HD Tivo Fast-Forward, how blurry with LCD TV?

[MikeMcQ]

Hey all, I've been a very happy DirecTivo user for many years - since the beginning I think. Have used a traditional 35" CRT for the display (well, multiple 35" TVs and TIVO boxes to be more precise).

I"m starting to buckle under the weight of all the HDTV hype and (again) am looking at it.

It seems that a common complaint (here and at AVS Forum) is that in high-speed motion programs, like football, you lose picture clarity - some call it blurry, some call it other things, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

Well, that in itself could be annoying. But, it got me to thinking about the TIVO Fast Forward. I routinely use 2x and 3x fast-forward speeds at commercials until I see the show resume. Then press Play, TIVO hops backward, and I'm good. If that should become difficult to do because of blurriness it would be a major drawback.

Do any of you have success or problems with this approach? I'm leaning towards some kind of LCD TV so responses including those would help lots.

Thanks

[videojanitor]

I have a Sony Bravia LCD connected to an HD TiVo, and there's no bluriness at all when using the fast-forward or rewind modes, so this shouldn't be a concern. The picture really isn't moving "fast" afterall -- you're just seeing a sequence of individual still pictures as it moves ahead.

The only blurring problem I see is on crawling text -- tickers at the bottom, or credit rolls -- the text gets very blurry as it moves. If I pause it, it looks fine. That is a definitely LCD phenomenon. With normal picture content though, I can't say that it's very noticeable -- I've yet to be aware of it.

[TonyD79]

The "blurring" you are reading about is not the TiVo's fault. It is DirecTV and the sources (ESPN, NBC) with either bitrate issues or compression problems. When I watch OTA material thru my TiVo or watch it directly by my TV, the picture is the same (however, the OTA tuner is not a good one and you get more dropouts on iffy signals or signals with multipath).

The FF is as good as the source material. No additional breakup.

[videojanitor]

Just to be clear, in my previous response, I thought the OP was talking about problems with motion due to the *TV* -- I wasn't even thinking about the problems associated with low bit rates. Indeed, that's probably what he was reading about ...

[MikeMcQ]

I was asking about blurriness induced by the TV. I've been a D*Tivo user for years and not had any "blurriness" problems with my CRT TV. I'll be using D* for its SD material mostly, and OTA HD.

Whenever I start to look at HDTVs it seems plenty of people complain about various motion artifacts, blurriness, and what-not when viewing fast motion. It's often given as an advantage of DLP over LCD that it will have less problems with fast action scenes, for example.

I realize fast-forward is a series of stills, but, the TV (and receiver) must display all the material very fast so you can make out the clarity of each still image so I can see when the program resumes.

I know on my computer's LCD display, motion artifacts are common and playing pinball, for example, is much blurrier than with my previous CRT display. I know the TV displays won't be as "slow" as my computer's screen, it just got me to wondering.

[SpankyInChicago]

This shouldn't be a problem. I've got an older generation Sharp Aquos (2004 model) and we use the FF on the HR10-250 all the time for skipping through commercials. There is 0% problem with being able to tell where the commercials end and the program starts.

This TV does have some problems with motion artifacts during sports but nothing near the complaints I have heard others express.

And your TV will be a couple model years newer so it will be better than mine.

I wouldn't worry about it.

[TyroneShoes]

...I'm leaning towards some kind of LCD TV so responses including those would help lots.

Thanks
When LCDs came out on laptops a decade and a half ago, there was a blur problem, but that was then and this is now. Modern LCDs have no issue with blurring of motion. But there is still a lingering perception, even if incorrect, that LCDs blur, and there is plenty of disinformation to help prolong that mis-perception. In fact, one DLP-based vendor gives hard facts, that DLPs refresh 4 times faster than LCDs, 1 ms compared to 4 ms. They consider that something to crow about. They even have mocked up videos with split-screen comparisons, which are complete fantasy.

While it may be true that DLP refreshes faster than LCD, it it meaningless when the video itself refreshes much slower than either, at 1/60th of a second, compared to 1/250th of a second for LCD and 1/1000th of a second for DLP. If you do the math, that means that a refresh faster than 1/60th is all that is needed, making DLP effectively no better at preventing blurring than anything else.

LCDs have no significant limiting factor compared to other types of displays, so you can put all of those worries to bed. The same can't be said about color-wheel based DLPs, which do have significant limiting factors. Right now it appears that LCOS, and Sony SXRD in particular, have the obvious upper hand over both. Seeing is believing.