Just got 1080p, now what

[JonTom]

I just bought a 1080p tv, upgrading from my old Sony SD crt. It is currently connected to my onboard graphics (Ati x1250) via component cables; I have an HDMI cable on order from monoprice.

Given that to date all my recordings are in SD (not likely to change too soon), and that videos are encoded in a variety of ways (divx/xvid SD and h264 720p mostly) I need to determine the best setup, settings wise. Something is going to have to do a bunch of scaling - is it better to let the TV do it, or the video card? CPU via software? It seemed I was only able to max out the component connection @ 1080i, should I try and set it for 720p? IIRC I'm using ffdshow for everything on the HTPC.

Cliffs: How do i set everything up to get the best (mostly SD) picture quality on my new 1080p tv, given that almost none of my content is 1080p

[JonTom]

ok, confirmed my onboard video maxes out component at 1080i, HDMI required for1080p

[mistergq]

IMHO, SD looks horrible on HD tvs. When we got our Samsung HD TV, that is when I began the switch over (pretty quickly) to HD.

What I would look to and see what you primarily record. For my family, the substantial majority of our recordings is from network. That let QAM or OTA. Unfortunately, network QAM from FIOS is very disappointing and none of the extended basic channels are available as QAM through HD Homerun. I decided to go with OTA.

What I did was pick up two HD Homeruns which gives me 4 tuners for networks.

Also, IMHO, for the easiest HD setup, I would also get an HD200. Simply put, it just works without tinkering.

[JonTom]

I agree that SD generally looks pretty poor on HD, and I will be migrating to HD eventually. But QAM and OTA isn't an option here unfortunately so that means my options are limited. The tv basically fell into my lap (a friend is suddenly moving to Japan and gave me a price I couldn't refuse) but changing the whole setup to HD isn't in the cards right now, maybe after Christmas. That's why I'm looking to get the best picture possible from what I've got.

[chris123]

SD looks horrible on an HD TV. Like you, I cannot currently get this in my area. No worries though, I just stopped watching TV entirely and now just watch HD movies, and I don't really miss TV programing. Lol. Recommend using ATI's driver software to set your TV to 1920x1080. Your video card should be sufficient for HD. These 1080P TV's will ALWAYS look best at their native resolution. Sage can do the rest. I use my TV as a monitor too.

[mistergq]

What I would recommend then is to use STBs with S-Video Out. Analog coax cable looked horrible on my HD tv. The S-video was better, but not great.

I would also keep the resolution at 720 until you get full HD. This is set by your video card out. I believe that resolution is 1280 x 720.

As to your video card, what are you using? Also, what options do you have on the back of your TV for inputs?

[hockeyfan]

Just want to be a devils advocate about SD on HD screens.

A long time ago I formatted my media center (in the living room) and hooked up a 22" flat panel. The SD look very respectable. So I was then able to convince the, wait no, *my* wife to let us get a big screen for the living room (we had a 32" CRT at the time). We went out and bought a 42" LCD and SD looked really bad. So that allowed me to get more HD receivers and set up the system we have today.

My point is in 8' back SD on a small HD screen looked good, but the bigger you go the worse it gets.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by hockeyfan

Just want to be a devils advocate about SD on HD screens.

My point is in 8' back SD on a small HD screen looked good, but the bigger you go the worse it gets.

I was going to say something similar, I hear "SD looks like crap on an HDTV" and that's just crap IMO. SD looks like SD on any TV, SD, HD, ED, whatever.

The problem isn't the HDTV, it's the SD content. The problem is most people get larger TVs when the "go HD" and thus gain a new perspective on what SD really looks like.

I watch (some) SD on my FP system and it's definitely acceptable. It would quite likely be appallingly bad to someone who was used to SD on a very small screen, because they didn't know SD looked like that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you can accept SD for what it is, you can still enjoy content that's only SD, even on a really large screen. Also good SD can even compare quite well against some content labeled "HD" (of course it doesn't have a chance against the best HD, like the best Blu-ray ).

[JonTom]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you can accept SD for what it is, you can still enjoy content that's only SD, even on a really large screen. Also good SD can even compare quite well against some content labeled "HD" (of course it doesn't have a chance against the best HD, like the best Blu-ray ).

Yes, of course that's true, and that's why I'm asking. I know it's possible to get a decent looking SD picture on an HD set, and that's what I'd like to maximize until I complete the transition to HD. De-interlacing and scaling are a couple of things that come to mind that I want to be as good possible, right? I watched an h264 encode of one of my son's pixar dvds the other day and it looked pretty damn good (need to adjust colour though, wow is it ever over-saturated). But we'll see how the rest goes.

And yes, I completely agree with the "Bad HD" comment. I remained thoroughly unimpressed with so much HD content for so long, until about a year ago when I saw Spiderman on BluRay in 1080p. That was eye-opening. If all content looked like that, I would have converted ages ago. But since it seems that almost none does look that good, I've waited. But the deal on this tv was just too good.

[MitchSchaft]

You're not gonna notice the difference between 720p and 1080p unless you have a large screen. Say 60" plus.
The majority of shows are shot in SD anyway. I mean reruns and what not.

[JonTom]

Originally Posted by MitchSchaft

You're not gonna notice the difference between 720p and 1080p unless you have a large screen. Say 60" plus.
The majority of shows are shot in SD anyway. I mean reruns and what not.

I don't think that is particularly relevant. I have a 1080p panel, so I will see the difference. And shows being shot is SD is relevant how? I want to upscale them to HD the best way possible.

[MitchSchaft]

We need to have a sticky talking about aspect ratio and expectations.

