Does SD look crappy on a HD set?

[Born2bwire]

It depends on what you are looking for. The HD set will show the picture in all its SD glory. You'll be able to see the compression artifacts clearer (though you can generally still see them on a SD set IMO) and the lower resolution. So in one aspect, you'll be able to see the feed better. What the HD set will generally introduce that will worsen the SD signal are artifacts and aliasing from the upscaling. On my TV, I can generally only notice a single ringing around text. This happens because the filter applied to the upsampled image is a sharp filter that has ringing in the sidelobes. This causes a sharp boundary to have a ring around it, like a slight ghosting effect. I only notice this in text and I do not feel that it really detracts from the image. That's what I see with my HDTV in comparison to SD sets.

 

[Pabster]

Depends on the chipset in the display. Some look pretty damn good, others not so good.

If you're relying on standard analog cable, for example, you are likely to be very disappointed. No matter the processor quality.

 

[GoingUp]

Depends on the channel.

HBO looks great. Other crappier networks look like ass.

 

[TheSiege]

damnit there is no winning in the HD game

 

[MotionMan]

Some further answers from the proper forum.

MotionMan

 

[Captante]

Depends on two things ... the type of TV & the source.

SD looks very good from any source on my 34-inch Sony WEGA HD-CRT ... in fact it has about the best SD IQ I've ever seen on any TV period. (HD also looks very good)


On my Toshiba 37HL67 & 42HL67 720p LCD's it looks:

Crappy with analog SD
Crappy to ok with digital SD
Good to very good with SD-DVD (over component)
Good to excellent with HD-cable
Very good to excellent with HD-OTA
Excellent to fantastic with HD-DVD or BRD

My Olevia 532H 720p LCD is slightly better in reproducing SD pictures from all sources then the Toshiba's, but not quite as good at HD stuff... otherwise the above ranking roughly applies.

 

[Modelworks]

SD on HD on my 51" looks ok.
Its not great and you can defenitely tell a difference from HD, but the tv I have upscales SD signals to either 540p or 1080i so that helps some.

I tried watching a netflix online movie yesterday on it and was severely disappointed. The netflix stuff looks good on the pc on a 19" but when enlarged to 51" the loss of quality is very clear.

I ended up setting up netflix to play on my 31" sdtv and it looks fine.

 

[Deeko]

Like everyone said, it depends on the TV. My old Sony 51" RP looked like ass in SD, but my new 50" SXRD looks pretty damn good. Not high def, but still, good.