Sky onto my new 40" Sammy?

XD-3 · 24 Jan 2006 at 10:54

Hi All

I am getting a Samsung LE40R51B 40" LCD on Friday for my main TV.
So I was just wondering if anyone can recommend me a way of getting sky on it from the box downstairs.

I was thinking along the lines of an audio video sender like the SkyFunk SL3? But I was told the picture might not to be to go as the screen is large.
Can anyone hear recommend the SL3? As I have read good things about it.

Or does anyone no of another why I can get the sky onto the LCD picture quality is most important really.

Thanks in advance
XD-3

pinkaardvark · 24 Jan 2006 at 11:46

Sky digital is kak even when connected directly to the TV due to the high amount of compression they use. Forget HD I'd be happy if there SD didn't look like the worst kinda divx most of the time.

XD-3 · 24 Jan 2006 at 11:56

pinkaardvark said:
Sky digital is kak even when connected directly to the TV due to the high amount of compression they use. Forget HD I'd be happy if there SD didn't look like the worst kinda divx most of the time.

Yes I no what you mean that is what I am afraid of even on my mums 28" CRT the sky looks rubbish so I don't no how well the funksky SL3 will cope.

I mean if it can give me the same picture as the CRT. Then that would be ok... ish but any worse and there would be no point.

XD-3

PS: I was thinking about running a direct cable but my room is in the attic so I thought it was a bit of a no go...

pinkaardvark · 24 Jan 2006 at 11:58

Can you run a coax externally? I'm sure a sky engineer would only charge £30 or so to break the existing cable and run it straight from dish through to attic. I'm assuming that can be done of course

XD-3 · 24 Jan 2006 at 13:52

pinkaardvark said:
Can you run a coax externally? I'm sure a sky engineer would only charge £30 or so to break the existing cable and run it straight from dish through to attic. I'm assuming that can be done of course

i never thought of that. This would mean the same channel could be watched on my 40" and the CRT downsters?

So if i am reading right all i would need is an IR eye and another sky remote to change the channel from the 40"?? as i am only going to use the sky when the perants have gone to bed

so then it will not matter about the channel changing downsters aswell. Or would an IR eye not work?.

XD-3

Jez · 24 Jan 2006 at 14:01

pinkaardvark said:
Sky digital is kak even when connected directly to the TV due to the high amount of compression they use. Forget HD I'd be happy if there SD didn't look like the worst kinda divx most of the time.

What are you displaying it with? I find that SD sky digital generally looks ok on the more mianstream channels, so long as i run my display in its native and do not upscale....

pinkaardvark · 24 Jan 2006 at 16:36

Jez said:
What are you displaying it with? I find that SD sky digital generally looks ok on the more mainstream channels, so long as i run my display in its native and do not upscale....

Samsung M61 40" TFT. Ok i'm being picky, it's certainly watchable but you do notice where they are overcompressing stuff that you never noticed as much on crt.

Roll on sky HD

Jez · 24 Jan 2006 at 17:59

Bung it through a CRT display at the same size and see how much better SD looks, its the plasma upscaling thats causing the problems

pinkaardvark · 24 Jan 2006 at 23:02

Jez said:
Bung it through a CRT display at the same size and see how much better SD looks, its the plasma upscaling thats causing the problems

I hope not as I don't have a plasma

and I don't know of any 40" crt's. But my 100Hz 32" samsung jobby still showed how poor sky+ was on some channels compared to dvd. Sky's messy compression is not under argument, tis a known fact.

Shimmyhill · 24 Jan 2006 at 23:56

pinkaardvark said:
I hope not as I don't have a plasma and I don't know of any 40" crt's. But my 100Hz 32" samsung jobby still showed how poor sky+ was on some channels compared to dvd. Sky's messy compression is not under argument, tis a known fact.

Its the rubbish scaler in your sammy, Sky on my Plasma generally looks awesome - 90% looks better than on my old top end panny 32" crt, watching Desperate housewives on C4 the other night was far better than on the best CRT TV ive seen (ill give jez the crt projector) Run it thru a nice crystalio scaler and a good sky feed will challenge a dvd on a plasma.

Sky has a few poor bitrate chanels but as a rule its all the cheapo lcd's with rubbish scalers making an inferior tech look worse than it needs to look.

Jez · 25 Jan 2006 at 00:02

pinkaardvark said:
I hope not as I don't have a plasma and I don't know of any 40" crt's. But my 100Hz 32" samsung jobby still showed how poor sky+ was on some channels compared to dvd. Sky's messy compression is not under argument, tis a known fact.

As shimmyhill says, i truely believe its your scaler. Agreed some channels look pretty bad but the movie ones usually look pretty good to my eyes, thats using an 8" CRT projecting onto an 8' wide screen, or on an "old school" 56" Sony RPTV. They show up the horrible artifacts on a lot of channels but some do look ok.

Attu · 25 Jan 2006 at 00:15

Sky looks fantastic on my Pioneer Plasma, well the main channels do anyway, wonder if its a TFT thing, ive seen a lot of posts about people complaining about SKY and freeview on LCD screens.

IceBus · 25 Jan 2006 at 00:43

Jez said:
As shimmyhill says, i truely believe its your scaler. Agreed some channels look pretty bad but the movie ones usually look pretty good to my eyes, thats using an 8" CRT projecting onto an 8' wide screen, or on an "old school" 56" Sony RPTV. They show up the horrible artifacts on a lot of channels but some do look ok.

