TiVo Picture Quality
 

As there appears to be so much difference in opinion as to whether the SD picture quality on TiVo is worse than the V+, would any of the current TiVo owners be so kind as to post some pictures of a SD channel being shown on TiVo? If you have the ability to do a comparison with a V+ on the same telly, that would be sensational.

I have TiVo booked for the end of the month, but am really concerned about the picture quality on SD, given that I watch a lot of SD sports in the summer on ITV4, British Eurosport 2 and ESPN America in particular. So don't want to go ahead with it if my enjoyment of these channels will be severely impaired.

Thanks.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

What size is your TV? The general consensus is that there's not a huge difference in the 32 inch and lower specs. It's the 40 inch and up that seem to really notice it.

I have a 32 in Panasonic, and a 20 inch Samsung, both with TiVos attached (sent back the V+'s) so can't give you pictures, but can say I only notice a slight difference between SD and HD when I'm looking for it. HD is slightly sharper, but as I said, only if I'm really looking for it.

Hubby was watching football the other night on ITV1 regular as the sound was playing up on HD and it looked great...

Hope this helps.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

40" Samsung LED TV, with either Tivo 1Tb or Samsung V+ the picture is identical. Would post a picture... but its pretty pointless.

:)

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

What I have notice is that it handles movement a lot better, things like full screen pans it's the most prevalent and more so on HD but all movement is effected. Its a lot smoother and shows less compression artefacts.

Anyone else noticed this?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I have a 47" TV and am picky about picture quality
and would say that SD is better with the TiVo box.:cool:

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Mine is definitely not as clear, if I had to give it a rating I would say 85% as good as the SA V+ I had on both SD and HD, my TV is a Sony KDL40HX803. I wonder if it would be useful for posters to state their TV and the picture settings they have so posters with the similar TVs can compare. I'll post mine later today.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Yes, I concur.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I have a 40'' sony LED picture qual in SD better on TIVO, HD PQ excellent.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

My TV is Sony KDL40V3000, 40inch, sd pic is not as sharp as my samsung V+, which is a shame for a new product like tivo

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Same for me on a panasonic 42PX60 plasma.

Regards

John.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

32" LCD, SD pic quality noticeably softer than SA V+

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I feel a little more re-assured now. :)

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I'd go with perfect choice opinion, the sa has best picture

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

The SD picture quality is noticeably softer on my 40 inch Samsung LCD than it is with the V+ box.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I have a 40 inch Samsung LCD too. Does the softness really spoil your viewing of the SD channels? Or is it something you can live with?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I wonder if the issues people are having with TiVo Sd picture quality is to do with the Plasma V LCD argument. I have both (Samsung 42" Plasma and 40" Samsung LCD) and have found that Plasma is much better at dealing with SD pictures.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

As stated this morning I definitely see a softer less detail picture both in SD and HD, the specific detail seen in HD (e.g. lines on face) just isn’t as strong on my Sony KDL40HX803 TV when the Tivo replaced my SA V+ with no setting changes made. Would appreciate if any Sony TV owners could compare their picture settings with those of mine below especially if you feel the picture hasn’t changed. Clearly everybody has their own preferences so just seeing if I’ve not done something stupid on my own settings!

Video Output Format in Tivo: 1080i, this was auto detected by Tivo

Sony Picture Settings:

Motionflow: Standard
Screen Select: Auto
Target Input: Current
Picture Mode: Standard
Backlight: 9
Contrast 84
Brightness 44
Colour 50
Hue 0
Colour Temperature: Neutral
Sharpness: 25
Film Mode: Auto 1
Advanced Contract Enhancer (under advanced settings): Medium

---------- Post added at 20:58 ---------- Previous post was at 20:57 ----------

Always a thought but if that was the issue I would have had a softer picture with my SA V+ as well?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Can any of the VM tecchy gurus on here confirm anything about the upscaling hardware/software in the TiVo, in comparison to the Samsung or SA V+? Is it completely different, for example? And if they know whether VM could change this in a future release to improve the quality or is it a case of what we've got now is what we'll always have?

