Whenever I visit my uncle or my sister, who only have Freeview, I instantly notice how much better the quality of picture is on their TV's. I mean, it REALLY stands out. I have 2 Tivo boxes and the same quality on both TV's. I mean the picture isn't terrible, but compared to Freeview, it is pretty basic. Is there any reason for this? I have all Samsung TV, purchased in 2023, but the picture quality was the same on my previous TV also, so don't think it has anything to do with my Tv's.

The only way to check this is to use one of their TVs with your TiVo's resolution set to 1080i.

TheMac wrote:A couple of years ago I may have read that VM had reduced the quality of the broadcasts in order to accomodate more programs. Can we get them to boost the signal?What you have probably read about is the change from MPEG2 to MPEG4 decoding. This isn't a reduction in quality, or anything that can be "boosted" to use your phrase.It's a change in the file format used for video broadcasts, and is more efficient. I won't pretend to know the finer details of video formats, but am pretty sure Sky was already using MP4 at the time.

Assuming that you have Freeview and Virgin Media on the same TV it is worth checking that they both use the same picture mode on the TV. This can affect the picture somewhat, especially the brightness and the colours. Obviously for BBC One we have all the different regions, but the picture shouldn't be too different.

Your picture settings look good. On my TV I also turned off motion smoothing (known by various names including MotionFlow, Auto Motion Plus, TruMotion, Intelligent Frame Creation and Perfect Natural Motion), set Sharpness to 0 and Brightness to 50.

In addition, make sure that you are comparing like with like - with channels. You may be comparing an SD channel with an HD one - but Roger's suggestion of a side-by-side test is the only foolproof method.

