Need help with the Sony KP-53HS30 TV (1 Viewer)

[Anthony__P]

To anyone,

I recently went and purchased the Sony 53" RPTV, model KP-53HS30. When I was looking at it in the store, it looked amazing, the picture was crystal clear, and the sound was perfect. I read many reviews on the web and they wer all positive. I end up purchasing the TV, and when they deliver it, I have the cable company come and hook up my Digital Cable, and then I hooked it to the TV via an S-video cable connection. I turn the TV on and the picture is all grainy and has a slight hint of a fuzz on it. I was sitting there all night, trying to calibrate it correctly, and I can not for the life of me get this picture to look crystal clear. I was hoping that someone in here might know something about this particular model and would know what I need to do to tweak it. I am really getting frustrated now, as I have it on the correct video channel. I dont know if it is the Cable box or the TV. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[ChrisMatson]

Standard cable TV will never look great on large RPTV. You can ask the cable company to boost your signal. You may have better luck with a satellite service or truly digital cable. With a HDTV-ready set, you can get an OTA receiver and have crystal-clear HDTV. You can get HDTV from a satellite too.

How do DVDs look?

 

[Anthony__P]

Chris,

DVD's are fine. Which is what led me to believe it was the signal I was getting from Cable. However I am in the Time-Warner NYC cable market and I currently have Digital cable. I have it set up on a smaller 32" TV from JVC in my basement and the picture is AMAZING!!!! I know I remember reading somewhere that when you get a RPTV of this size it is good to call the mfr and have them send a tech over to tweak it and get you the best picture out of it. I wonder if Sony still does that.

 

[ChrisMatson]

You can have an ISF tech do a complete calibration for you. You should let your TV "break-in" for at least 48 hours. This should be done with moving pictures, filling the entire screen. Turning the TV on and off is important too.
You can do some basic tweaking with AVIA (recommended) or Video Essentials.
Unfortunately, all the tweaking in the world will not make standard definition cable look very good on a large display.

 

[Anthony__P]

ok, so I can sound like a total newbie to this, what is AVIA? Also, it is not standard Cable. I really do get a digital signal from it. Thanks for the link for the ISF. I am going to give them a call. Is there anything else I can do?

 

[Matt Stone]

Generally speaking you don't get a digital signal from digital cable. IIRC...standard digital cable uses QAM, and much like modems...send digital data in analog form. If you were talking about an HD signal...then that would be a different story.

AVIA is a calibration DVD...you can search for prices at DVDPriceSearch.com. Also consider Video Essentials calibration disc...it's usually cheaper.

 

[Jeffrey R]

I have the Sony 43HT20 (little brother to the 53HS30) and Time Warner digital cable in NYC, so I can give you an indication of what you should be seeing. I recently switched over to TW from RCN cable, which had an excellent picture on the 43HT20. The picture with the TW digital cable can be hit or miss. If you are watching the lower channels (like 2, 4, 5, 7, etc.), those are highly compressed and can look pretty bad at times with grain. CBS (2) on my TV looks terrible, but I know it's not the TV. Have you watched some of the higher channels, especially the premium channels over channel 200? These channels should look very good on your TV, and if they don't, I think it must be the cable. These Sony HDTV's really do a good job with cable, but like you said, a 53" screen will show much more of a bad signal than a 27" screen will.

Start out by setting your TV to either "movie" or "pro" mode. Then, set your picture settings in the Video Menu to the following: picture, brightness, color and hue all around halfway, and sharpness around 25%. This will be a start to making your picture better. If none of this helps, you should either have your cable company check the cable or a tech check your TV.

 

[Steve_Tk]

Well what can he order to get "digital" cable? I was wondering this too? Is that something like DirecTV, or something else.......

 

[Anthony__P]

Hmmm thanks for all the Info. Jeffery R. I was wondering if I call TW Cable (Staten Island Cable) and ask them to boost the signal to my cable box, would that give a better picture? Just wondering.

 

[Jeffrey R]

I was wondering if I call TW Cable (Staten Island Cable) and ask them to boost the signal to my cable box, would that give a better picture? Just wondering.

This could help, but the only way you can tell is to try it out. Sometimes, amplifying a bad signal will make the picture on the RPTV worse. I do use a radio shack splitter/amplifier though to run the cable to my TV, since I have a first splitter when the cable comes into my apartment (I have a Roadrunner cable modem), and then I split the cable a few more times for different rooms, so the amplifier helps keep the signal from degrading too much. You can try one of the Radio Shack amplifier/splitters, or you can have the cable company try to help out. You should definitely give the TV a chance though. It will start looking better over time as it breaks in. By the way, I found that watching cable on the "Interlaced" mode provided the best picture. Good luck.