Upgraded to 4K TV to Have a Worse Picture Than Before

[rob_alguire11]

So we just recently upgraded to a new 70 inch LG 4K tv and obviously we were expecting a better picture from this unit. We set it up with our HD digital cable box and the picture is horrible no where close to high definition even on high definition channels. Is this due to the cable box or is it a setting or do we require certain special cables for the right content transfer? Or do we need to buy a new 4K digital box... but I thought that would only help with 4K channels... which there are very few even available. So what is going on with the tv it is supposed to be able to upscale and it is no where close to a nice picture. Thanks for the help guys, much appreciated.

 

[BFG-9000]

Not using the native resolution on a fixed-pixel display always looks blurry from the scaling, so if your HD cable box is outputting 720p it will look terrible. Except exactly half the native resolution should be perfectly sharp, so see if the cable box has a setting or external switch for 1080p.

There's also the other issue of digital cable using heavy compression which causes artifacts, while digital over-the-air (antenna) broadcasts aren't. And of course any huge TV like that is going to magnify any imperfections.