Cheers guys!

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Very true ,just a thought.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I hope not!

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

42" Panasonic TX-P42GT30B. SD better on TiVo, HD the same.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I can't comment on TIVO yet but I will say this, Samsung vs SA box are 100% identical. I owned both for a while and did a comparison test. Absolutely no difference to mine and several mates eyes in both SD and HD. Anyone who tells you otherwise is mad as they are identical. :)

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

It's completely different hardware from three different silicon manufacturers, but the internal details will be closely-guarded secrets.

VM don't write the software. The silicon vendors, Cisco and/or Tivo may be able to change it.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Toshiba LCD 32" (720p) with no post processing. Was a lovely picture on samsung V+, but TiVo is grainy and soft. Tried setting TiVo to 720p only, and it looked slightly better than 1080i. Will try the other settings and HD channels some other time.

Boz

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I agree. We have a 37" Panasonic Plasma and the picture with the TIVO is excellent, as it was before with the V+ box :p:

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Dam, and I only bought my TV 9 months ago, would have bought a Plasma if I had known!! Now, what is the chance of VM replacing my TV to get a better picture on Tivo!! (joke):shocked::rolleyes:

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

There's always been a big debate about the difference between Plasma and LCD. I have always preferred Plasma, even though we also have 2 LCD TV's. We had our V+ installed where our old Samsung sbt was and although the HD picture quality is very good the sd picture is still not brilliant and it's only a 32" LCD TV so hate to think what it would be like on a larger screen :(

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Hmm, was watching BBC 1 breakfast news on 1 and 1 HD, and there's not a lot between them. Both grainy, washed out and soft. Nasty.

V+ was sharp and vibrant, especially on HD. Not good.

Boz

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Is it filmed in HD do we know?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Pass, however on V+ the difference between 1 and 1HD for breakfast news was noticeable. What's even more noticeable is the very poor picture on TiVo for me.

I really need to try on-demand HD to see how that fares, and experiment with the TV out settings, but getting time to do that with household TV demands is proving tricky!

Boz

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Appreciate that and always a decision to go for plasma or LCD.

The key issue with Tivo whatever TV you have is that Tivo seems to be the cuase of the slightly lower quality picture. V+ was noticably sharper in both SD and HD so it is the components/firmware in Tivo which is not creating as a good as picture as the V+ did to the same TV on identical settings.

Just did not expect to go backwards when getting the Tivo, VM really need to investigate as this should be basic stuff.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I ended up reseting my TV settings for the input and started from scratch, PQ is a lot better now and almost on par with my old SA, still slightly grainy on SD but HD looks great.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

That's an interesting point. Just had text conversation with my engineer and he's going to help me sort it out, mainly by tweaking the TiVo output settings and the TV input settings.

Will try tonight, if I can prise the family away from the TV!

Boz

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I tried setting 720p only, then 1080i only (auto detect setting) and then both, and then those two and 520p and 520i all together. Nothing made any difference.

I tried changing my TV's settings, but there aren't any really.

I tried an On Demand HD program, Wild Africa I think, and although it was better, movement blurs the image. Still not as crisp and vibrant as SA V+

Any other ideas?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Please report how you get on with those tweaks.

My installer was a backup (the planned installer's van had broken down apparently) and while he had been trained on the Tivo install, it was clear with a few questions that he did not know much about the features and he seemed to be more BB experienced for installs. I noticed he did adjust some frequency settings from an engineer screen on Tivo and he had to install an equaliser as the signal was too strong, but I wonder if some other fine tuning should have been done?

May be worthwhile for me to ask for a more experienced engineer to return to see if the picture can be improved from Tivo adjustments at least.

