Unhappy with my Toshiba SD-V592 (1 Viewer)

[Josh Haberman]

A couple months ago, I bought my first TV ever, and a DVD player to go along with it. For the TV I got a Toshiba 26HF84 26" (16:9, HD-ready) which I like a lot. For the DVD player, I let the salesman convince me that it was worth spending the extra money on a Toshiba SD-V592, because it up-converts and has HDMI out.

For recent movies, DVDs look great on this setup: clear and sharp. However, for anything older, the picture has very discernable noise: solid colors look pixelated on surfaces like human skin. Also, when a scene fades to black, the black is spotted with slightly lighter squares throughout the picture.

I have two questions:

1. Is this to be expected when viewing DVDs on a HD-ready TV? I have never watched older DVDs on another HDTV besides mine.

2. Is there any hope that a firmware upgrade for the DVD player in the future could make this better?

Unfortunately, I didn't really decide this was a problem until after the return policy had expired for it. :frowning: I'll have to be more careful next time.

Beware of the SD-V592!

 

[allan espinoza]

i've notice the same on my hd ready tv. before with my old tv i was using an s-video connection and looked fine to me but now that i bought an hd ready tv im always like "is it suppose to look like that" but i just heard that with older movies hd ready tvs bring out the poor video quality used in older movies, but i am still skeptical about everything. i think i just expected more out of an hd-ready tv.

 

[PerryD]

You may need to adjust the set using Avia or Digital Video Essentials. It sounds like your black level may be too high, the test pattern for brightness will allow you to set the black the same as blacker-than-black, and may reduce the pixelation that you aren't supposed to see.

 

[LanceJ]

Another member here mentioned something that may help an HDTV's picture when handling a non-HD signal: make sure any optional image enhancement features are turned off. These seem to be equivalent to those (mostly) fake-sounding DSP modes on a receiver.

 

[ChuckSolo]

After calibration you may see an improvement and you may not. I have noticed that on my RCA 40" HD RPTV, there are some older movies that looked fine on my old 32" Panasonic direct view TV that show their video warts on the larger TV. One prime example is my copy of "The Hitcher." When played on my RCA, the picture looks like you are watching it through a screen door. The picture is very rough and grainy. I got this DVD back in 1997 as part of a "buy this player get 5 DVDs free" type of deal. For the most part though most other DVDs look great. I wouldn't blame the TV as much as I would blame the player and/or disc. You may not notice it on your 26" TV, but most non HD TV station broadcasts look pretty poor on my TV. Some stations are better than others in regular broadcast but for the most part my old analog Panasonic TV displayed them better.

 

[Brandon Steck]

I second the calibration note. While generally not a fan of upconverting players, we have the 5970 (upconverting with no VCR) hooked up at work (granted, playing the Spiderman superbit DVD) and it looks pretty good on the Sony 42" Sony LCD projo. Should be even better on a direct view CRT. Some older DVD's just kind of suck. Is it an anamorphic DVD? If it's not those generally look pretty bad. But, older movies lack the polish of a lot of the newer ones (even some newer ones like the Punisher have a crappy picture compared to most films released) and unfortunately, like SD on an HDTV, they start to show their lack of polish. But generally, they shouldn't look like you're describing, especially in the blacks. And then, some movies are shot to look grainy (Chasing Amy, Saving Private Ryan). Turn your sharpness down somewhere between 35-40 and see if that doesn't give you a quick fix.

 

[StephenHa]

what output are you using? try component, s video always has some noise in my experience, it may also help compared to the hdmi since it may bypass some of the up conversion (that may be just magnifying flaws)