Blu-Ray Quality Bad On Our TV??

[dorlow]

Hi,

I'm really getting annoyed of the quality of image we're getting from Blu-Ray. Here's our setup. Our TV is a 1080p Sony KDL-40S4100. We have a Sony Blu-Ray player (BDP-S350.) Well this is how it started out. Until about a few hours ago, we had a Samsung BD-P1200.

The problem we're having is that the picture quality is really bad. Our couch is about 10 feet away from the TV. During some scenes (some movies more than others,) you can see the individual pixels on the whole screen even when sitting as far away as the couch. It looks like when you take a picture with a digital camera in low light with an APS (I think that's what it's called) really high, at like 800 or so. The picture is really grainy. It looks worse than DVD did on our old tube TV... way worse. It looks like a bad tape quality.

So, when we got the Samsung, I had component cables to hook it up. It looked bad as described. I tried upgrading the firmware and no improvement. I then switched out the component cables with an HDMI cable. Still didn't look any better. (I did go into the DVD setup and select 1080p output from the DVD player on the Samsung and the Sony.) So, the only thing I could figure is the Samsung was faulty. We just bought a brand new Sony BDP-S350. Same exact problem. Everything has been switched out other than the TV. I've tried switching the HDMI port I'm plugged into (even though component video had the same problem.) Same problem.

I talked to a sales person at Meijer and he had a good idea too. He said to go into the DVD setup and change it from 1080p to 1080i and move it down to see if maybe there's a compatibility issue with the TV and DVD player at 1080p. Didn't help or make it worse. It's the same.

We have Comcast HD Cable. The HD cable is using component cables and the highest it displays is 1080i. It looks perfect. I've never noticed distortion in the video in either regular over the air or on-demand video.

Maybe I'm being too picky. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make it look better?

Sincerely,

David

[JasonR]

Have you calibrated your TV? Turn your sharpness all of the way down to start off with...

[Midnightsailor]

Calibration was the first thing that popped into my head as I was reading this. Blu-ray shouldn't look as bad as you are saying it does. If nothing else works, I'd say its your tv that needs the replacement. Why don't you post some pics of what you are talking about? It will be helpful.

[brett_day]

me thinks are are seeing film grain! film grain is far more noticable to us on blu rays compared to DVD's! see this thread and see if it is like your problem

http://www.ps3forums.com/showthread.php?t=55880

[dorlow]

Here's a link to an image from our TV...

http://orlowfamily.com/wp-gallery/Bl...m/dvdimage.jpg

Most images are very similar to this. It does seem to be worse in darker images or faster images. I have a hard time believing this is acceptable. I know it isn't the TV that's the problem because our HD cable doesn't have the problem. I've swapped out everything else. I don't know what's wrong.

[dorlow]

Here's a screenshot of what it looks like...

http://orlowfamily.com/wp-gallery/Bl...m/dvdimage.jpg

I read the articles that say that the director might have meant for it to be there or that they can't do anything about it because it's recorded to film and the chemical process puts it there. I guess it sort of makes sense because the video looks terrible and the main menus or, for instance when watching the transformers and it's a scene that was obviously all computers created, it looks perfect. I just feel like we down graded from DVDs because DVDs seem to look perfect all the time. I still don't understand though why the HD Cable doesn't seem to have this problem at all. I work for a company that installs video equipment for commercial companies. I'm a computer tech there so I deal almost nothing with video stuff but there's a few people that work there that are brilliant with configuring video systems so I'll raise the question to them too.

[Driver_King]

I just turned down the sharpness on my TV from 75 to about 20. Sharpness makes a huge difference in PQ.

[brett_day]

just have to find out where 0 sharpness is on your set....sounds crazy right? well i know on the panasonic viera's 0 is actually 50....might want to look that up for your particular set

[dorlow]

Ok, Here's an example of the graininess...

http://orlowfamily.com/wp-gallery/Bl...m/dvdimage.jpg

I have a hard time believing this is HD quality. I did read the stuff about being filmed on film which inheritantly gets grainy. It makes sense because the menus and animation looks perfect. But it feels like I spent a lot of money to take a downgrade in video quality by upgrading (or downgrading in my eyes now) from DVDs to blu-ray. And it still doesn't make sense why our HD Cable doesn't have this problem.

[JasonR]

Turn down your sharpness, it makes grain look so bad.

[brett_day]

calibrate your tv. what settings are you running right now?

[dorlow]

vivid --> standard
backlight --> was at 10 highest --> changed to 5
picture --> 80 of 100
brightness --> 50 of 100
color 50 of 100
hue 0 (middle)
color temp neutral
sharpness 15 (max 30)
noise reduction was low --> changing to high

I made the changes above so I'll have to see how that helps.

[dorlow]

Although I did find in my menu for the TV an option for noise reduction... I turned that on high also.

[JasonR]

Turn sharpness down to like 5 and leave noise reduction off. Vivid is a terrible setting, I bet this makes it better.

[brett_day]

actually noise reduction settings will make your pic worse, i would turn those features off all together

also any setting with the word vivid is cause for concern. Vivid settings usually introduce noise into the picture

[dred]

try these settings for a kdl-40s3000


* Picture Modes
o Picture Mode : Cinema
o Color Temperature : Warm 2
o Aspect Ratio : Full
* Picture Settings
o Backlight : 4
o Picture (Contrast) : 80
o Brightness : 53
o Color : 45
o Hue : R2
o Sharpness : 5
* Advanced Settings
o Noise Reduction : Off
o MPEG NR : Off
o Black Corrector : Off
o Advanced CE : Off
o Gamma : Off
o Clear White : Off
o Color Space : Normal
o Live Color : Off
* Video Options
o Cinemotion : Auto

[Midnightsailor]

Yeah... definitely turn vivid, noise reduction, and any other "extra setting" off. Your brightness is your black level and your contrast is your white level. It's best to get your tv professionally calibrated or with a calibration disc, but you can get a better image with your eye. Just make sure blacks are deep and whites are white (without making everything blown out).

Edit: as for color, make sure your tv's warm setting is on as this is the closest to 6500K. Also, freeze frame a close-up of someone's face and make sure the skin tones are as close to accurate as possible without too much red.

[dorlow]

So far, I tried all the suggestions JasonR had and so far so good. I'll have to watch it for a little bit and see how it goes.

[thebluemax]

Even when I use some wrong settings on my Pioneer Kuro Elite, Blu-Rays always look outstanding.

[Midnightsailor]

Originally Posted by thebluemax

Even when I use some wrong settings on my Pioneer Kuro Elite, Blu-Rays always look outstanding.

Enough said. lol