Poor Sky SD (& HD) picture quality

donjuandejohn

Hi, I searched around for this but couldn't find very much recent information and am new to posting.

I recently got Sky installed (Amstrad HD box) with basic SD package. I think the picture quality is really poor, the best way to describe it is is that everything seems to be a little bit out of focus (especially on long/ wide shots - everything in the background seems really out of focus), and faces seem to have a blue tint off them. Text on screen isn't very sharp at all. Also any reds are almost blown away. It's like watching a highly compressed rip of a dvd. Live shows such as RTE news or Vincent Brown (terrible set colours to set up a tv against:D) are the worst.

The free HD channels are better but quite 'noisey' (I can only describe it like digital photgraph noise - kind of speckled). The signal strength is quite high (70%+ from memory). Live and recorded tv - makes no difference. I even tried recording 2 channels at the same time to ensure it wasn't just one of the coax feeds.

I hooked up my old bottom of the range freesat HD (Bush) box and the picture quality is unquestionably better on the same channels (The 2nd engineer Sky sent out completely agreed with me (especially about BBC HD) but said he could do nothing for me. The 1st engineer sky sent out (original installer) recommended I buy a Humax box and cancel sky (I had played a little dumb - I have a fair bit of experience in dish installation).

The 1st guy replaced the box with another amstrad (I was there for that) to no avail, the 2nd guy told me he did - I wasn't there to see.

I've tried everything (changed contrast/ picture settings etc. having read on old posts about a contrast issue on certain boxes).

Right now I've set up the tv (a 4 year old samsung, but I don't think thats the problem - other boxes are all good, including my sister's Samsung sky box (black)) with really low contrast and med-highish brightness to be able to see the picture without getting bands of shading across dark colours, but when I switch over to the freesat box or an N+ Polish SD & HD box I have to use totally different settings (the polish box is connected a different dish of course) - higher contrast and lower brightness.

I've tried HDMI output (all auto, SD and HD output settings), scart and RF feed to the tv. The only thing I haven't tried is this box on another tv.

Has anybody come across this? I'm tempted to argue to get out of my contract (9 or 10 months left) and go back to freesat with DVB-T coming through the polish box along with a few english HD channels.

Any suggestions are really welcome! Thanks

John mac

connect it only with the hdmi.

ensure the sky box is set to output via hdmi and to 1080i.

what is the model number of the samsung?

donjuandejohn

Thanks, I tried that. I tired HDMI alone (multiple cables tried), etc. I have it set to 720 as thats the resolution of my tv (it seems to give the best picture).

I managed to find the system menu of the tv last night (Samsung LE32R51B) and started playing with the sub contrast in the white balance menu. I both upped and downed it and played around with individual RGB settings but the best was back to the factory default settings.

Everything else I connect to the tv (Polish receiver (HDMI or scart), Lidl receiver, DVD HDD (HDMI or scart), multimedia HD player (HDMI or component), blu ray (laptop) through HDMI, laptop through pc cable, use a different contrast and brightness setting to the sky box (all use the same settings - much higher contrast and much lower brightness) to get a perfect (for the tv) picture. The Sky box is brutal.

donjuandejohn

I did a bit of searching and found this on the Sky help forum



http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-HD-Sky-3D/Re-response-to-quot-message-to-malcolm-or-Robert-please-quot/td-p/43323


Its about contrast and gamma - does anyone have any info on this?

John mac

not heard anything about that before.

have you got a dvd player connected?

if you have you can use the thx optimiser that can be found on some discs. (monsters inc, star wars, are 2)off the top of my head. to set the contrast,white balance and colour .

donjuandejohn

Thanks, I'll give it a go. I think I skipped past it on a star wars disc once.

I don't think it will help though - it will be great for setting up the dvd player and anything else that isn't the sky box. It's only the sky box that I have a problem with.

But it will come in handy for the setup of all the other boxes.:D

I was watching some rubbish last night that had very dark images - it was like looking at an old geography map from the leaving cert - bands of colours across the screen from lighter to darker.


I'll try to figure out how to take a screen shot and post it vs the freesat box.

I guess I can't complain too much _ I got €100 back from fatcheese the other day for my subscription!

John mac

it will let you calibrate the tv.

using the same settings should give you a good pic from the sky box..

fanningg

did u ever get a resolution ?
just signed up to sky and getting similiar problem with sky hd+ box

icdg

We don't drag up old threads