my new sharp lcd- questions about hd

[Eric Z]

i'm still learning about my new sharp lcd tv (lc42d64u). i finally got my new hd dvr and i'm very impressed with most programming; however, i have a question about solid backgrounds. i notice pixelation with some solid colored backgrounds. for example, i was watching a wttw hd and they were showing some red walls in a house. when the camera panned slowly across the wall (or even if it was stopped), i noticed it didn't look like a solid wall- it looked like tiny different shaded boxes (like pixelation). the fast moving scenes are fine and i don't notice that at all. this doesn't happen on every channel.

is this the tv? maybe the connection? i'm using an inexpensive hdmi cable. maybe some channels hd programming is inferior to others?

any input is appreciated.

my neighbor has a sony lcd tv and i plan on checking his out to do some critical viewing to see if i see the same thing.

thanks.
eric

[pixelthis]

A lot of people think that HD = perfect.
Thats not the case, even at 1080p, 2,000p is even better, and 2000p only gets close to film.
HARD to say what is causing such pixle-ization, most likely its a high compression rate,
that might have been a SD program on an HD channel.
It happens on faster moving scenes, your eyes just can't catch it.
My set looks fine from where I sit, but sometimes on weaker material if I get close I see
a fine sheen of video noise in the background.
The picture is even more difficult when you put the different types of HD into the mix.
There are two types (well, several really) of codecs, mpeg is the most popular, and higher and lower bitrates. Some stuff is stunning, some is barely HD, and I have seen well done SD on a digital channel that is very good. I walked into a CC one day and the picture off of a Mitsubishi was stunning to say the least.
If you have a sat system (and some cable systems) they "allocate" bit rate, something like a talk show gets a lower bitrate, sports and such gets a higher one, on some
"laid back" programing the bit rate is so low that pixlization occures.
The dish system does this and on some shows I watched the picture looked like a freakin cartoon, or at best bad computer video.
Sorry I cant help more but it could really be a number of things, most likely a cheapskate
cable company. Thats the usual culprit:1: