Just got a new TV, namely an LG 42LM620T. It's a nice set but I'm not sure I'm convinced by the image quality...HD's pretty good but SD seems to vary a lot, from OK to not great.

I've been poking around on AV forums and it seems there are some things to try with regards to the settings but I was wondering (probably a long shot!) if anyone else had one of these?

Or if you have a different TV of the same sort of size/spec, what has your impression been of it's ability to display SD? Was it a real WOW factor when you switched on?

What are you using for your source of tv? I.e. virgin media v+, tivo, sky plus or freeview? I have a LG 42" led tv and you can tell the difference between Sd and hd sources but most Sd is good, this is u using a virgin tivo box. Using the original virgin v+ box the Sd channels varied in quality quite a bit.

Hope this helps.

Rob

What size TV did you have before, if it was say around 32" then going bigger will hightlight the major issues with digital SD television. SD is heavily compressed, so the bigger the TV the more obvious the compression artefacts. This is even more noticeable if you sit close to the TV. Some channels are more compressed than others, so will look a lot worse.

HD on the other hand looks ok now, however over recent years HD is becoming more compressed and going the same way. In the early days of HD, the transmission bitrate of some channels was more than double the current bitrate and the difference between then and now is very obvious. I have a recording of the same show, on the same channel, the first was recorded about 3 years ago, and second more recently. During several scenes you can see compression artefacts on the later recording which you cannot see on the older recording.

Sadly UK TV seems to be a case of quantity over quality, ie. lets make as much money as possible by sacrificing picture quality and squeeze as many channels in as possible. If they were to dump some of the endless shopping channels, dating channels etc. the bitrate could be increased which would improve picture quality.

The bit rate varies hugely between channels. A new program on BBC1 should look good even on SD but most of the minor channels will look ****e.

You do need to spend some time tweaking the settings though. It took me a while to get my Sony looking right, plus the picture quality does seem to improve after a week or so. Whether that's the tv being run in or your eyes adjusting is open to debate.