New TV problems

[Zappit]

I just got a new Panasonic Viera LCD television, and I've got a big problem with the picture quality - it looks blurry, and the adjustments in the menus don't seem to be helping. This thing looked sharp and bright in the store, and nowhere near that at home.

Any ideas on what to try? Do I need to get a better HDMI cable? I read something about an SCART, but don't know what that is. I really don't know what to do to fix this, so any ideas would be appreciated.

Edit - figured it out. Didn't have it set to the HDMI cable. Bleh. Mods can delete this thread.

 

[PatrThom]

Ayep. Sounds like you got some 480 in yer 1080p.

--Patrick

 

[Eriol]

Btw, remember that a "better" HDMI cable is a total crock. HDMI is digital, which means that it either 100% works, or 100% fails. I've never encountered anything in-between. The $5 cable will work the same as the $200 "brand-name" cable.

 

[strawman]

Btw, remember that a "better" HDMI cable is a total crock. HDMI is digital, which means that it either 100% works, or 100% fails. I've never encountered anything in-between. The $5 cable will work the same as the $200 "brand-name" cable.

Unfortunately that's not true. The HDMI signal degrades gracefully, which means that when a corrupt packet gets through it only affects the picture a little, and the corruption is spread throughout the picture. This means that with 10% signal degradation you can still get reasonable picture and audio, although it looks noisy.

This happened to me recently when I tried installing HDMI in the wall and had three cables (two 12 foot, one 35 foot) and two cable-cable connectors in the signal path. Little noisy dots appeared all over the screen - distracting at 720p, and noticeable at 1080i. Removed one connector and one 12 foot cable and all was well. If you are moving 1080p or 3D data then the cable becomes even more important as the bandwidth is doubled.

I recommend buying the cheapest cable that will meet your length needs, then only purchasing a more expensive cable if you notice problems. Generally you won't have an issue with the $5 cable if you don't use additional cables and connectors, but in some cases you will, and it won't be obvious that it it's the cable until you replace it.

 

[Bowielee]

Yeah, you don't really want to exceed 12 feet on an HDMI cable. Signal loss starts to happen.

There is digital breakup that happens when the stream isn't running to capacity. It will work, but you will get artifacts. Usually in the form of boxing in the image.

Also, Zappit, we will not have this thread deleted. Your technological fail shame will be everlasting!