Is your engineer the person who installed your Tivo or somebody you know in VM?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

There are no 'tweaks'. 1080 or 720. Your tv does the rest

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

On what it receives from Tivo which is the issue as I am certain whatever Tivo is sending (versus V+ doing exactly the same!), all these posts of poorer TV PQ indicate something is not right.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

My sa v+ is better picturewise than the TiVo, not much better but slightly noticeable. The tech can't 'tweak' anything. There is nothing to adjust. I think it's just the upscaling hardware in the TiVo that's not as good as the sa

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

You could probably adjust the TV picture settings anyway to improve the picture quality

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

If there are tweaks or not depends on your TV really.
If your TV has a decent upscaler then you can set the box to output SD as 567p and let your TV upscale it which could give a better picture than just having Tivo upscale.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

See above your post for my results. Just done some more HD live prigs, like House, Eastenders, some Sky 1 HD crime drama and all look sharpish with a still camera, but as soon as the subject or background moves, it all goes very grainy and soft.

Given up tweaking. Just hope something improves, as this is just not very good at all, especially as there aren't that many HD channels.

Boz

---------- Post added at 22:10 ---------- Previous post was at 22:09 ----------

That would be ok, if you could easily change the setting. Leaving your program to navigate into settings and change output each time you flip between HD and SD would be very annoying. Can't see the wife going for that.

Boz

---------- Post added at 22:14 ---------- Previous post was at 22:10 ----------

Just tried 520p to let my tv do the upscaling and that's worse.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

The samsung's sd picture was useless compared to the sa v+ it was so obvious it was embaressing,i was looking forward to getting it i couldnt wait to get rid of it.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

If the SA has 100% picture quality, i'd rate the samsung v+ at 95% and tivo at 90%

Still would rather have the tivo over a v+

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I agree with the comment about blurring on movement. It's almost like the picture is going momentarily out of focus. To be honest, it makes it more difficult to watch and strains the eyes.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I watched the snooker yesterday on BBC 2 and I thought the PQ was outstanding. Equally as good as the V+.:)

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

If I try to set the Tivo to 720p it crashes the box when it tests the setting!

Would agree the 90% as good as view versus SA V+, TV (Sony KDL40HX803)tweaks done just cannot get it to be as good (it is better now, was 80% before).

The strange thing still is that the difference between SD and HD is not as much, in so far HD is not as crystal clear as before so seems closer to the "smoothed" SD picture! The SA V+ seemed to show a big difference on my TV except BBC1 in particular whose SD picture seemed to be so well upscaled on the V+ that it looked virtually HD to me (not the case now).

Points to the upscaler hardware in the Tivo just not generating as good a quality feed into you TV.

May be down to firmware implementation since Tivo had to port their software over to the new Cisco box, still think VM should take this as a real issue and investigate.

Anybody from VM here able to feed this back as we are not talking of just a few people here so I think this is worthy of investigation?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I don't think BBC Breakfast is in HD anyway

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

All in all TiVo sounds a right catch

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Snooker should look great, strong colours and fixed camera angle + extremley little mpeg compression. It probably won't be using anywhere near its mux capacity.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

This was posted by a VM staff member on the TiVo Help & Support Forum. I'm no technical wizard, but I assume this forced SD output of 720p is why a lot of people are saying the TiVo PQ for SD broadcasts is "soft" compared to the V+.

Let's hope the development team do extend the output options so users can choose how they want the box to output SD. This is how it should have been set up from the start. A state of the art STB like this should have multiple options that allows the customer to choose something that matches their own preference, not have VM dictate what they think is best for people's TV!

"All I can say is that we've made the decision to upscale where the user has accepted multiple resolution settings including any that are higher than the native output. We have also prioritised 720p output over 1080i for SD channels when it is selected. We don't use 720p over 1080i on HD channels when both are selected because the native output of the HD channel is 1080i, and the two resoultions are generally considered about equal. I don't know why we choose 720p over 1080i for SD channels. I personally (my opinion) prefer 720p to 1080i, and perhaps they chose it because there are fewer pixels to upscale with 720p and TiVo does a better
job with progressive scan (this is just postulation).

