DVD image looks blocky; solutions?

Whenever I watch a DVD, gradients appears as bands of color instead of beeing smooth, giving the images a 'blocky' feel. This is especially apparent during night scenes where black zones are very pixellated. Normal TV programs don't have this problem.

I'm not familiar with all that technology: I see that my DVD player and TV have all sorts of input and output jacks.. Currently, I use a cable with yellow plugs to link DVD and TV. My TV is a conventional CRT Toshiba model 20AF41C. My DVD player is a Panasonic DVD-F87.

Any hints on how I could improve this? Thanks!

Banding is a symptom of low color resolution.

I would expect to see it on an LCD (since it only supports 8-bit per color), but on a CRT it is really unusual!!

Composite video (yellow plug) is not exactly the best way to watch a DVD, but you should definitely not see any banding on a CRT TV. I suspect that the video DAC of your DVD player is not fully functional or the composite input to your TV may have a problem.

Try another DVD player with your TV (to see if it is a TV or DVD player issue) or try your player with another TV. blockiness and banded gradients are common on dvds that have been poorly transferred, or if they need a cleaning. If your seeing this on every disk, and your disks are not all cheap bootlegs, the player is damaged or defective. Possibly there's dust in your player. Try one of your disks on a friend's player to be sure it plays properly, then call panasonic. Clean it with windex. Spray it on the rag (lightly), then wipe from the center of the disk to the outside in a straight line. And do that all around the disk. And don't touch the shiny part with anything, except the disk try. You can also get a DVD Player cleaner (I think they make those), and clean your DVD player. But check the disk first and look for scratches. That could be your problem. If it has a scratch, get some Talcom powder and use it like you use the windex and then just get the power with water, but just a little. That should take care of the scratch. OR, you can always buy another DVD. The blockiness is just video compression. Are you using the original dvd or a burnt copy? Burnt copies are re-compressed and can sometimes be blockier than the original depending what dvd ripping program you're using (I recommend dvd shrink). But other than that there's not too much that can be done to improve the blockiness.

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