operaghost on 14/6/2008 at 20:52
A buddy's TV looks good in HD, but in non HD video, it's full of artifacts and looks dull. Are most HD TVs like that when it's not an HD video?
Fafhrd on 14/6/2008 at 21:00
Yes. It's the same effect as blowing a small image up to several times its size, you're increasing the size of the pixels and everything just goes to crap.
heretic on 14/6/2008 at 21:17
Short answer : Without any conversion or adjusting SD will almost always look worse on an HDTV.
Is he using DVI/HDMI or component cables?
I use HDMI and an upconversion kit for my HDTV which has a format specifically for SD channels. The few SD channels I have are fine, even better as far as I can tell.
BEAR on 15/6/2008 at 06:41
I guess it depends on the model. The HD TV in my house actually looks quite a lot better than our old TV did (it was a pretty old one though). It has the dynamic resizing feature, so on non-high def it sizes it down and gets the aspect ration better, and the TV is such a higher quality overall it is still a big improvement. A family member's high-def TV though did look awful in non high def stuff, but it was smaller and not as nice a model so I don't really know. This one was in the $1400 range (ours not the family member)
Zerker on 15/6/2008 at 15:15
It's generally going to boil down to the connections. Mine looks ugly on composite (Hi NES!), but the S-Video is fairly good. Component looks great, especially on progressive scan, even when it's not an HD signal. Since the HD screens are way more precise, you're going to notice artifacts on some of the lesser connection formats. So long as the connection is good, however, the worst you'll get it "low-res". If you can still play older games at 640 X 480 (and lower), without much of a fuss, it'll be the same sorta thing.
Ulukai on 15/6/2008 at 17:33
I found out that can't bear to watch VHS movies on my HDTV. The whole lot, (probably two dozen) got taken down to the local tip yesterday along with my ancient VCR. I couldn't give those things away! Good Riddance :)
