Samsung DLP w/ Scientific Atlanta HD DVR (1 Viewer)

[Jeffrey Allen Rydell]

I'm concerned with the image quality on HD content delivered to the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD DVR, displayed with a Samsung DLP HL-S5087W, HDMI connection.

I'm seeing an awful lot of compression, which to some extent I expect on oudated or indifferently-encoded transfers of older films on HDNet Movies.

However, it's actually even more noticeable on quick-moving or high contrast native HD content, such as concerts on INHD. In such cases, the image really breaks down, pixilating and exhibiting what I'm assuming is the 'screen door' effect. First time I've encountered it, and that's certainly what the distortion makes me think of.

Is this most likely attributable to:

The content itself.
Signal loss in the broadcast delivery chain on the way to the DVR.
The DVR (Picture Format set to 'Auto DVI/HDMI').
The DLP display (DNIe and Noise Reduction set to 'off', calibrated with Video Essentials).

Are there any Service Mode tweaks that might affect how the DLP set is processing the image?

 

[Gregg Loewen]

hi

HD cable / satellite is not reference source, it can be very variable...both from the source, cable company down rezing, and then the cable box itself.

To evaluate HD use a HD DVD or Blu Ray player.

regards

Gregg

 

[Jeffrey Allen Rydell]

Hi Gregg,

That's pretty much what I figured.

Unfortunately, it's the configuration I set up for my parents (I guess they're somewhat my guinea pigs here), and they weren't interested in a disc-based HD system for now.

I did convince them to invest in an up-converting Standard-Def DVD player (Samsung HD-960), and I've got some issues with how SD DVDs look as well. Artifacting is very noticeable. I may experiment with setting the player to 480p and letting the DLP do the upconverting.

I lean towards the upconvert processing in either the DVD player or the DLP television being to blame on DVDs, and the HD broadcast signal as being the culprit on the DVR (the wholesale image breakdown is by far the most distracting).

In any case, I'm still wondering if there may be Service Menu tweaks that might lessen or even eliminate some of the video-based noise I'm seeing.

 

[Jeffrey Allen Rydell]

No one has any thoughts on the Samsung Service Menu settings?