poor picture quality on hd tv

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paulrobo

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PaulRobo
Hello, Hope some one can help. I recently invested in a HD tv. I use my PS3 to watch a lot of films and tv episodes. Most of which are in AVI format. I used to do this on my standard def tv too connected via a scart lead. Ever since i connected my ps3 to my new tv with a HDMI cable, the picture does not apear clear at all when watching these files.
The best way that i can describe the picture is that you are watching some dodgy pirate copy of a film that some one has done on a cam sat in the back of a cinema somewhere. I have tried chaging the settings to get a better picture but can not get one that looks good at all.
If i put the files on my lap top and play them then they are fine, if i watch a blu ray film or dvd then that is fine. its just when i play files from the hdd that i can not get a clear picture.
When playing games the pic is crystal clear also.

Any ideas? It is a LG 42" full hd tv (50hz)
 
What quality are the files at is the big questions, because if Blu-Rays look fine on your TV, you likely just have crap DVD rips of movies and shows.
 
paulrobo
i have severall. example one would be a 551mb episode of true bood that looks very poor now
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That show is 1 hour long, correct? A 720p version of an hour long show is generally over 1gb in filesize. Check the resolution on the files and go from there. I also know most shows are being encoded in .mkv formats now rather than .avi for better compression and other bits.
 
Though keep in mind that the PS3 won't play MKV natively, so while the quality is better, the hassle is also greater.


550MB for 44 minutes is actually fairly good as far as quality goes, but that is only true if the rip was done properly in the first place. You can definitely get a pretty good resolution and bitrate out of 11Mb per minute of video. If it was done poorly, however, the movie could be 4GB in size and it would still look like crap when scaled up.
 
Toronado
Though keep in mind that the PS3 won't play MKV natively, so while the quality is better, the hassle is also greater.


550MB for 44 minutes is actually fairly good as far as quality goes, but that is only true if the rip was done properly in the first place. You can definitely get a pretty good resolution and bitrate out of 11Mb per minute of video. If it was done poorly, however, the movie could be 4GB in size and it would still look like crap when scaled up.
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It is an HBO show, so it is a full hour long with credits and intro. Those are at best 480p files, and .avi is going to have some sloppy compression I feel. 1 hour = 1+gb at 720p for most Showtime shows, and the quality difference is obvious.
 
There are some good quality videos out there of episodes which are below 1GB big, but it varies... Finding them in .mkv format is the best way to go for smaller size and better quality compared to .avi. But, obviously, it's still not going to be the same as a 720 or 1080 rip from blu ray.

I use mkv2vob to convert .mkvs to .mpg so the playstation can play them.

I can only think your issue is you are noticing the compression now on the new TV compared to what you had before. Many HDTVs can't play anything other than its native resolution very clearly - it all varies. I had a 6 month old LG before this Samsung (before that broke - had this about 3 months now) and it played lower quality content better than this did. But they'll probably never match the clarity of your old standard definition TV, unless you bump up in video quality.
 
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As others have said it is to do with the resolution of the movie files you have dowloaded. A movie length 1080p with DTS sound is around 7gb so a 500mb file for 1 hour episode is compressed to 1/2 of the resolution, coupled with the fact that the TV episode itself may be lower resolution (anything lower than 720i will show badly on a full HD TV) and you've got a messy picture!
 
Lillee
(anything lower than 720i will show badly on a full HD TV) and you've got a messy picture!
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Not necessarily. My DVD's (480p) look just fine on my 1080p plasma. Not as nice as BluRay's of course, but certainly decent.
 
Compression really spoils things on a large 42" TV i have a Sharp of the same size, I find blu-ray poor quality with large blocks of same colour flickering on and off in backgrounds, this is I beleive because blu-ray is compressed too much to fit on even a 50GB disc. The resolution is good though.
When i watch standard definition live tv the colour is great no pixelated blocks of the same colour, but the resolution is very poor and all the images are undefined.
I find PS3 games are the best for showing HD on a 42" display, apart from GT5 in cloudy/wet skys shows bands of colour, which could be semi-deliberate i think anyway as it's for effect.
A 50GB blu-ray disc is only good for a few minutes of good HD video. We have a long way to go to please the discerning eye.

If you want to test other TV of the same size you should go into a retail store with your chosen video with you and ask to play it on their display models.
I did that with my Blu-ray film (genuine Sony product) and it was poor on their TV as well.
A DVD may look better than a Blu-ray for some people depending on what they pick up on most. Some DVD may be less compressed than Blu-ray. They have less resolution to display so less to compress possibly.
 
Maybe you should try and connect the TV to a laptop/pc and try running a movie from that to check if the problem is in the ps3 running the movie or just the TV in general.
 
wfooshee
The comparison is only useful if the laptop/PC has HD outputs.
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How many laptops and PCs are currently in regular use that CAN'T output HD? You can output 1080p with VGA, let alone DVI or HDMI. I have a Toshiba laptop that I bought for 75 dollars used, at least 6 years ago, that can output HD over VGA.
 
With your AVI files, where are you getting them from? Are you directly ripping them yourself? Otherwise, id be careful discussing the topic of what movies you're watching, it sounds borderline like you're illegally downloading them. :(
 

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