While I understand that this may not be the best way of doing things for users whose other devices may do a better job of upscaling content, it will provide the best picture for the average household with an HDTV. As I'm sure you know, if you want to be sure that you get the native output you simply choose only the native video resolution of the channel that you are watching. I will have a word with some of the development team to see whether there is a possibility of expanding the these settings to give the users like yourself more control over video output. "

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

The SA V+ upscaled all SD to 720P/1080i when in HD mode anyway, so I can't see that would make a difference. Presumably people are asking for the option to output SD native and let other devices upscale. I've had a bit of a play with my TV settings, and have got things looking a bit better now. SD still not on a par with the SA V+ for me though.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I have a Panasonic 32" and have to say that I can see no difference between my old SA V+ box and the new Tivo in either SD or HD, the picture is not soft in any way and is as sharp as it has always been.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Thanks for highlighting this, so there may well be an underlying reason why Tivo does not perform as well as a V+ in some cases. I have posted on that forum and have asked Nick to provide feedback from the development team.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

So if I uncheck 720p and just put in 1080i I can get my v+ pic back?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Should do - my output is 1080i on the TiVo.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Probably not.

What you select will be dependent on what the native resolution of your TV is.

If your TVs 1080, then selecting 720 is wrong anyway. You're scaling twice; 576 to 720 in the Tivo and then your TV is scaling 720 to 1080. The fewer times you scale a picture, the better.

It seems that the upscaler chip in the Tivo is not as good as the one in the SA V+, because people who ran the V+ and Tivo at 1080, are getting a worse SD picture on Tivo.

This is strange, because Cisco own SA, so why not stick with a proven scaler chip?

I do find it softer, but I've found that I've got used to it over the last few days, so it's not a massive drawback, but very dissapointing given the excellent SD picture from the SA V+.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Completely false. Your box/tv/setup must have had issues. The SA box being better than Samsung is a myth for picture quality.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

That's opinion not fact

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

The answer I do not know is what did the V+ upscale to for SD channels. Did it upscale (as best as possible) an SD feed to 1080i to the TV or just supply native and let the TV do the upscaling, while Tivo on SD channels (see NickO post on forum) is upscaling to 720p only and then your TV is upscaling again to 1080i as with my TV?

Can anybody post what they believed the V+ did in upscaling SD channels.

I will see what happens on the VM support forum where this issue is at least being fed back to the development team, need the option for Tivo to upscale to 1080i or just provide native feed for the TV to do the upscale to 1080i.

I am also starting to see posts of people cancelling their Tivos and gouing back to V+ becuase of this pictyure issue. VM better watch themselves on this especially if it gets into the press. I could also see Sky taking advantage, if you've been to one of their booths, you may have seen that SD versus HD picture compare demonstration, I could see Sky showing the same for Sky+ and Tivo (as seen by some customers), oops!

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

To be honest I haven't seen any reports of anyone handing TIVO back , apart from one bloke on TIVO community when it first launched.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Started appearing on VM Support forum today.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

AFAIK, the V+ upscaled 576 SD to 1080.

I found NockO's response poorly written and not clear.

I'd be very surprised if Tivo is upscaling 576 SD to 720 and your TV doing 720 to 1080 if you select 1080 out on the Tivo. In my view Tivo will be upscaling 576 to 1080 and outputting that if 1080 is selected in the Tivo menu.

From what i've read the Sky boxes output poor quality SD compared to the V+ box, so I doubt Sky can make any boasts in that area.

TBH, my Tivo SD picture, although not as good as V+ s still better than the Freview picture from my TV's inbuilt tuner or my separate Sony freeview box. It's perfectly liveable with.

It may be worth some people looking at their TV settings, because if they've got a lot of the enhancments turned on and things such as sharpness set high, a poorer quality source picture will look worse with the enhancments turned on.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Well I can easily answer that for you , the Sky+HD box probably isn't quite as good with SD as the V+ but it's definatley not poor , but to be fair with 50+ HD channels I don't worry to much with SD.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Yep sorry, wrong choice of words --- you phrased it better!

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I believe V+ output everything at the selected resolution. I've got me TIVO set to 720P and also had my V+ set to 720P (my TV is 720P). As far as I can tell both boxes should be upscaling SD to 720P, and the SD on the SA V+ is far superior. Still, most of my viewing is HD now at least!

