Poor picture quality - possibly STB?
rotational
Newbie

I had my FiOS service installed this past Friday 3/1.  After a weekend of tweaking and testing, there must be a problem with either my service or the STB.  The TV picture quality is not only obviously inferior to the PQ on the same channels at a friend's house who has FiOS, but is honestly worse than my previous Comcast service.

There's a general lack of definition to the picture, almost a blurriness.  There is obvious macroblocking on high-speed pans and animations, such as during NHL games (seeing the same on SportsNet, NBC Sports, and NHL Network).  There is almost a shimmering effect at the edges of some chyrons and bugs as well.  My TV is well-calibrated (not professionally), and is definitely not the problem.

My setup is a Cisco CHS 435HDC box to a Denon receiver via HDMI, then HDMI from the receiver to a 56" Samsung DLP TV.  I have tried to following with no change to the picture quality:

Direct HDMI run with known good cable from STB to TV

Replaced coax from ONT to STB with known good cable

Direct coax run from ONT to STB

Component instead of HDMI, both through receiver and direct to TV

Dragged out a 32" LCD TV from the bedroom and hooked directly to STB

Switching between 720p, 1080i, and Native output on the box makes no difference.  Also, when configuring Native output, the STB insists that my display (whether direct or through reciever) is not capable of 1080p.  I have also yet to see the STB output 5.1 surround sound - so far it's all stereo.

I'm not sure what proper signal ranges are, however I don't believe that's the problem.  I have the 75/35 Internet package and am getting a solid 85/40.

As I said, this weekend I went over to watch the exact same content on a friend's FiOS service, on a similar size LCD TV (where you'd expect to a see a little something during high speed motion), and his picture is absolutely stunning.  What I'm seeing isn't even close.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

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