UPC Picture quality

BrianD

I have the UPC branded SD DVR (black) Mediabox and I have to say I'm not entirely satisfied with the picture quality. There's variation from channel to channel but in generally "muddy" and a little washed out. I'm connected via SCART to a Samsung 32" HD set.

Any tips on tweaking or checking the signal quality?

coylemj

Go into settings and make sure the signal being sent to the TV is set to RGB. However regardless of that setting, UTV picture quality is always pretty crap.

djimi

Scart into a HD TV is always going to give a pretty awful picture. It may range from watchable on most channels to dire on the likes of UTV, but its never going to be wonderful.

BrianD

Cheers. Pity these boxes have no HDMI out.

I find that TV3 is particularly bad - the Tonight Show being very noticable.

coylemj

djimi wrote: »

Scart into a HD TV is always going to give a pretty awful picture. It may range from watchable on most channels to dire on the likes of UTV, but its never going to be wonderful.

Totally not true. I have a 42" Philips full HD TV and the PQ on most channels is superb from my non-HD UPC Digital+ box via SCART.

UTV is a notable exception, almost always total crap PQ.

Eamo71

coylemj wrote: »

Totally not true. I have a 42" Philips full HD TV and the PQ on most channels is superb from my non-HD UPC Digital+ box via SCART.

UTV is a notable exception, almost always total crap PQ.

UTV via HDMI is also brutal. It's a UTV issue AFAIK.

BrianD

Mine is noticable poor. Even the text and graphics from the EPG are poor. You can see that they are distorted.

Have set at RGB, widescreen on the box and widescreen on the TV.

djimi

coylemj wrote: »

Totally not true. I have a 42" Philips full HD TV and the PQ on most channels is superb from my non-HD UPC Digital+ box via SCART.

UTV is a notable exception, almost always total crap PQ.

Lucky you. I have a 40" Bravia and the picture quality of the SD channels through HDMI cable ranges from passable to awful. Ive tried it on a few different HD TVs (two other Samsungs) and its pretty much the same on all of them. Its even worse when I use the Scart connection. SD quality picture does not play well with HD TVs; I dont think I have ever once seen an picture quality that I would consider to be anything remotely nearing superb when running any SD signal into a HD TV.

djimi

Eamo71 wrote: »

UTV via HDMI is also brutal. It's a UTV issue AFAIK.

I could be wrong but I thik UTV and possible TV3 transmit in a lower resolution. UTV is borderline unwatchable on my TV.

iDann

djimi wrote: »

I could be wrong but I thik UTV and possible TV3 transmit in a lower resolution. UTV is borderline unwatchable on my TV.

We have perfect quality for UTV and TV3 on a 50"Samsung HDTV through HDMI, it could be a signal for ye? Its perfect here anyway in Cork City!

Piliger

I moved from SKY to UPC a month ago when I moved house. The UPC UTV and RTE pictures are the worst, with obvious pixelation

Kristopherus

Piliger wrote: »

I moved from SKY to UPC a month ago when I moved house. The UPC UTV and RTE pictures are the worst, with obvious pixelation

Are you cable or mmds?

mrbrown69

We've both UPC and Sky connected to a TV.....both bog standard boxes, Pace and Panasonic


difference bewteen the 2 is like night and day, UPC picture quality dull with an almost green hue and the sound has to be upped 5x times compared to what you can get with Sky........went through all the menu settings on both tv and UPC remote, can't seem to get much improvement

Eamo71

iDann wrote: »

We have perfect quality for UTV and TV3 on a 50"Samsung HDTV through HDMI, it could be a signal for ye? Its perfect here anyway in Cork City!

Oh of course it is!

Mountjoy Mugger

Has the OP tried a different SCART? - not a €2 one..

kirving

I got a HD box from UPC today, and the picture quality is worse than the previous SD unit. (Thompson MediaBox?)

The reason for this I believe, is that my TV(a Sony 40") did a far better job at upscaling SD content than the box is capabe of doing. Using the HDMI cable on a SD channel, the TV never gets the chance to upscale, and process the picture, resulting in worse quality. :mad:

Also, I changing the volume on a HD channel has no effect, and I have to use the TV remote.