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Meeeooooowwwww!!! Ha ha :D:D

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I know couldnt resist ha ha :D

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I changed the settings -both on television (colour, sharpness etc) and the TiVo box ( I think I have 720 and 1080i output only selected and the quality is much better. I think it's a matter as with all new connections, you have to experiment and tweak according to your equipment and preferences.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I've tried everything both ends and TiVo sd and hd aren't a patch on V+.

The thing is, V+ just worked. The PQ was ace out the box, didn't have to tweak either end at all. And on my TV there's very little you can tweak.

Boz

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I'm really happy with the picture quality on my TiVo box. Much prefer it to the old Samsung V+ box. :)

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I completely agree. I sent my TiVo back because I found SD unwatchable. I am quite picky about picture quality. HD wasn't as good as with my V+ either.

The experience made me think about what I was watching and I realised that the vast majority of my viewing was of channels available for free on Freeview so when Freeview HD became available here I bought a 3View HD box and am now getting really acceptable SD pictures and excellent quality HD - better even than the V+.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I have an installation booked for 05.05.11 for the Tivo box. I'm really concerned about the picture quality issue and I will be following this thread closely. I have an HD ready 65 inch rear projection TV currently connected to SKy HD Box. SD and HD picture quality for both on SKY is superb.

Tivo box might offer many benefits but without superb SD and HD picture quality
its pointless for Sky customers like myself switching over to Tivo.

Like its already been mentioned, can existing Tivo customers please share your knowledge about picture quality. Virgin also need to respond in clear language to concerns raised about picture quality.

---------- Post added at 23:14 ---------- Previous post was at 23:12 ----------

I have an installation booked for 05.05.11 for the Tivo box. I'm really concerned about the picture quality issue and I will be following this thread closely. I have an HD ready 65 inch rear projection TV currently connected to SKy HD Box. SD and HD picture quality for both on SKY is superb.

Tivo box might offer many benefits but without superb SD and HD picture quality
its pointless for Sky customers like myself switching over to Tivo.

Like its already been mentioned, can existing Tivo customers please share your knowledge about picture quality. Virgin also need to respond in clear language to concerns raised about picture quality.

Oop sorry for repeat posting

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I really am not seeing a fall in picture quality from V+ to Tivo. My Tivo is delivering as good a picture as my V+ ever did.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I also have no concerns over PQ. After the boxes were swapped (V+ for TIVO), I did need to tweak the settings on my 40" Toshiba, but now I have a very comparable picture on both SD and HD. I have however heard it mentioned on here that it is on the larger screens that a drop in PQ becomes evident.
I guess what I'm saying is that until you hook it up to your own equipment you will never know if it is acceptable to you or not. If it is no good, send it back. Let us know how you get on.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I have a Panasonic neopdp, HD is absolutley fudging brilliant, but scaling on it isnt brilliant, either from the freeview or freesat tuners (HD on freesat is mega) thats why i am grateful that the samsung V+ is so good at scaling SD, on virgin i dont have over 50 quality HD channels to choose from, so this is going to be the absolute deal breaker for me.. i won't be getting TiVO purley because of reports of poor sd performance. There is no need for any one to start saying its only slightly worse - i can see these things, honestly i can, i calibrated my tv's colour balance and grey scale with an eye-one display probe, but it was nearly spot on by just by my own eye, i can't go backwards, i will probably be the last V+ user in town.:cool:

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

In every thread I've seen about this there are more people saying the pq is as good with some saying it is even better. I think most people saying there is a difference have LCD tv's anyway. I'm not going to cancel my tivo order. If the tivo pq is unacceptable I will just return it.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Play around with the settings on both television (colour, contrast, sharpness, brightness) and also the Tivo box video output formats. It's not a one-size fits all, and had to tweak all the settings. PQ is now equal to the V+ for my set up.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Dont worry, its really not that bad!

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Right after 5 days with tivo I just forget that the picture is softer. Done a few tweaks on the telly settings.