[JonTom]

Originally Posted by MitchSchaft

We need to have a sticky talking about aspect ratio and expectations.

aspect ratio, there's another thing to think about: i'd like it to be as automatic as possible, between sage and my tv. i think if i leave it on 'source' and then tell the tv to determine it automatically and adjust, that should work? i don't mind letterboxing/pillarboxing at all but cannot abide zoom/stretch.

[Fuzzy]

Leaving Sage on Source will provide you with the pillar/letterboxing required to keep aspect ratio correct. Keep the TV's zooming feature turned off as well. As for the scaling, TVs usually do a decent job of it, however, it will only scale if the source is sent to it natively. This means either constantly switching your video resolution out of your Client PC to match the video res, or use an HD200 set for native switching. I'd recommend the HD200 route.

You could also do the scaling on the PC. If you've got some decent CPU horsepower, you CAN use FFDSHOW as your decoder and it has a LOT of scaling features. You can get very good results with decent quality source material.

Something else to consider... Compression artifacts are scaled as well. If you don't use a pretty high quality on your captures, you're never going to get good upscaled results.

[pjpjpjpj]

I'm with hockeyfan. The biggest complaint I hear from people about picture quality is not because the picture is so bad, it's because they are way too close for the size of the TV. Stores try to sell you that you should sit 1x to 1.5x the screen size away from the set. Not like they have an interest in getting you to buy a bigger set. Really, it should be more like 2.5x to 3x... i.e., 8' to 10' away from a 40" HDTV. If that sounds crazy to you, maybe you need an eye exam update (and goodness knows, with the amount of people here who stare at computer screens 24/7, that's probably a safe statement), because you can see every single tiny detail on a 40" screen from 10' away. No really.... you can. Or... you should be able to. It kills me when people brag that they bought a 65" HDTV and put it in a room where their sofa is 6' back from the TV.

There's nothing worse than walking through the HDTV section at a store and some guy is standing 2' in front of a 56" HDTV, complaining to his wife about how bad the picture looks. And then the sales associate is upselling him on a fancier model because of this, instead of telling him to try a smaller TV.

/soapbox

On the original topic - I would just get a Sage HD Extender and try all the resolution settings. See if your TV does a better job (set the extender output at a lower res, see how the TV handles it) or if the Extender does a better job (set the extender output at 1080p, even though it isn't, and see how that looks). With resolutions from Sage, just like with picking an HDTV... the best one is the one that looks best to you.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

I'm with hockeyfan. The biggest complaint I hear from people about picture quality is not because the picture is so bad, it's because they are way too close for the size of the TV. Stores try to sell you that you should sit 1x to 1.5x the screen size away from the set. Not like they have an interest in getting you to buy a bigger set. Really, it should be more like 2.5x to 3x... i.e., 8' to 10' away from a 40" HDTV./soapbox

Actually SMPTE, Fox and THX all recommend seating on the order of 1x screen widths :
http://bp3.blogger.com/_PUdSZeR2k1A/...ing+Angles.gif

[JonTom]

the HD200 looks really impressive (hell, i'm still impressed with my MVP extender) but an extender in the living room isn't an option. i need a pc there for non-sage reasons, and it seems silly to have a PC and and an extender. although, it would be cheaper than (some) new video cards...

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I was going to say something similar, I hear "SD looks like crap on an HDTV" and that's just crap IMO. SD looks like SD on any TV, SD, HD, ED, whatever.

The problem isn't the HDTV, it's the SD content. The problem is most people get larger TVs when the "go HD" and thus gain a new perspective on what SD really looks like.

I have to disagree. What you say is partially true, but more importantly SD looks like crap on HDTV because most HDTV's use a technology with a single native resolution (like LCD). Older CRT technology scaled to different resolutions much more smoothly than modern LCD displays.

If you question this, think back to the days a couple of years ago when you most likely had a desktop PC with a big CRT monitor. Provided your graphics card supported it, you could set these to operate at almost any resolution and they looked OK. Now look at your typical laptop or modern LCD desktop monitor. These have only one resolution where they look good. Your graphics card will let you select other resolutions, but if you go lower than the native resolution you will get blocky, jaggy graphics and text and if you go to a higher resolution, you will have to pan to see the whole desktop.

If HD was exactly double (or triple, or some other even multiple) the height and width of SD, it would probably scale OK on an LCD, but since it isn't, the scaling is very difficult to do well.

What I'm saying is, if you look at SD content on a large screen SDTV and compare it to the same SD content on a comparable sized HDTV, the SDTV will look much better. This is especially true with certain types of content such as text.

[eric3a]

Upgrading your TV to HD but continuing to record/watch SD is akin to buying a Ferrari but running it with bicycle tires.

For me the most important factor in watching SD vs HD is distance to the screen.
There are formulas out there, but the crust of it: To get the full experience, you will most likely enjoy HD from a much closer distance than SD.

So I'd say when watching SD, just keep your seats far away, at your normal distance you've always had them with your simmilar sized CRT TV. Or if your HDTV is larger, move them back. Knock a wall down if needed

Once you make the full switch to HD, move the seats closer to where you like the picture most.

Moving your seats back (likely leaving them where they are now) is a lot easier than all the technical options.

In our main room, we can move our seats back and forth for just that reason. Except we don't watch SD anymore! 10 to 12 feet from a 67 inch is where I like it for most HD, but once in a while I'll snug in another couple of feet on an action movie or similar.
For SD we used to move back an additional 4 or 5 feet.

Eric

[MitchSchaft]

How can you not watch any SD anymore? Or do you just watch movies?