V+ : What HD setting

[Hornet]

My install man said today that I shpould use the 720 wide setting as best box supports (V+ HD old style not Samsung) Yet tv is 1080. Is he correct?

Thanks

[fixerman]

Best thing is to experiment and settle for what you find best suits you. There are too many issues about upscaling to give a definitive answer.

[Stephen]

On the older V+ the menus can look terrible when set to 1080 so it can be best to set to 720. Although tbh there isn't really that much difference between the two.

[mersey70]

The BBC HD Test Card seemed to be more defined on 1080i to my eye, the grey columns with the gradually thinning vertical lines seem more defined but not by much.

It's handy to have a recording of this testcard, they broadcast it every couple of hours during the off air preview so maybe take a look and have a mess with the settings on the box and maybe TV too.

[Lew]

Bear in mind that 720 Wide and 1080 Wide will stretch non-widescreen programmes (on SD channels only) to the width of the screen so everyone will look short and fat. HD channels will show non-widescreen programmes with black bars (or sometimes bars branded by the channel like on the ESPN channels) at the sides. Using the non-wide versions of the HD options will continue this behaviour on non-HD channels for non-widescreen material.

[TheDon]

Yeah, don't use the wide settings unless you want stretcho vision.
If your tv is 1080p use the 1080 setting.
Using 720 you'd be downscaling the 1080i broadcast to 720, the your tv will be upscaling it to 1080, which would introduce a hell of a lot of artifacting.
SD content is similar, setting the box to 720 would mean upscaling it first to 720, then again to 1080, whereas setting it to 1080 just upscales it the once.

More transformations = less quality.