that I would rather watch a regular broadcast. Is there anything I can do about it?

 

[Seth_L]

Not the projector. Nothing you can do about it. NBC needs to buy better equipment or tweak what they have better, and stop wasting BW on sub channels.

It's not really a flaw with HDTV. Other channels encode fast motion into the same amount or less bandwidth that looks better.

 

[John S]

Artifacts like this can be made worse by say a display that is 720p native, and there has to be conversion of the 1080i to that resolution too.


But, welcome to the modern world of HDTV, and HT..... Most things these days are trade offs. Your definetly see'n one of them here. I myself, will tend to prefer some blurring during motion, over all the other crud you get with NTSC myself.

 

[Monte Montemayo]

Well don't get me wrong. I really do LOVE the projector but just was a little surprised at the artifacting. Its no big deal. Last question: Does Satellite fix this?

 

[John S]

It may, it may not, it may just make it better. Really hard to say one way or the other. unless somebody that uses your same setup and experienced the same thing, can chime in with their results.

 

[Kevin Nolan]

I to have been seeing the same problem on my Hitachi 57TWX20B RPTV.

I watch all my HD OTA (hey it's free!) with little if no issue...alas it is the signal NBC has chosen to send.

I have been very satisfied with OTA broadcasts from all 3 so far with exception of the Olyimpics.

We are STILL early adopters of HDTV and the networks are still trying to get it right...hey Monday Night Football ROCKS...can't wait till next month! I have CALLED NBC about content and QUALITY of the Olyimpic HD broadcast. I'm not done yet!

Bottom line is this...it is not your projector (I'd put my RPTV picture against yours any day, Hehe and hey I can have a light or two on in the veiwing room too! Just giving you a bit of a bad time) it's the source really.

Live with it for now enjoy all other sources for now but keep the faith..we that enjoy ANY aspect of HDTV are the ones who will help decide where it's going and we are just getting started remember DIVX?

Kevin Nolan

P.S. Monte...If I had a dedicated room for a FPTV I'm right there with ya!