Also today I have upgraded my surround sound brought a Onkyo TX-SR608 and a few high quality HDMI cables rather than the ebay ones I had. This has made an improvement.

Also have ordered a tacima mains conditioner which helps LED TVs plus I have like 8 devices pluged into two four ways and one is a fridge (I'm 23 and my bedroom rules lol)

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I've got a bridge for sale, you interested?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I wouldn't be concerned as TiVo is still as good if not better than the Sky HD box. Unfortuntaly it's just not quite as good as the Old SA and Sammy V+ boxes that were streets ahead of the Sky box with SD

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I got a new 46" Samsung 3D LCD tv yesterday and the SD quality looks fantastic on it.

Then again it also looked fined on the 37" Toshiba I had before.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I have a four-year-old Toshiba WLT68 32in that's "HD Ready" rather than the full 1080p. With both my SA and Samsung V+ boxes I set them to 720p as I found that best handled fast motion and didn't feel like any kind of HD compromise on that size screen. With the V+ SD channels PQ varied very much depending on the quality of the source; the BBC ones were very good, Sky ones notably poor. The further down the EPG you ventured the weaker the SD results.
With my TiVo I found that it had defaulted to 1080i, and the SD channels were softer and the colours looked artificial - for example, I watched Spectacle on Sky Arts 1 in SD over the weekend and it was particularly soft, almost blurry. Eughh.
So I changed the setting to 720p and the SD improved; Rubicon recorded from BBC4 looked very good indeed, on a par if not slightly better than my Freeview BBC4. The few remaining SD menus on the TiVo looked better too. My recording of Spectacle still looked soft to me, but not quite as bad as when the TiVo was set to 1080i. I then did some switching between the SD and HD versions of ESPN and Film4: I'd say that they appeared very similar to what I had on the Samsung V+.
I think it's pretty subjective and very much depends on which SD channels you watch: the SD bitrates are probably as big an influence as the hardware if you ask me. Of course, having a 32in 720p TV is not going to have the same issues as a larger 1080p display, but then unless you've gone plasma I'd suggest SD is always going to be soft on anything above 40in, regardless of upscaling

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Good luck with the headaches , them active glasses are lousy.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I think I will be fine, spent three hours with them on yesterday and not a headache in sight.

I don't think they are that bad.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Must admit they produce the clearer picture , I went today and tried the LG Cinema range , its a passive set and was surprised how good it was

http://www.3dfocus.co.uk/3d-features...tv-review/2980

3D blu-ray and TIVO PPV 3D movies let us know how you get on .

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Iv noticed some channels/programmes are worse than others SS Soccer Scores was awful the other day. Almost unreadable. I didnt experience that on the V+

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I've tried a lot of the VM 3D VOD and it looks great. Plenty of free stuff too :)

Haven't seen any crosstalk at all. However the TiVo menus don't work in 3d very well.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I agree with this. I have a five year-old Pioneer 436XDE, which is HD ready (1024x768). To me HD looks slightly better on the Tivo (ESPN HD and Skyports HD look eye-popping). SD looks very slightly softer (more anti-aliasing?) but, as you say, it depends on the channel. I suspect (cynically) that Sky deliberately use a lower bit rate on their SD channels to 'encourage' people to upgrade to their (£10/month extra) HD package.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Hi,

Ok am having a few issues trying to get my TiVo to save the settings of the Video Output correctly.

My TV is a Phillips 37PFL5522D/05, link HERE

I get the message stating that 720p is the preferred video format for my TV, so if I select this then I get the SD channels at 720p (as expected) but even when I put on a HD channel my TV remains in 720p.

If I go to change settings, I can select 1080i by checking it, but it states 1080p is not supported.

If I go to Test Formats, I can see the display and my TV detects all correctly for all of 576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p. At the end of the tests, it selects all the formats and now says next to 1080p (25fps, Pass-through only).

So it then allows me to Continue and then shows all the above formats, where I hit Thumps Up 3 times to save. But then it just shows as the Video Output Format [] with nothing in the brackets.

With these settings, I still get 720p for SD and HD channels and my TV remains at 720p.

