TiVo TiVo Picture Quality - Page 6

25-04-2011, 09:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaMac

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.

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.

AndyCambs · 25-04-2011, 11:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahardie

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.

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.

whoareyou · 25-04-2011, 11:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahardie

If the tivo pq is unacceptable I will just return it.

Dont worry, its really not that bad!

TMLeafs · 25-04-2011, 23:32

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)

TheDon · 25-04-2011, 23:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by TMLeafs

...brought...a few high quality HDMI cables rather than the ebay ones I had.

Also have ordered a tacima mains conditioner

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

gaz2810i · 26-04-2011, 12:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silverspeed

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

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

Stephen · 26-04-2011, 13:17

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.

nialli · 26-04-2011, 13:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaBoz

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

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

muppetman11 · 26-04-2011, 16:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stephen

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.

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

Stephen · 26-04-2011, 17:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by muppetman11

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

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.

muppetman11 · 26-04-2011, 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stephen

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.

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 .

whoareyou · 26-04-2011, 17:38

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+

Stephen · 26-04-2011, 18:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by muppetman11

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 .

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.

Ardbeg1977 · 26-04-2011, 18:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by nialli

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

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.

paultrademark · 27-04-2011, 18:58

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