The more pixels, the better the picture quality or definition. You can also send him a message on Twitter or Google+.Your TV's screen resolution determines how many dots or pixels make up the image you see.
#Tv picture shapes tv
Still have a question? Send him an e-mail! He won't tell you what TV to buy, but he might use your letter in a future article. plasma, active versus passive 3D, and more. Got a question for Geoff? First, check out all the other articles he's written on topics like HDMI cables, LED LCD vs. A Google search of "Is Kabletown better than DirecISH TV" or whatever your providers are will certainly turn up a lot of opinions. If your current cable or satellite provider has a lot of macroblocking or other compression artifacts, it's possible switching to the other type of TV might result in a better image.or it might not. Your best bet is to just use the highest-quality source you can, whenever possible. Reducing the sharpness control on your TV can help minimize the ugliness (and it's probably not a bad time to check your settings anyway). Many cable providers highly compress their HD signals, resulting in an image far inferior to Blu-ray or over-the-air TV, with lots of macroblocking and other compression problems.īecause this is a source issue, there's not much you can do about it. Many stations squeeze their HD channel (compressing it further) to fit other channels of digital standard-definition content.Ĭable and satellite broadcast have this issue a lot. Over-the-air broadcasts may have it, depending on how much bandwidth your local channel devotes to its main HD signal.
Blu-ray Disc video, as mentioned, isn't likely to have it unless it's an artistic part of the content. Not every source will have macroblocking.
Shots of the ocean are another problem, as there are a lot of individual things moving in the shot (like the wave tops). The confetti at the end of the Superbowl was a macroblocking mess. You'll most commonly see macroblocking in fast motion, or when there's a lot going on in the image.
#Tv picture shapes 1080p
Comparing "real" HD from Blu-ray, and the soft, compressed, artifact-laden "HD" from most streaming services and cable/satellite providers is like comparing DVD to HD. Sadly, for many, this highly compressed image is all they know of HD. So as long as you get something, that's what counts.
Quality is not the first goal of high compression. So the data is compressed even further.Īs the compression increases, there's more possibility of artifacts. As in, they're not able to handle the massive HD video files that Blu-ray can. All other sources, be they streaming or HD channels on cable/satellite, have much less bandwidth than Blu-ray. However, most of us get the majority of our HD video from sources other than Blu-ray, and that's where the problem starts. Uncompressed HD signals are massive, and I think we'd all agree the picture quality of Blu-ray is quite lovely. For the most part, this compression is relatively good. This is to say, the image you see has been manipulated to take up less space, at the expense of absolute quality. In fact, this artifact is in the source, and unfortunately, there's not much you can do about it.Īll video you see is compressed. Often, people incorrectly refer to these as "pixels," or blame their TV settings. A common complaint I get via e-mail or in comments on other articles involves a picture that breaks up into what look like little blocks.