Any help is appreciated, or suggestions of what to try to get it to switch from 720p for SD to 1080i for HD

I have tried to just select those two from the list it sometimes detects properly and the TV changes between them, but after a while it looses the settings (yet to troubleshoot when/what makes it happen)

Thanks

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

It will only output in 1 resolution for hd and sd. You can't pick a different res for each format. My TiVo is set to 1080i for everything

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

My TiVo is set to use 720p and 1080i, and my Samsung TV will switch to 720p for SD channels and 1080i for HD channels.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

That should work. I don't know why it's losing the settings.

Have you tried 576i+1080i or 576p+1080i?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I've tried that. It just outputs everything as 1080i if you do that.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I had Virgin TiVo installed yesterday, we moved the v+ box to another room.
If you watched an american tv programme, e.g friends, a couple of years ago the picture was very soft and almost blurred looking........Well this is TiVo......I have an lg 42" and have compared the v+ and TiVo pictures..... No comparison v+ 10/10, TiVo 6/10.... Very disappointed however if you are used to watching tv on your pc then TiVo is for you.....I will be returning it today!!!!! Great product, poor picture......I reckon Sky will be breathing a sigh of releif, as for Richard Branson?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

Returning it due to watching a TV prog that is well over 10 yrs old? bit over the top isn't it?

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I think you have misunderstood his post Stephen. He says all (sd?) programmes look like that.

Personally, as someone still awaiting installation, I cant understand if the tivo is that bad why there is no consensus on this. It seems to me the majority are saying they cannot see this with some saying the pq is even better. It has to be noted also that some say that they have had to play with the settings on the tv to improve the pq.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

If John's finding more recently filmed SD shows just as bad or has a preference for older material then he may be better off with the V+. The earlier episodes of Friends never looked good to me on the V+ and even the later ones aren't that great in the PQ stakes. I'm surprised they haven't upscaled them to nearer HD quality like they did for the Seinfeld DVDs a few years back - those look very good compared with the original broadcast versions.
The reason there's no consensus is people have different TVs, sizes and viewing habits. As I said in a previous post on this thread I watch very little SD now and only go there for stuff not available in HD - Rubicon on BBC4 (picture quality good); Justified on Five USA (PQ better than Freeview but not great); and BBC News (PQ variable). For me, a couple of hours a week of SD wouldn't be reason to abandon TiVo, especially as the 720p setting improves things a little. And, ideally, Rubicon would be shown on BBC HD and Justified on Five HD - both are quality imports and would be preferable to the constant repeats on the former and much of the SD tosh on the latter.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

I've been adjusting my TV settings to get the SD picture as best as possible. Have tried selecting both 720p and 1080i from video output option in Tivo. I would say I am at 85% as good as V+ at best, there is a definite reduction in PQ and I am not talking about old programmes but latest series, etc. From posts, it seems to me at least a third of posters are reporting a reduced PQ so that is significant in my view with 2 posts saying they are returning Tivo back to VM. Have posted on the same subject thread on the VM Support forum and wait feedback from a VM representative on that thread, who is raising it with the development team.

So looks like a lottery as to whether Tivo gives you a decent quality picture. Clearly works for some but not for others. Shame really, as V+ was great out of the box with no need to adjust TV settings and a very good SD upscaling and crystal clear HD picture. For me, I just cannot match that with Tivo for SD and HD and I have a decent TV (Sony HX803) with plenty of picture viewing options to try and adjust to improve quality. It is at a level where I will "live" with it, but is the only dissapointment I have with Tivo right now.

Re: TiVo Picture Quality
 

But most people do still watch quite a lot of sd and they have been saying, in the threads I am reading that sd isn't worse. I can only go by posts in forums as I've never seen a tivo in action.

---------- Post added at 09:52 ---------- Previous post was at 09:46 ----------

I would agree that there is a significant minority saying pq is worse. You have to take into account though that people are more likely to complain if they have a problem rather than post about a problem that doesn't, for them, exist.
I agree though that VM should look in to this and make some comment. I hope they sort your problem out.