Distorted tv picture from AV receiver

ikoonman

Hi

I was hoping someone could give me some advice. I am a slight novice when it comes to AV setup but have enough technical background to make it all work. I recently bought a Sony STR DH810 and I am trying to connect all my gear (Sky PVR, WII, PS3 etc) into the Sony. The Sky decoder (its the non-HD version, so no HDMI output), my HTPC and WII connects to my Sony with RCA connectors. The only exception is the PS3, which connects to the Sony with an HDMI cable. From the SONY I connect with a HDMI cable to my TV (Samsung PS42A451P1).

The PS3 image on the TV is spectacular. The problem is everything else looks slighty distorted. The Sky EPG appears to have a slight "ghost" shadow, which also appears to "flicker", and at times viewing channels it appears that the video has parts that appears to be distorted - as if its pixelated. Channel logos and text sometimes appear almost illegible. Overall its not really that bad, just enough to annoy me. When I connect the Sky RCA directly to the TV, its fine. So my guess is that its got something todo with the Sony AV unit. I've tried playing around with the Video settings (resolution for upscaling set to 1080p at the moment), but I don't know what else to do. Is it possible that it has something todo with the HDMI cables?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Idleater

When you say you connect the sky via rca, I presume you mean the yellow red white cables?
If so that's one of the worst video signal transfer method. Try switching off all scaling on the avr to see if at least you can get a plain composite signal to the tv as it appears from your testing that the tv is doing a better job at upscaling the signal than the avr.

If you want to improve the signal quality, you could try s-video.

ikoonman

Idleater wrote: »

When you say you connect the sky via rca, I presume you mean the yellow red white cables?

My apologies for not clearing this up - yes - this is exactly what I use.

Idleater wrote: »

Try switching off all scaling on the avr to see if at least you can get a plain composite signal to the tv as it appears from your testing that the tv is doing a better job at upscaling the signal than the avr.

I've been fiddling with various settings and it doesn't not appear that I can actually turn this off, apart from setting the resolution. Maybe I am missing something.

Idleater wrote: »

If you want to improve the signal quality, you could try s-video.

I suppose I want everything to go through the Sony, but it doesn't have any S-VIDEO connectors as far as I recall. I will have a look again.

Idleater

Indeed you are quite right about the s-video.

One other option for you is to get a scart to hdmi converter. Though quite expensive, they will provide the same RGB 576p quality that the skybox would send to the TV on its own.

ZENER

You're going to need to invest in some decent connectors I think.

Your amp has component inputs. The Wii can be fitted with a component cable with the audio via an optical or RCA phono pair. Huge improvement in picture quality this way. As said above Composite is $h!te - end of !

I'm not sure if the component inputs will accept RGB + Component or are exclusively Component but it does route through to another Component that I'm sure your TV can accept. Maybe someone else familiar with the amp can clarify this point. If it can then the Sky box will connect using RGB to the amp. Otherwise a SCART directly from the Sky unit to the TV is far more desirable ! Does the Sky box support component does anyone know ? My old one doesn't but perhaps the newer ones do ?

Hope this helps.

Ken