Disappointed: digital TV is too noisy and too chalky

The Thomson DHD4000 which I received yesterday is great. But the *noise*
it makes... is this really acceptable for a device that goes in
someone's sitting-room? I can hear what sounds like a fan as well as the
disk drive. It's louder than my old VCR was under playback. I can hear
it across the room. One of the reasons I chose the Thomson model was
that people had commented unfavourably about the noise of the Pace and
Humax machines. Perhaps mine has a faulty fan/drive, except it doesn't
sound faulty, just loud.

I think also that digital TV is quite weird to watch. All surfaces look
like they've been rendered in chalk, smoothed out, like the portraits
pavement artists make. It's especially noticable on skin. Everyone looks
as though they've had a bit of a face lift. I can live with that, I
guess, but I am somewhat taken aback that this is what digital TV looks
like.

Daniele
--
Apple Juice Ltd
Chapter Arts Centre
Market Road www.apple-juice.co.uk
Cardiff CF5 1QE 029 2019 0140

"D.M. Procida" wrote in
message
...
(snip)
I think also that digital TV is quite weird to watch. All surfaces look
like they've been rendered in chalk, smoothed out, like the portraits
pavement artists make. It's especially noticable on skin. Everyone looks
as though they've had a bit of a face lift. I can live with that, I
guess, but I am somewhat taken aback that this is what digital TV looks
like.

Is your set a 100Hz processed beast ?
They've always looked that hideous to me and I don't think many
professionals like them either.
Mike Davison.

(D.M. Procida) wrote:
The Thomson DHD4000 which I received yesterday is great. But the *noise*
it makes... is this really acceptable for a device that goes in
someone's sitting-room? [...]

Not if it's louder than a VCR, I think.

I think also that digital TV is quite weird to watch. All surfaces look
like they've been rendered in chalk, [...]

I don't see that at all. Maybe your box has a fault or it's just a poor
model. Shame :-/

D.M. Procida wrote:
Perhaps mine has a faulty fan/drive, except it doesn't
sound faulty, just loud.

Might be worth checking with another box to make sure. All PVRs make
some noise because of the disk drive, and often they have a fan
(although in general it's either very quiet or not on all the time) -
after all, they're basically computers.

I think also that digital TV is quite weird to watch. All surfaces look
like they've been rendered in chalk, smoothed out, like the portraits
pavement artists make. It's especially noticable on skin. Everyone looks
as though they've had a bit of a face lift. I can live with that, I
guess, but I am somewhat taken aback that this is what digital TV looks
like.

The kind of thing you're seeing are compression artefacts, and are
present on all digital platforms to varying degrees. That particular
artefact you tend to see on wide areas of the same colour with small
shading differences - closeups of faces are one such area, but skiing
coverage is worse (lots of white with slight shadows).

Digital Terrestrial is currently a bit squeezed into limited bandwidth
and the bit rates are a bit low compared to digital cable or digital
satellite, so it's more noticable on DTT - however, you do get used to
it, and come the analogue switchoff in 2012 (or whenever it actually
happens) there may be more bandwidth given to it.

Do you have a 100Hz TV? They're known for making the artefacts appear
worse.

--
Angus Rae,
EUCS, Science & Engineering Support
University of Edinburgh
The above opinions are mine, and Edinburgh Uni can't have them

J.Michael Davison wrote:

I think also that digital TV is quite weird to watch. All surfaces look
like they've been rendered in chalk, smoothed out, like the portraits
pavement artists make. It's especially noticable on skin. Everyone looks
as though they've had a bit of a face lift. I can live with that, I
guess, but I am somewhat taken aback that this is what digital TV looks
like.

Is your set a 100Hz processed beast ?

I'm not sure what that means. The TV is a Phillips 17" LCD - I'm not
aware of having paid for anything special.

Daniele
--
Apple Juice Ltd
Chapter Arts Centre
Market Road www.apple-juice.co.uk
Cardiff CF5 1QE 029 2019 0140

D.M. Procida wrote:
The Thomson DHD4000 which I received yesterday is great. But the *noise*
it makes... is this really acceptable for a device that goes in
someone's sitting-room? I can hear what sounds like a fan as well as the
disk drive. It's louder than my old VCR was under playback. I can hear
it across the room. One of the reasons I chose the Thomson model was
that people had commented unfavourably about the noise of the Pace and
Humax machines. Perhaps mine has a faulty fan/drive, except it doesn't
sound faulty, just loud.

I think also that digital TV is quite weird to watch. All surfaces look
like they've been rendered in chalk, smoothed out, like the portraits
pavement artists make. It's especially noticable on skin. Everyone looks
as though they've had a bit of a face lift. I can live with that, I
guess, but I am somewhat taken aback that this is what digital TV looks
like.

Daniele
I had a DHD4000 briefly - great picture and audio, but the unit was so
noisy and ran so hot I returned it (not helped by the fact that it kept
on loosing all of the stored channels) for a refund. Why PVRs don't spin
down their disks when in standby is beyond me. Anyway, you could have a
faulty box, but equally the picture that you describe could be down to a
setting on your display - too much digital processing does that. I had
to turn-off all of the processing on my JVC LCD panel - once I'd sorted
that I got a pretty good picture from a Philips 1500 Freeview box.

