Fuzzy component picture for Wii/PS2 on Panasonic TH-37PX70

[sharky_ob]

Hey all

I recently bought the above tv and I'm really pleased with it overall. Just one thing I'm having a problem with:

I have a Yamaha RXN600D AV Amp, which does component splitting. I had my xbox 360, wii and PS2 running component into the amp and then to the tv. The picture for the 360 was great, but I thought the wii and PS2 were quite fuzzy and low res. I decided to try the PS2 RGB and was surprised to see that the picture looked much sharper. I also tried this with the wii with the same result.

Thinking it might be the amp I went directly from the wii to the tv component, but still had the fuzzy picture. I've now got the 360 connected directly to the component input on the tv, and the other machines are running RGB through a splitter box, so I'm not using the video features of the amp at all.

Does anyone know why this would be the case? The component leads for both machines were relatively cheap ones off ebay, so I suppose the question is - is this due to cheap leads, or some kind of processing the tv is doing with SD signals through component?

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!

Matt

[sofasurfer]

I have a 37px60 and running a non-HD gaming source like a Wii or PS2 will always look fuzzy.

It's just the way that plasmas and lcds don't really cope very well with an SD source.

What does the 360 look like through component. On mine runnign it at 720p it looks stunning. Nearly as good as via HDMI.

[sharky_ob]

The 360 looks amazing.

I thought it migh be something like that - a fundamental difference between the way the tv processes HD and SD signals through component. I was surprised by how much better the picture was through RGB Scart though, I guess the processing for SD is just better through this input?

[Brad]

Try setting your 360 to 480p thru component, see what that looks like?

[sharky_ob]

It was set to 480p when I first hooked it up to the new tv (the old one was a crt) and the picture didn't look great. To do a direct comparison I'd need to do that and then try it with my rgb lead to do a comparison on that system too, which I'll try and do at some point.

Thanks for the replies!

[fallenangle]

RGB should be marginally better than Component YPbPr for 480i SD sources but quite honestly I can't see any difference once the picture settings are matched. 480p should be slightly better than RGB but again I've always found the difference marginal too.

In this case I'd assume the problem is that SD sources are being upscaled with consequent effect on PQ when using the component connections. Could it be that, here Panasonic, expect you to use only RGB for SD sources so it is specifically set up to give good results for that purpose?

[sharky_ob]

Could well be - it must be some kind of processing issue with the tv. It really is quite a noticeable difference. Changing to progressive scan when using component on the wii also seemed to make the picture very slightly worse, so the tv doesn't seem to be very good at processing this either.

So, anyone who's got this tv, or an equivalent model with a different size screen, I'd recommend using RGB for SD machines. The picture is simply much sharper.

Edit - typo

[sofasurfer]

Could well be - it must be some kind of processing issue with the tv. It really is quite a noticeable difference. Changing to progressive scan which using component on the wii also seemed to make the picture very slightly worse, so the tv doesn't seem to be very good at processing this either.

So, anyone who's got this tv, or an equivalent model with a different size screen, I'd recommend using RGB for SD machines. The picture is simply much sharper.

Might have to give that a go as my Wii through component looks pretty bad.

Now to find a cheap official Wii RGB lead.

[sharky_ob]

Might have to give that a go as my Wii through component looks pretty bad.

Now to find a cheap official Wii RGB lead.

If you find one, post here and let us know. The official RGB lead for this machine is ridiculously overpriced!

[andrewfee]

Component has half the colour resolution that RGB has, so it definitely looks softer. Perhaps the upscaling process in your TV is making this more obvious than it should be. The benefits of 480p should outweigh the difference in colour resolution though.

[sharky_ob]

Component has half the colour resolution that RGB has, so it definitely looks softer. Perhaps the upscaling process in your TV is making this more obvious than it should be. The benefits of 480p should outweigh the difference in colour resolution though.

I thought that would be the case, but the wii doesn't look good at all through component in either picture mode (480i or 480p). This could, of course, be down to my personal preference.