I'm new to HDTV.. Little help here.

My question is this..

Is standard television suppose to look this crappy?

I have the Sony KDF-50E2000 (50" Projection LCD) and the ViP 622 DVR with HDMI.

The HD channels look great, but standard channels are absolutely horrible.

When the picture is small (like when I access the menu and the picture shrinks) it looks fantastic. But when it blown up in full size it looks kind of hazy or blurry.

It's taken me a good deal of time to get used to it. After a while they will look ok to you. If you watch alot of Standard TV then it's not really worth it to get a HD TV. I'm about 50/50 and as soon as I get my OTA up a running then I will be 70/30 since I watch alot on FOX.

Make sure your output from the ViP 622 matches the native format of the TV, which for you should be 720p.

Also, use the Format button on the Dish remote (the "*" in the lower left) to set the display for SD stations to normal with either gray or black bars on the side. This will eliminate the distortion from zooming or stretching the SD channel. It is already be transformed from 480i to 720p, so stretching or zooming the picture may make it bigger, but will likely make it look worse. I find it much easier to get used to a 4:3 picture on a 16:9 set than it is to get used to a distorted picture.

I have a 50" Sony KDS-50A2000 1080p SXRD set, and the Dish SD channels look fine to me. But I had a smaller HD set prior to the Sony, so I have gotten used to dealing with SD conversion.

Some HDTV's do a better job than others downconverting the SD signal......

SDTV's many times would have a better image than a HDTV when it comes to handling the SDTV signal....

Another important question: How close are you sitting from the TV? SD has less resolution, so you would need to sit further back to see a good picture. As I pointed out earlier, zooming or stretching an SD picture further decreases the resolution, so you would need to be further back still. With HD, you can sit much closer.

A rule of thumb for HD is to sit twice the diagonal size of the TV from the the set, which for a 50" set is a little over 8 feet.

Another thing to consider is the effective SD size of your 50" screen, which is about 41" in a 4:3 format. The rule of thumb for SD is three times the diagonal screen size, which for 41" is a little over 12 feet.

My personal opinion is to set your viewing environment up for the majority of your viewing. Just because you can sit closer to HD content, does not mean you have to.

My viewing distance from my 50" set is about 10 feet. That works well for SD and is perfect for DVDs. I could sit a couple of feet closer for HD, but I don't miss it.

Here's a chart for viewing distance vs PQ, seems close.

http://www.carltonbale.com/wp-content/uploads/resolution_chart.png