Just for reference... Here's a little info on the Samsung LE40M61:-

http://www.eisa-awards.org/history/2005-2006/video.html

In answer to your question, in all likelihood it's the bad compression from Sky causing it to look pap. The resolution of the LE40M61 is also higher at 1366*768 where comparable plasma's will be 1280*768.

Jez · 25 Jan 2006 at 00:46

Its a combination, but the main factor is the scaler. This is the whole problem with these new LCD screens, they have very low contrast ratio's and huge fixed native resolutions which you have to scale everything up to, which looks awful 99% of the time.

pinkaardvark · 25 Jan 2006 at 01:02

Jez said:
Its a combination, but the main factor is the scaler. This is the whole problem with these new LCD screens, they have very low contrast ratio's and huge fixed native resolutions which you have to scale everything up to, which looks awful 99% of the time.

Well I tried it back to back against 2 of the top 2k plus 42" plasmas and i'm sorry but the samsung m61 looked better in both SD and HD. I dunno about crappy contrast ratios either as 5000:1 seems pretty good to me in fact better than either of the 2 top end plasmas I looked at. So no worries about the scaler, sky+ really is poor and many others will agree with me. But then I guess it all depends on how picky you are. I also don't see why you think the top end samsung panels have crappy scalars.. certainly the review sites don't seem to think so. You got any links to support this? I suppose I could connect it to the scaler in my DVD or my Denon AV amp and see if that makes a noticeable difference but I doubt it.

Jez · 25 Jan 2006 at 01:11

Sky+ is pretty crap i agree, but scaling it up to your LCD's huge resolution, no matter how its scaled, or by what, is just a bad idea, and wont do it any favours and will show up artifacts. I dont have any links to anything as i dont read anything, i just go through loads of kit as i am a home cinema addict and i decide what looks better to me

Sky in my experience, along with all other material, always looks best in the materials native resoltion with no scaling. You cannot get around it with an LCD but thats the trade off if you want a snazzy looking flat screen.

I withdraw the CR comment if your panel has a 5000:1 rating, as that is perfectly acceptable, i didnt realise LCD panels often had CR's this high, ive just seen faar too many 800-1000:1 panels and i got very bored with them

I am not arguing for plasma's either by the way, they suffer from the same issues ive always found, as they obviously would, as they too have to scale everything up.

pinkaardvark · 25 Jan 2006 at 13:06

Jez said:
Sky+ is pretty crap i agree, but scaling it up to your LCD's huge resolution, no matter how its scaled, or by what, is just a bad idea, and wont do it any favours and will show up artifacts. I dont have any links to anything as i dont read anything, i just go through loads of kit as i am a home cinema addict and i decide what looks better to me Sky in my experience, along with all other material, always looks best in the materials native resoltion with no scaling. You cannot get around it with an LCD but thats the trade off if you want a snazzy looking flat screen.

I withdraw the CR comment if your panel has a 5000:1 rating, as that is perfectly acceptable, i didnt realise LCD panels often had CR's this high, ive just seen faar too many 800-1000:1 panels and i got very bored with them I am not arguing for plasma's either by the way, they suffer from the same issues ive always found, as they obviously would, as they too have to scale everything up.

I hear what your saying Jez. There are obvious issues that are generated by upscaling however the vast differences in qaulity between differing programmes and channels on sky clearly show that a significant portion of any viewing anomalies are simply down to overcompression. Sure some stuff like primetime sky one stargate, battlestar galactica etc looks great but flip over to some of the discovery channels and you can see some woeful quality stuff. As I said earlier in the post I'd be more than happy if sky simply ditched a few channels to use the bandwidth to compress less and we'd get as much of an improvement as HD is claiming to give us.

martynsimo · 25 Jan 2006 at 15:27

Hi XD-3. I`m thinking about getting the same sammy TV it does look stunning!! You`ll have to let us know how you get on with it as I`m feeling money burning a hole n need to be ordering soon!!! Is it ok for you tell me how much you paid and where from as OcUk dont sell them???
cheers

XD-3 · 25 Jan 2006 at 15:38

martynsimo said:
Hi XD-3. I`m thinking about getting the same sammy TV it does look stunning!! You`ll have to let us know how you get on with it as I`m feeling money burning a hole n need to be ordering soon!!! Is it ok for you tell me how much you paid and where from as OcUk dont sell them???
cheers

hiya m8 i will not actually get the tv until monday but i will be posting pic's and a mini review will follow

I am getting the LCD for £1299.99 and £16p£p if this is any cheaper then your getting it then post your e-mail or msn addy on here or just add me to msn. If you use it

babum2k @ msn.com (without the spaces)

Thanks
XD-3

pinkaardvark · 25 Jan 2006 at 15:44

martynsimo said:
Hi XD-3. I`m thinking about getting the same sammy TV it does look stunning!! You`ll have to let us know how you get on with it as I`m feeling money burning a hole n need to be ordering soon!!! Is it ok for you tell me how much you paid and where from as OcUk dont sell them???
cheers

The 51B is last years model and is being withdrawn from stock, you may want to consider the newer and higher specified m51 or m61 models. They look a lot nicer in the flesh as well.