Wh do SD channels look so bad on my HDTV and also?

Why do my SD stations on look so much worse then I remember seeing them on my old SD TV. HD stations look great on my HDTV (768p native resolution on my 50in plasma HDTV), but the SD stations look worse then ever?

1. Why do SD TV channels look so bad on HDTV's?

2. Also, if i had a 1080p TV and my source was 1080i, just to clarify, my TV would typically upscale the image to 1080p. Is that correct? I know it depends on the model of TV but is that how it should work, similiar to an upscaling DVD player?

3. Lastly, if i had a 1080p 50in plasma and i'm seated 11 feet from the TV would there be a noticeale difference between the 1080p TV and a set which does 768p or 1080i at that veiwing distance and screen size?


Please advise. Thanks

HDTV's can't display SD resolutions natively. They have to deinterlace and re-scale them before they can actually display them. HDTV owners have complained for years now about how badly this often turns out. Video scaling in HDTV's is often rudimentary, yielding disappointing results. In other cases, cable and satellite receivers will handle this video processing, again often with disappointing results. This is of course compounded by scale: most HDTV owners are looking at 42" or larger screens, whereas most SDTV's are going to be less than 36" - the extra screen size just highlights those weaknesses in the source.

If you feed a 1080i source to a 1080p-native display, the TV will deinterlace that 1080i (interlaced) signal to 1080p (progressive). If you feed it a 720p source, it will scale the signal from 720p to 1080p. This is assuming that the display is truly 1080p (which early "1080p" displays weren't exactly).

I'll leave it to others who have gotten some first-hand experience with 1080p displays to say how it compares to 720p and 1080i displays...

One reason I changed to the SXRD from the plasma was to watch SD without zooming the picture. Even the bedroom tv, Sony 46 LCD, is set for 4x3.

Even unstretched they just look bad, particularly since you change channels back and forth from HD to SD. Even SciFi shows are watched letterboxed.