Picture Quality

[md495]

I just bought my first flat screen.  I had a SD set top box and exchanged it for a HD box.  However before the exchange, I connect the coax cable directly to the tv.   WOW! What a great picture on the local channels.  When I connected to HD box picture was not as sharp.  How can I get a good picture?

[tns]

Sd TV or HD TV.  Connection are usually best in this order

Supporting HD TV signals

• HDMI connection
• HDMI To DVI (separate audio connections)
• Component (separate audio connections)

Supporting SD only (including hd downscaled to HD)*

• S-VHS (separate audio connections)
• Composite (yellow RCA cable) (separate audio connections)
• coax 75 ohm
• coax with 75-300 ohm

* Most of the time a HD channels scaled down to SD will look better than the SD equivalent channel.

[md495]

Thanks for responding.  I have a HDTV.  Are you saying that I should get a better picture if I connect my tv to the set top box via HDMI?  

If that is true, why did I get such a great picture without a set top box when I ran the coax cable directly to the tv?

[tns]

Way better quality.  Using Coax from the STB/DVR will only give you SD quality.

Running COAX directly to tV without a box, allows your TV tuner (assuming it supports QAM), to handle the HD pictures of a few channesl (ususally only locals).  However most channels are protected and require a card to decode them, and almost no TV's were ever manufactured (I know of no current ones) that support them.