TiVo : Tivo picture quality. Again.

[Picto]

The debate about tivo picture quality has raged on here since launch.

I work in the community and loads of people have sky. On old CRT tv's and boxes under 32" the picture quality is perfect. Last weekend i watched sky on my bird's old man's 50" Sony Bravia. HD channels were perfect but the SD channels were absolutely attrocious. I mean, really awful. I have an LG 42" and with tivo all SD channels are watchable (unless you are a nature documentary buff).

I think the perceived defect with tivo's picture quality is nothing to do with the PVR and more about tv manufactures forcing you to upgrade your set sooner than necessary and sky/vm trying to get higher subs by making customers upgrade to costlier HD packages due to the fact they are deliberately making SD poorer to watch on bigger screens.

[alwaysabear]

In my experience I have found watching SD channels on 42" LCD and Plasma TV's, plasma handles sd quality resolutions much better than LCD.

[jb66]

When you stretch an image it becomes distorted, on a 50 sd should be pretty poor unless there is good upscalling

[DaMac]

Some top tv sets offer really good upscaling, better than the boxes (most don't) it's a shame that the V+, V HD and Tivo don't have a native output setting so that tv's (and amps) with really good scaling can scale the (576i) sd pictures whilst the box will still output 1080i on HD channels.

[arcimedes]

One thing that should also be taken into account is the viewing distance. Downstairs we have a 32in LCD which is now viewed at approx 14 feet and I have noticed that I cant see much difference between SD and HD. The 37in LCD upstairs is viewed at about 6 feet and the difference is noticeable. A viewing distance guide is given here.

[Mr K]

SD just isn't as good on TiVo.

I noticed straight away when 'upgrading' from the V+. On my 32" I could hardly tell the difference between SD/HD with the V+. I can tell the difference with TiVo. It's not bad but even Freeview has better PQ for SD.