TV & Home Theater

[stimpyfla]

ba44 -- don't know if you're still following this thread.  I've got a brand new Mitsubishi Unisen LT-46249 and have the same issue.  Picture on Blu-ray is outstanding but on Comcast digital and HD cable there's blurring in the background when there's moderate to fast motion.  The problem is NOT motion blur and that's why your tru-motion settings won't solve the issue.  Calibrating the set and even HDMI cables won't get rid of the blur either.  The problem IS Comcast.  They are compressing digital and HD signals so they can cram more channels into their existing bandwidth at the expense of picture quality.  The better your TV and the bigger the screen, the more obvious this problem.  Do a Google search on Comcast motion blur.  Three broadcast TV engineers have told me in the past week that this is a growing issue with 1080p sets.  Other than Comcast reducing the compression (which won't happen), they recommend sticking with a 720p set which, due to lower resolution, does a better job handling (masking) the compression artifacts.  They also recommend plasma sets, feeling plasma deals with motion blur (a different issue from ours) better than LCDs.  I am, by no means, an expert, so I can't say if what the engineers told me is valid.  But, I can tell you that my cable looked fine on a 3 year old Toshiba LCD that was 720p.  Now, I'm sitting here with a premium set that sounds fabulous, looks great with Blu-ray but stinks with digital and HD cable.  

[ba44]

Wow! If you're right stimpyfla, that's a pretty depressing diagnosis. I'll definitely check it out. Thanks

[DarkWingDUCK]

I agree with stimpyfla on this, as Comcast has been known for compressing their HD signals.  Sadly, I believe that the majority of TV companies such as Comcast, Direc TV, and AT&T are all guilty of this, as I have owned all three services and had the same issue regarding them all.  If you youtube the show "HD Nation", one of the hosts explains in one episode that watching Casino Royale on Blu ray 1080P is far superior than watching it on Direc TV 1080p broadcast, evidence he used was the opening chase scene where some gas tanks explode up at the camera.  In blu ray it comes across clear, whereas the DTV broadcast WAS in HD, but the flames from the blast on screen caused artifacts around the action.  TV companies just dont have the bandwidth that blu rays do, and i'll admit that i've seen some HD NFL football games look better off and antenna than they did of a TV service (with the exception of monday night football on EPSN), which seems to have a steller image compared to the other HD channels.  You'll also find pretty top notch HD broadcasts off HDNet as well, but other than that you will notice artifacts in your picture on fast moving images, especially sports.

[stimpyfla]

DarkWingDUCK is absolutely correct about ESPN, which broadcasts at 720p.  And this is why those TV engineers told me they prefer 720p sets -- they mask the compression better than sets with higher resolutions. 

[Entropy]

Wait... Blurring in the background during sports?

That's just how photography works...  Sometimes, regardless of whether compression was applied, there is going to be blur in fast motion.  To get the low shutter speeds required to eliminate motion blur, the videographer would have to boost ISO sensitivity, which increases noise.  It's a tradeoff - image noise or blur.

[ba44]

It's not just blurring in the background. During much of the game, nothing appears to be in focus. Maybe that was happening on my old 27-inch HDTV, too, but it was easier to ignore, given the screen size.

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Entropy wrote:

Wait... Blurring in the background during sports?

That's just how photography works...  Sometimes, regardless of whether compression was applied, there is going to be blur in fast motion.  To get the low shutter speeds required to eliminate motion blur, the videographer would have to boost ISO sensitivity, which increases noise.  It's a tradeoff - image noise or blur.

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[Entropy]

Ok that could be compression, although usually excessive compression results in artifacting that is different from blur, called "macroblocking".

Might have been that whoever was operating the camera just wasn't focusing properly.

[stimpyfla]

Entropy makes some very valid points about camera focus.  However, in my case, I know the issue is Comcast compresion because I just finished an experiment.  My neighbor brought over his 46" 1080p Samsung LCD and put it on my cable (which worked fine with my old Toshiba 720p LCD.  The Sammy showed even worse compresion artifacts than my new Mitsy -- blur, white speckles and macroblocking.  A good friend then brought over his 50" 720p Panasonic plasma (an older set).  The compression artifacts where hardly visible, you had to be within a foot of the screen to see it.  Once again, if the source has an issue, any set with higher resolution is going to show it (to some degree).  I suspect ba44 has the same situation I do and I guess at this point I'll just have to live with it.