Crap colour quality

TangyZizzle

I dont know if this is the right forum, if not.. mods do your stuff.

We recently bought two Samsung TVs. No matter how much I played with the colour and its settings I cant get it right.
The Mammy went into Harvey Normans and asked 'whats up,'. They told her we shouldnt be playing with the colour settings, she just needs a HDMI cable.

Now, today we had the UPC lad in the house to move the boxes across the room, he flicked through a few channels and said 'sure thats grand, why would you need to change it?,' either he's blind or he just didnt see a program that presented our problem clearly. He reasoned that noone where we live (Rush, North County Dublin) has Hi Def yet, so it would be a waste of money buying HDMI cables.

What exactly do we need? She's happy enough with shít colour on two brand new TVs just because Mr. UPC Man says " s'grand ,"

Help.

Cheers

edit: Yeah, this should definitely be in the Cable & MMDS & IPTV forum, sorry about that.

Sam Russell

Get rid of UPC and get Freesat, and Saorview. New TVs should receive Saorview with no problems, because otherwise TV will be useless in two years. Freesat requires a set top box and a dish. The result is that you will pay no-one any subs - ever. You will get HD on BBC1 and BBC HD, and UTV1 HD, and soon, CH4 HD.

Poor quality is not acceptable, call them out again. Try the TV an a DVD and see if the picture quality is OK then. Show the UPC guy the DVD and ask him to match it.

Are you on UPC digital or analogue?

TangyZizzle

In response to the suggestion to get rid of UPC etc etc. No, Im sorry but thats not going to happen. Mammy Zizzle is a stubborn old bitch and this is proven in the fact that when I just asked now do we have digital or analogue I was answered with 'No! cos youre up there on your computer and youre gonna come down and be messin with yadda yadda yadda,' ...

We have UPC digital, so without getting rid of UPC, any suggestions? I cant try DVD atm cos we dont have a player in the house. However a Wii is hooked up to one of the tvs and you can see that the colour isnt quite right on that either.

Would you still suggest getting the UPC guy back out? How would this benefit us?

Minstrel27

Sam Russell wrote: »

Get rid of UPC and get Freesat, and Saorview. New TVs should receive Saorview with no problems, because otherwise TV will be useless in two years. Freesat requires a set top box and a dish. The result is that you will pay no-one any subs - ever. You will get HD on BBC1 and BBC HD, and UTV1 HD, and soon, CH4 HD.

Is UTV HD on satellite?

TangyZizzle

Minstrel27 wrote: »

Is UTV HD on satellite?

Gtfo! This is my thread :cool:

Capt'n Midnight

borrow a DVD player or video camera

you could also check the colours on teletext

watty

The colour should be fine on UPC
fine on SCART. The suggestion about HDMI is nonsense.

In Lucas/THX DVDs there is a setup.
Go to Language settings on the DVD and click on the THX logo (many / most THX labelled DVDs).

Use below setup on a UPC channel, aerial or DVD test cards (or on all)

turn off EVERY extra setting (Cinema, Dynamic, Enhanced what ever)


Make sure no light shining on Screen
Starting settings:
Turn colour to zero
backlight to about 50% (actual setting depends on room lighting)
Turn Brightness to about 50% to 75%
Adjust Contrast so the white shades are not all burnt out to pure White. So you can see the almost grey whites separate from fully white. (likely 50% to 80%)
Now adjust the Brightness so darkest shadow is just about to go black but black is not grey.

Recheck Contrast.

Re-adjust backlight for room lighting. If curtains drawn and only a single uplighter or table lamp then 20% to 45%. If full daylight/bright lights, then maybe 50% to 60%. The 100% is only for direct sunlight.

Now turn up colour looking at flesh tones. White Skin is pale (clue in name?). Not Orange or Pink!

Note that each input and Tuner may store settings separately.

Mike 1972

Sam Russell wrote: »

Poor quality is not acceptable, call them out again. Try the TV an a DVD and see if the picture quality is OK then. Show the UPC guy the DVD and ask him to match it.

Are we sure the problem is UPC here ? If its affecting DVD and Games consoles it sounds more like the TV's. Although the fact that its evident on TWO Samsung* sets is a bit puzzling.

Does the OP have an aerial to check RTE/TG4 (analogue or digital) on.

Are the UPC boxes/games consoles/DVD players set for RGB or composite SCART output.

* While I dont normally go in for brand-based generalisations most recent Samsung stuff should be reasonably Okay

Capt'n Midnight

My SKY box has two video out put settings, PAL and RGB , there is a colour difference between then on the TV

Other sat box also has two output settings , can't remember them off hand

Cantona's Collars

I have compared the picture quality between UPC and Satellite,the UPC picture is inferior but of course the 'UPC MAN' isn't going to admit that.
I have a Samsung set myself connected via HDMI to Sky box and even the SD picture is far superior to UPC.
Can't be a problem with the TV's so I reckon it's UPC's problem.

If the Mammy won't ditch pay tv for freesat why not switch to Sky?

TangyZizzle

Watty, thats a lovely list of things for me to do and Ill definitely be trying all of it when I get the chance.

Zerks, interestingly enough.. a SKY man was at the door the other night. We've had Sky in the past (the distant f*cking past) and got rid of it because of how pricey it was. Now.. as already stated, Mammy Zizzle is a wench. She'll never switch back to Sky because of pure stubbornness, it doesnt matter if Sky is now cheaper AND better, she just wont have it.

Cantona's Collars

Mammy Zizzle must love the UPC 'legovision'-I couldn't bring myself to watching the blocky picture on it.If you still have your old dish up and your skybox in the house reconnect it and check the picture,it will soon tell you if the telly or UPC are the culprits.

10000maniacs

I have UPC HD and Satellite, and the colour through the HDMI is great.

The only gripe I have is the pixelation on UTV. Very poor.