I beleive I can set the box to output at a lower resolution (480p), there might even be an option called native. I understand what you are trying to do but don't understand how this would work. I don't understand how the video processor in the Sony will be able to make the picture better if it is recieving a lower grade signal. I am gussing here that the cable box is recieving a (720p) down the wire and will have to downgrade the signal to (480P) which the Sony will then try to upgrade. I must be missing something.
Don't set it to 480p all the time, because as you note this will kill your HD picture quality. The "native" option (if available) bypasses the cable box's video processing, which is usually pretty poor and sometimes downright horrible. This means that HD broadcasts in 720p are output at 720p, HD broadcasts at 1080i are output at 1080i, and SD broadcasts (480i by definition) are output at 480p (deinterlacing necessary because of HDMI's lack of support for 480i). The HDTV spec includes a lot of possible resolutions, but the two that are actually used are 720p and 1080i - and both are used fairly regularly. The TV still has to do additional processing to get all of these to the panel's native resolution.
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