Non-HD Channels

Hello all,

I wonder if you could tell me why the channels on my tv (all througgh sky) that are not in HD now seem to appear very blurry compared to the ones that are in HD. I know that there is a difference if you flick between the same SD and HD channels but many of the other channels that do not have an HD service all seem to have poor quality pictures.
Surely it cant be that we have got so used to the HD that the difference seems so vast. I certainly don't recall it being that different when we first got it?
The reason I ask is that 'we' (my husband, who feels the same as well) are watching boxing on Boxnation which isnt in hd and the picture quality seems extremely poor.
Is it just down to individual channnels broadcasting methods or could there be something wrong with my telly?

Thank you
Maggie

You haven't given us any clues about connections or settings.

Remove the HDMI cable.
Connect the Sky Digibox to the TV with a Scart cable.
In the Sky "Picture" menu, set the AV output to "RGB" (not "PAL").
How do the SD pictures look now?

I should have mentioned that we tried with just a scart lead previously but not changging to rgb. Just done that (much to hubbys annoyance) with the scatr lead and disconnected the hd lead and it was the same but the hd channels were poor as well. The sky manual says to just use the hd cable if we have hd source and tv so I dont understand how the scart would alter things.
Sorry if I'm being dumb but I'm getting on a bit.

Maggie

Getting the best pictures from a Sky HD box is a messy business. You want a SCART lead connect for the SD channels and a HDMI cable for the HD channels. The SCART output in the Sky box menu needs to be RGB as mentioned above. The menu setting for the HDMI output should be on 1080i. Naturally this means changing inputs on the TV depending on what channel is being watched. That's just too much hard work for most people.

The next best solution is a HDMI only and with the Sky box menu seto to Auto. This way the Sky box will send out a HD signal for just the HD channels. The ordinary channels get a lower resolution signal. There's no channel changing needed on the TV, but the trade-off here is that the Sky box takes a few seconds to swap between SD and HD outputs. Again the few seconds delay is considered too much of an inconvenience by many. The result is that the Sky box gets left in 1080i mode because theres no switching delay and there's a mistaken belief that this somehow makes the stadard definition channels in to HD as well. The fact is that the Sky HD box does a really bad job of converting SD channels to 1080i output. The question is, do you value picture quality enough to press the AV button on your TV every now and then.

Thank you Chris, that has made a difference.

We tried the Automatic setting and just got a little flicker of a black screen when swithcing between SD and HD which would cause no problem really other than getting used to it and there was a little improvement.
We then connected the scart lead as well and put the sky box back to 1080i and tried changing the input on the TV (after dusting off the remote and trying to find the button ) and the picture is much clearer but obviously still not as good as hd. It does take a few moments like you said but I 'think' we can live with that if only when we want to watch some of the channels that appear particularly poor via the HDMI input.

Thank you very much!!
Maggie

Thank you.