How can I make regular channels look better on my HDTV?
Answer:
The only way to make it look better is to get an HD Reciever, and a HDMI Cable.
get a digital reciever
You can make it look marginally better by buying a digital receiver from your cable or satellite company and connect it via component or HDMI. Will it look like a high definition station? Absolutely not. It will still look pixelated and fuzzy.
It's because the TV has to upscale a 480i signal up to a 720p or 1080p (native resolution of your TV). When you upscale, it causes alot of artifacts.
If you want the best quality, then you need to send an HD signal to your HDTV. Send 720p or 1080i to your TV. This would involve subscribing to HD cable or satellite service.
I am sorry, but it doesn't actually look like anyone else is actually answering the question of how to get your regular channels going through your HDMI cable to look better on your TV. You obviously have a digital receiver if you are connected through HDMI. And you are asking about your regular channels, so I don't know why someone would suggest to subscribe to HD because you aren't asking about HD channels.
Upconverting does absolutely nothing for your picture quality. All it does is allows you to run an inferior picture through a superior connection. This is useful when you have (for example) a VHS that connects through an S-Video connection to your receiver. You want to direct all of your signals through the one HDMI or Component or DVI cable that you have running to the television. That way it makes it easier to control everything, not to mention that you only need to make one wire run from the receiver to the TV.
HDMI connections can cary a 768 signal (High Def), but that doesn't mean that a signal that comes through it actually IS that good.
There is only one thing that I know if that can actually increase the quality of any digital video signal (NOT analog though). To do this you would need a seperate video processor. This will take your regular standard definition feed (it had around 300 lines of resolution) and actually manufacture more lines of resolution, making it a higher quality picture. It doesn't just take a 300 line signal and format it to pretend that it has 480 lines, like a receiver will do when it up-converts. A processor will take that three hundred likes of signal in and actually pass through to the TV a full signal of better than 500 lines.
These processors also work to improve DVD and even HD video feeds. They do wonders for SD cable feeds, make a noticable improvement on a DVD, and make HD broadcasts slightly better.
Here is the downside..A good one of these is about 3 grand. An okay one is about $900.
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