Personally, I don't think that the DHD4000 is ready for primetime yet -
too many issues for my liking.


Clem

(D.M. Procida) wrote:

The Thomson DHD4000 which I received yesterday is great. But the *noise*
it makes... is this really acceptable for a device that goes in someone's
sitting-room? I can hear what sounds like a fan as well as the disk drive.
It's louder than my old VCR was under playback. I can hear it across the
room. One of the reasons I chose the Thomson model was that people had
commented unfavourably about the noise of the Pace and Humax machines.
Perhaps mine has a faulty fan/drive, except it doesn't sound faulty, just
loud.

The DHD4000 is acoustically noisy, like a computer. The drive is on ALL the
time and the fan.
Good news is there's an over the air update this month which should quieten
it, and switch off the fan when not in use (allegedly
I must confess I found the noisy too much and replaced the drive and the fan
with a 2.5" drive. (thus nullifying the warranty BTW)

I think also that digital TV is quite weird to watch. All surfaces look
like they've been rendered in chalk,

It must be your Philips LCD, looks excellent here. I take it you're using
RGB in to the TV.
Also check that there's no 'processing' of picture going on by the Philips.

Check out ..

http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/...&page=58&pp=25

Clem Dye wrote in message ...
D.M. Procida wrote:
The Thomson DHD4000 which I received yesterday is great. But the *noise*
it makes... is this really acceptable for a device that goes in
someone's sitting-room? I can hear what sounds like a fan as well as the
disk drive. It's louder than my old VCR was under playback. I can hear
it across the room. One of the reasons I chose the Thomson model was
that people had commented unfavourably about the noise of the Pace and
Humax machines. Perhaps mine has a faulty fan/drive, except it doesn't
sound faulty, just loud.


I had a DHD4000 briefly - great picture and audio, but the unit was so
noisy and ran so hot I returned it (not helped by the fact that it kept
on loosing all of the stored channels) for a refund. Why PVRs don't spin
down their disks when in standby is beyond me. Anyway, you could have a
faulty box, but equally the picture that you describe could be down to a
setting on your display - too much digital processing does that. I had
to turn-off all of the processing on my JVC LCD panel - once I'd sorted
that I got a pretty good picture from a Philips 1500 Freeview box.

Personally, I don't think that the DHD4000 is ready for primetime yet -
too many issues for my liking.


Had a DHD4000 for about 3 months now, wouldn't be without it. Noise
isn't a problem, temperature certainly isn't now that the weather has
cooled off, and it has never lost my channels. I have experienced one
crash, but that was in the first week when I was pushing all of the
buttons all of the time.....

I would disagree that the DHD4000 isn't ready for primetime - mine
certainly is! Even my Dad could use it, and that is saying something!

Matt

"D.M. Procida" wrote in
message
...
The Thomson DHD4000 which I received yesterday is great. But the *noise*
it makes... is this really acceptable for a device that goes in
someone's sitting-room? I can hear what sounds like a fan as well as the
disk drive. It's louder than my old VCR was under playback. I can hear
it across the room. One of the reasons I chose the Thomson model was
that people had commented unfavourably about the noise of the Pace and
Humax machines. Perhaps mine has a faulty fan/drive, except it doesn't
sound faulty, just loud.

I suspect some early Humax boxes had a fan, before the thermal issues were
resolved, and this was a cause for some early complaints. New boxes only
have the disk drive, which may vary in noise levels. Mine is only
noticeable when the TV sound is off - it's certainly much quieter in
operation than a VCR.

Some people have suggested cushioning the unit from its supporting shelf, to
reduce the noise.

Maybe Thomson haven't yet found a way to re-engineer the box without a fan.




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D.M. Procida wrote:
The Thomson DHD4000 which I received yesterday is great. But the *noise*
it makes... is this really acceptable for a device that goes in
someone's sitting-room? I can hear what sounds like a fan as well as the
disk drive. It's louder than my old VCR was under playback. I can hear
it across the room. One of the reasons I chose the Thomson model was
that people had commented unfavourably about the noise of the Pace and
Humax machines. Perhaps mine has a faulty fan/drive, except it doesn't
sound faulty, just loud.

I got no idea where you got the idea that a Humax is noisy.
Mine is silent, I got to put my ear next to it to hear anything.
The only problem with the Humax is that it has only one tuner.

If any equipment that is for for sound or video makes too much noise,
then it is a problem.
MY DVD recorder makes a bit of noise due to the fan, but it is not that
loud.


I think also that digital TV is quite weird to watch. All surfaces look
like they've been rendered in chalk, smoothed out, like the portraits
pavement artists make. It's especially noticable on skin. Everyone looks
as though they've had a bit of a face lift. I can live with that, I
guess, but I am somewhat taken aback that this is what digital TV looks
like.


TBH, digital T.v is crap compared to analouge.


I


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