Help! Zenith E44W46LCD Picture Quality (1 Viewer)

[Gambaro B]

I'm a newbie to this whole process but I'll try to explain my problem as best I can. I just recently purchased a brand new Zenith E44W46LCD HDTV. The picture quality in the store was outstanding. I understand it was HD and the picture in SD would be worse. Got it home. Hooked it up to my SD Digital Comcast box and Tivo. Picture quality was very grainy and pixelated. Similiar to when you blow Windows Media Player up to the full screen on your computer and it's meant to be viewed at the regular size. Watching anything but sports is below average and sports are completely unwatchable. Especially on the wide shots. My 37" 10 year old CRT has a better picture. The digital cable channels are not much better than the analog ones. So thats not the problem. My wiring is a such. 25' coax (medium grade Acoustic Research cables) from wall into splitter. One splitter into cable box. One into Ant. on TV. It's not the splitter because the coax directly into the Ant. is just as bad. Monster Composite cable from box to Tivo. Monster S-Video from Tivo to TV. The DVD is a Monster Component cable that has a above average picture. I also have a 30" Dell LCD flatscreen that doesn't have the greatest picture with my cable but is better than the Zenith. I do notice when I go PiP the little PiP looks outstanding. Very sharp. I've tried adjusting the sharpness, contrast, etc. with no effect. The picture just doesn't look in focus. Any ideas or is the SD signal just that bad? I can't imagine anyone with buy these TV's given the poor picture in SD vs HD because of the limited HD programing. I have a feeling its the signal due to the fact the Tivo menu screens and DVD look above average.


Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[John S]

Amazing how they reveal the NTSC flaws huh???

Get a stereo hi-fi VCR? Preferably an svhs one? Try it as your cable tunrer comming out via svideo.

Also some HD displays handle SD cable / broadcast better than others. I know, I had to dumb the picture settings down quite a bit for SD cable, especially on the worst channels.

Are all channles the same? None of them look even OK?

 

[Gambaro B]

I agree about the NTSC flaws. Crazy. How do you "dumb-down" the picture settings to get it to look like my old CRT? I tried fooling with the basic ones like sharpness, contrast, etc. Didn't really work that well. Looked in the manual as well. Didn't see much.

The digital channels are a tad bit better but still can't watch a football game on them. I can barely see the ball when it's thrown. Looks like a block going across the screen. I'm getting to the point where I just think the NTSC signal quality is just that poor and the TV exposes all of them (due to the good PQ I get via DVD and Tivo menus...the Tivo menus look crystal clear so its not the s-video). I just don't understand why anyone would buy a large LCD screen without a wide variety of HD programing available.

Any other suggestions?

 

[John S]

I no longer put any value at all on SD Broadcast and/or Cable and/or Sat. I have found, for whatever reason, using the VCR as a tuner can help quite a bit.

The dumbing down, is low low every thing. I can post back an example of the use picture settings I use for the worst sources if you like. Probably be tomorrow before I can post them though...

Sharpness at like 14, brightness and contrast at like 28 or so... Both of those are out of 100 possible on the settings.

 

[Gambaro B]

Thanks for the help John. I'll try the settings when you post them.

Anyone else out there have suggestions?

 

[John S]

Ok not quite as bad as I thought...

Sharpness 28
Brightness 40
contrast 40
color 40


This is what I use from any source that is obviously not so good.
John S.