I need some HDTV help please

[Kalou]

I just got my Samsung 26" HDTV today and well, it's not even good letalone HD, it's a LE26R7. I used the cable I bought from play that is the Official XBox 360 Component HD AV Cable and while the xbox does recognise it's in HD mode it's not really HD quality.

Is there anything else I need? my dad was going on about some HDMI cable, would this help?

Another problem is my telewest digital, the picture quality has always been crap and it's even worse on this HDTV, has anyone had this before? it's the exact same downstairs also meaning it has to be something to do with the telewest box.

I seriously need help, I ain't spending £800 on something that looks the same as my old TV that cost £150.

Thanks :)

[mjmaskrey]

First off make sure your using the component Y Pb Pr (teh red, green, blue RCA plugs) connectors and that the cable is switched to HD and not SD.

Then when you're looking at your 360 running on the TV's component channel, press the 'info' button on your remote and it should display the resolution it's currently running in...should be the same as you set in the dashboard.

I have the Samsung LE32 and the quality is outstanding...so much so I'm buying a smaller one aswell when I have the cash.

You're NTL/Telewest signal should be good providing you're using a fully wired scart cable, it's connected to the TV out on the cable box (not VCR out) so that it carries RGB...and then make sure that in the Cable box's settings you select the output as RGB.

Terrestrial TV will look like dogsheet regardless of what you do but everything else should look good to brilliant.

:)

[Kalou]

Thanks for the reply mate..

Everything that you suggested has already been done sadly, well apart from the resolution which I will do just now, but everything else is as you said.

My TV picture was perfect before I got this crap telewest digital so they are obviously giving me a crap box, which is a joke considering I am paying £60 a month for a picture that looks rubbish.

Now I put the dpi on 1080i which I don't think even works on the xbox but it seems to look alot better, and when I check the resolution it says 1920x1080i 60hz.

And are you supposed to see something like JPG compression when you go close to the TV?

[mjmaskrey]

As long as signal output is matching the LCD's native resolution there's shouldn't be any compression/expansion....it should look amazing.

Some games do not support 1080i, just 720p (which I prefer anyway), and movies definitely don't so if the resolution is different you're going to get compression/picture expansion to fit the LCD's native resolution....which then compromises the quality.

:)

[Kalou]

I'll be honest, it does look good now but it does murder my eyes, when I play that and turn around to play the pc it's murder, maybe I will give it a day or two for my eyes to get used to it, at the moment it's kinda hard looking at the TV.

My dad is getting a HDMI cable from telewest so hopefully that should increase the quality of the tv but I will see what happens in the next few days, anyway thanks for the help :)