HD TV and amplifiers

[lawman]

I just added a second HD cable box to my home. After the tech left I noticed that the HD channels look great but other "regular" channels don't look as crisp as before. Do I need some type of amp? Whats up?

[PierBridge]

A couple things you could have some cabling/connector issues

depending on how the install was done.

Also your Standard definition channels will look a lot worse on HD Tv's....

New HD TV also?

IMO amplifiers are useless.

[Whoaru99]

Amps have a place, but, they have to be good ones. If the "cable guy" did the install, they are supposed to check the signal levels and fix if necessary. Charter would not just hand me a HD box to install even though I'm more than capable of attaching the cable to the box. They said they had to come check the signal level for a HD install to be sure the signal was good enough.

Ended up they put a new service drop from the pole to my house. The interior wiring had previously been upgraded when cable internet was installed a number of years ago so that side was OK.

As previously mentioned by PierBridge, if it's a different TV, it may not handle the SD/analog signal as well as the previous (or other) set.

Or, as he eluded to, if you did it yourself, did you use the appropriate type of cable, connectors, and splitters? However, if that were the case, I'd tend to think that HD would be affected too.

You may want to try a splitter before the cable box and run one side direct to the TV and the other side to the cable box. SD analog channels look much better on my TV from it's built-in tuner than from the cable box.

[Bobby Bass]

If you compare a 1080i signal to a 480 it takes a few minutes for your eyes to adjust back to the lower signal. Not only is the HD about 5 times better but when shown aganist a 480 signal the 480 looks really bad. Your eyes have no problem looking at the HD from 480 signal. Maybe not the answer but can be part of your problem.