hi everyone.
due to budgetary constraints, i'm still using a crt for my ht set-up. i noticed just recently that the images appear to be grainy, especially during scenes with a dark background. it's similar to what you experience when you get a poor reception from you cable provider. i don't know if the monitor has something to do with it. or could it be the video cable i use? i find it really irritating. a little help here please...
TIA
Its pretty common to have grain, especially during dark scenes. Typically, that's the problem of the software - the DVD or even BD/HD DVD. A CRT is actually the best device for reproducing black so I don't think that's the problem.
Why don't you try watching different DVD's and observe if the graininess is constant. You'll probably see that it varies with the software.
In my experience, its quite hard to remove the grain. You need a player or video processor or receiver with good "block noise reduction." For this purpose, the best that I've personally seen is the PS3.