need help with Samsung 46" LCD

Just got a new Samsung 46" LCD HDTV. The HD picture is awesome. The
regular TV channels look lousy. It looks the way a digital photo
looks when you've enlarged it more than 100%. I tried changing the
picture size. When I change it to 4:3 the picture looks really good
but it's squashed in on the sides.

Only other choices are 16:9, Zoom1 and Zoom2.

I have it connected with an HDMI cable.

Is there anything I can do?

Your hookup? Cable, Satellite, OTA?

Regular TV ( SD) is 4:3. That is where you will get your best picture for
SD video.
If you try to make it fill the entire screen it will look exactly like you
described.
In 4:3 mode the reasons the sides are squashed is because it is being
presented
in the same manner as an older SD set presents it. Use 4:3 for non-HD stuff
and you'll
be fine.
james

"Jane" wrote in message
oups.com...
Just got a new Samsung 46" LCD HDTV. The HD picture is awesome. The
regular TV channels look lousy. It looks the way a digital photo
looks when you've enlarged it more than 100%. I tried changing the
picture size. When I change it to 4:3 the picture looks really good
but it's squashed in on the sides.

Only other choices are 16:9, Zoom1 and Zoom2.

I have it connected with an HDMI cable.

Is there anything I can do?

On Feb 27, 7:10 pm, "james" wrote:
Regular TV ( SD) is 4:3. That is where you will get your best picture for
SD video.
If you try to make it fill the entire screen it will look exactly like you
described.
In 4:3 mode the reasons the sides are squashed is because it is being
presented
in the same manner as an older SD set presents it. Use 4:3 for non-HD stuff
and you'll
be fine.
james


I did set it to 4:3 and it is still blurry. I think the problem is
the set is just too damned big for our room. We are sitting only
about 8' from the screen. I told my husband it would be too big but
he just HAD to have it. I will admit, HD looks incredible.

On Feb 27, 7:10 pm, "james" wrote:
Regular TV ( SD) is 4:3. That is where you will get your best picture for
SD video.
If you try to make it fill the entire screen it will look exactly like you
described.
In 4:3 mode the reasons the sides are squashed is because it is being
presented
in the same manner as an older SD set presents it. Use 4:3 for non-HD stuff
and you'll
be fine.
james


I did set it to 4:3 and it is still blurry. I think the problem is
the set is just too damned big for our room. We are sitting only
about 8' from the screen. I told my husband it would be too big but
he just HAD to have it. I will admit, HD looks incredible.

On Feb 27, 5:51 pm, "Steve Cain" wrote:
Your hookup? Cable, Satellite, OTA?

HD DVR cable box

Some people say to sit twice the screen width from the tv to get the best
view. So, 8' is not too bad. The problem could be from your source for
regular tv. Or just a few adjustments needed to be made. I use a 32"
Viewsonic Monitor/HDTV and SD looked crappy on it at first , until I
switched
to Component cables and did a few adjustments. Once I did that, SD really
looked
good. I had started out with just Composite Video cable and L&R audio. That
was
the worst one to use. I never could get it looking acceptable.
So, depending on your source for regular tv, many things could be the
problem.
james



"Jane" wrote in message
oups.com...
I did set it to 4:3 and it is still blurry. I think the problem is
the set is just too damned big for our room. We are sitting only
about 8' from the screen. I told my husband it would be too big but
he just HAD to have it. I will admit, HD looks incredible.

Jane wrote:

I did set it to 4:3 and it is still blurry. I think the problem is
the set is just too damned big for our room. We are sitting only
about 8' from the screen. I told my husband it would be too big but
he just HAD to have it. I will admit, HD looks incredible.

Once you've seen HD, you're never going to be happy with SD again. On your old
SD set, that same broadcast looked OK - mostly because you had nothing better to
compare it with, but also because the old set masked many of the imperfections
of the SD images. The new set shows it all, and that's good news for the HD
broadcasts, but not such good news for the SD.

On 27 Feb 2007 17:20:27 -0800, "Jane"
wrote:

On Feb 27, 7:10 pm, "james" wrote:
Regular TV ( SD) is 4:3. That is where you will get your best picture for
SD video.
If you try to make it fill the entire screen it will look exactly like you
described.
In 4:3 mode the reasons the sides are squashed is because it is being
presented
in the same manner as an older SD set presents it. Use 4:3 for non-HD stuff
and you'll
be fine.
james


I did set it to 4:3 and it is still blurry. I think the problem is
the set is just too damned big for our room. We are sitting only
about 8' from the screen. I told my husband it would be too big but
he just HAD to have it. I will admit, HD looks incredible.

You'll just have to watch HD from now on. If you've got a DVR, you'll
find that there's enough HD to tide you over until everything is HD.

Subscribe to an HD tier that shows some movies, record a lot of stuff.
You'll be fine :-)

On Feb 27, 8:29 pm, "james" wrote:
Some people say to sit twice the screen width from the tv to get the best
view. So, 8' is not too bad. The problem could be from your source for
regular tv. Or just a few adjustments needed to be made. I use a 32"
Viewsonic Monitor/HDTV and SD looked crappy on it at first , until I
switched
to Component cables and did a few adjustments. Once I did that, SD really
looked
good. I had started out with just Composite Video cable and L&R audio. That
was
the worst one to use. I never could get it looking acceptable.
So, depending on your source for regular tv, many things could be the
problem.
james

"Jane" wrote in message

oups.com...

I did set it to 4:3 and it is still blurry. I think the problem is
the set is just too damned big for our room. We are sitting only
about 8' from the screen. I told my husband it would be too big but
he just HAD to have it. I will admit, HD looks incredible.

Right now it's connected via HDMI. I do have the component cables
which aren't supposed to be as good. However I plan to try them
anyway.