Okay, here's a stumper for you. I'm at home visiting the parents for the holidays, and apparently since the last time I was here, they bought a new LCD high-definition TV (a Sony Bravia KDL-26M3000). Not being familiar with new TV technology, I decided to play with it a bit. It's connected to the cable box / DVR thing (a Motorola DCT6416 III) both via HDMI and by standard coaxial cable. In the TV's settings, I can choose whether it gets its signal from the coaxial cable or HDMI in a menu labeled "External Input". To set it to use the coaxial cable, I can choose "TV" in the External Input menu. With this setting, all the channels look pretty much okay. I can also set External Input to HDMI, and then the picture looks fantastic if it's viewing an HD channel. However, if it's on a standard-def channel, the picture looks horrible with HDMI. Basically, it looks like it's suffering from really high JPEG compression, with artifacts everywhere. If I switch the input mode back to "TV" so it gets its signal from the ordinary coaxial cable, it looks normal again. What's going on here? Shouldn't HDMI have a higher quality in general than other connection types?
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