Picture quality not as good as Freeview | Virgin Media Community

29 Replies

Roger_Gooner
Alessandro Volta
2 years ago
The only way to check this is to use one of their TVs with your TiVo's resolution set to 1080i.
- jdoocey
  On our wavelength
  2 years ago
  Thanks for your reply. I don't have Freeview. I watch everything via the Tivo box. I checked with my neighbour to see what her picture is like and again, its much clearer, as in the people "stand out" alot more (I hope that makes sense). She kindly allowed me to borrow her bedroom TV (which has a great Freeview picture) to test it out , but as I don't have an external aerial to check what my Freeview is like, I connected my Tivo box to her tv, and the picture was the same (not quite as sharp as Freeview).
  I have checked my settings and mine is set to Automatic...should I set this to 1080i? Is 1080p not better, or 4k?
  - japitts
    Very Insightful Person
    2 years ago
    jdoocey wrote:
    I have checked my settings and mine is set to Automatic...should I set this to 1080i? Is 1080p not better, or 4k?
    SD is upto 576i, HD is upto 1080p/i, UHD/4K is 2160. The TiVo only supports upto HD, you'd need a V6 or TV360 to use 4K/UHD/2160
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution - scroll to "current standards"
- unisoft
  Knows their stuff
  2 years ago
  Roger_Gooner wrote:
  The only way to check this is to use one of their TVs with your TiVo's resolution set to 1080i.
  debateable. 1080i on TIVO/v6 means the TV deinterlacer will transform to 1080p50.
  On cheap TVs it can be better to set 1080p on TIVO/v6 box as that will mean the TIVO/v6 box deinterlacing which MAY be better than the cheap TV's hardware.
  Usually though, any decent make TV has a better deinterlacer than Tivo/v6. The poster's TV Samsung QLED should have a decent deinterlacer to do 1080i output on Tivo/v6.
  (I'm ignoring if 4K output is required and TV is 4K and if the TV was older and only supports 720p as its maximum HD resolution here.)
- ALF28
  Super solver
  10 months ago
  V6 TV box
  I noticed that the bbc 1 euro football on freeview was a much better picture and brighter and colours also better than the V6 bbc 1 channel 101, so I have now changed the resolution setting to 1080i (from 1080p) as advised, it seems to have improved, will test it on some football again.
  As my wife has vision issues and noticed the difference as we have several TV's, some on freeview., the quality of the video is important. I will see how it goes.
  - Richardr1
    Superfast
    9 months ago
    Assuming that you have Freeview and Virgin Media on the same TV it is worth checking that they both use the same picture mode on the TV. This can affect the picture somewhat, especially the brightness and the colours. Obviously for BBC One we have all the different regions, but the picture shouldn't be too different.
japitts
Very Insightful Person
2 years ago
In addition, make sure that you are comparing like with like - with channels. You may be comparing an SD channel with an HD one - but Roger's suggestion of a side-by-side test is the only foolproof method.
- jdoocey
  On our wavelength
  2 years ago
  Thanks for your reply. No, I'm comparing the same channels.
ozsat
Superstar
2 years ago
What does your Freeview look like? I would say your tv setup is the issue if you are looking at HD channels.
jdoocey wrote:
Whenever I visit my uncle or my sister, who only have Freeview, I instantly notice how much better the quality of picture is on their TV's. I mean, it REALLY stands out. I have 2 Tivo boxes and the same quality on both TV's. I mean the picture isn't terrible, but compared to Freeview, it is pretty basic. Is there any reason for this? I have all Samsung TV, purchased in 2023, but the picture quality was the same on my previous TV also, so don't think it has anything to do with my Tv's.
- jdoocey
  On our wavelength
  2 years ago
  I don't have Freeview. I watch everything via the Tivo box. I checked with my neighbour to see what her picture is like and again, its much clearer, as in the people "stand out" alot more (I hope that makes sense). She kindly allowed me to borrow her bedroom TV (which has a great Freeview picture) to test it out , but as I don't have an external aerial to check what my Freeview is like, I connected my Tivo box to her tv, and the picture was the same (not quite as sharp as Freeview).
Roger_Gooner
Alessandro Volta
2 years ago
1080i and 1080p are the same resolution but HD broadcasts are interlaced (meaning 1080i), and this is what the TiVo should be set to. Your TV will then convert to the correct resolution, i.e. 1080p50 if it's HD or 2160p50 if it's UHD.
Edited to add that if you have an older "HD ready" TV its resolution is probably 720p and you might well get a better result by setting the TiVo to 720p.
japitts
Very Insightful Person
2 years ago
Perhaps a photo or video uploaded to this thread, may help.
- jdoocey
  On our wavelength
  2 years ago
  Not sure if it will be obvious on a photo; maybe a video. I will give it a try and see if it picks it up.
  - jdoocey
    On our wavelength
    2 years ago
    Okay, so recording isn't going to be that simple. I will need to record the same programme at the same time, using the same phone camera (so as to get a realistic comparison), which ain't easy. so, I have recorded an advert today from my tv (using my phone's camera) as I know for definite that this advert was distinctly better quality on my sister's TV (on Freeview) . Now all I have to do is be at my sister's, and wait for said advert to come on and record it using my phone's camera ....easy, right?
Roger_Gooner
Alessandro Volta
2 years ago
My advice for the TiVo is the same for the V6. Test by setting resolution to 1080i only, select an HD channel and the V6 will pass the video to your Samsung QLED for upscaling to 2160p50.
japitts
Very Insightful Person
2 years ago
Posting the example of the affected picture should be fine for now. No need to overcomplicate this, we're just looking for a "picture tells a thousand words" example of the problem you're reporting.
- jdoocey
  On our wavelength
  2 years ago
  Okay so the photo thing isn't going to work (they both look crap). The best way I can give an example of this is, Say when you look on Google Maps at Street View, you are automatically set to 2d. But then you can press the 3d icon and its visually a better picture (and in 3d). Well, mine is 2d, and my sisters/uncles/neighbours Freeview is 3d. It's a better quality of picture/sharper/more realistic/people stand out more; it looks kind of 3dish.
  - Paul_DN
    Forum Team
    2 years ago
    Hi jdoocey,
    
    Thank you for reaching out to us in our community and welcome back, sorry to hear you feel the quality of the picture on your TV isn't as good as your Sisters and Uncles on Freeview, I was able to locate you on our system with the details we have for you and cannot see any issues, the picture can differ on some TV's and as advised can depend on the settings also, if you can add a Video of your picture quality we can have a look for you.
    
    Regards
    
    Paul.
jgnotts
Superfast
2 years ago
I've noticed that the picture quality on That's TV channel is far better via Freesat than it is via my V6 box. It's mostly shocking quality on the V6 box. This is viewing on the same television for both sources.
- unisoft
  Knows their stuff
  2 years ago
  jgnotts wrote:
  I've noticed that the picture quality on That's TV channel is far better via Freesat than it is via my V6 box. It's mostly shocking quality on the V6 box. This is viewing on the same television for both sources.
  
  Yes this is the one channel where particularly the audio is terrible on v6 and Stream over Freeview and Freesat versions.
jg666
On our wavelength
2 years ago
As well as poor quality on That’s TV channel, the program listings are generally not fit for purpose. Recently there’s only been one or 2 days worth of listings available for this channel.
Ashleigh_C
Forum Team
2 years ago
Thank you all for your help with this issue so far and thank you to jdoocey for updating, are you able to update a video or image of the picture so we can best investigate?