High Definition Media & Technology Thread

[JsARCLIGHT]

I watched POTC 1 last night and damn... it looks wonderful.

I had not seen the movie in it's entirety before, just bits and pieces of it here and there, so this was my first time actually sitting down and watching the whole thing from start to finish. It was kind of goofy but the picture and sound were outstanding.

I posted this question in the Xbox thread but I'll post it here as well just in case someone looks here but not there and might know:

Has anyone seen how the Xbox 360 "5 Free HD DVDs" deal is going to work? Has anyone seen a "form" online to print out for the offer or is it going to be some obnoxious "pack in form" sort of shenanigans? I aim to buy one on Wednesday when the price drop takes effect (and when the free promo starts) but I want to make sure I get a "legit" one that qualifies for the deal... there are only a handful of places around town here that have any in stock and I fear some sort of magic "new packaging with pack in free movie form" chicanery. Knowing my luck I'm liable to buy an older one that has been a shelf warmer only to find out it doesn't "qualify" for the deal.

[pfunk]

Basic screen size question:

My viewing distance is 4 feet. (I've measured, it's exactly 48 inches from eyeball to screen in my normal sitting spot). Is 32in too big for a 16:9? Quality/options for TV's at 32in seem much greater than 26in. I have a 20in 4:3 now. (This is the bedroom TV, with the 360 and future PS3, not the living room TV) If needed, I could probably move the TV back 8-10 inches, maybe 12, to get a 5ft viewing distance. 30in has pretty much gone away, that was perfect. 26 seems just a LITTLE too small. But 32 is a pretty big jump, especially when it's only 4 feet (or 5) away.

Note: I truly abhor the "brightness difference" visible from top to bottom of most LCD's. TV's always talk about viewing angle, but that's left/right. Most TV's now are pretty good about left/right, but can be quite poor in vertical changes, even not moving your head. If I just stand there, I can tell just from looking from the top to the middle to the bottom, that the brightness isn't even. This is really obvious at BestBuy, when they switch to a logo screen---it's all blue, with the yellow tag in the middle. And the top and bottom of the screen are always a darker blue than the middle.

Is part of that because at BB you can only ever really see a 60in screen from 3 feet away, or do all LCD's have vertical brightness "consistency" issues? (And thus, I'd want as small of a screen as possible, as far away as possible, to reduce the viewing angle as much as possible) (I also see it in little 14in PC monitors, but those are cheap Dells, also fairly close to your face)

Or in other words----what's the best way to reduce the "apparent change in brightness" from the top to the bottom of the screen of an LCD screen? Factored into "what size TV should I buy"? (Because an affordably-priced 26-32in adaptive-LED-backlighting TV's like I really want may be 2+ years away--I won't wait *that* long--I want an HDTV within a year, preferably within 6 months---Xmas would be nice)

6 months from now, the first adaptive LED-backlighting TV's should be in stores, and we'll see how much they are, and if anyone's going to start doing them in sub-46in sizes, etc. I'll either decide to wait if what I want is coming soon/is affordable, or go get a CCFL-lit one then.

Dave, try this out

http://www.myhometheater.homestead.com/vie...calculator.html

I need a 110" tv for my living room to get minimum resolution at 17' (THX and SMPTE certified),,,,,damn thats going to cost a lot

Edited July 30, 2007 by pfunk

[JsARCLIGHT]

That's projector size there... which should not cost too much. What it WOULD mean however is that you lose a whole wall to your "screen".

[pfunk]

That's projector size there... which should not cost too much. What it WOULD mean however is that you lose a whole wall to your "screen".

I was originally thinking a drop down, But that will be one hell of a sale to the wife. My freind has one in his basement. Its a cheap model that doesnt have a lot of lumins and the picture quality is so-so. Ill probably go with a 65" LCD rear projection HD since we have the room. I did like my old 55 in the old house, we sat about 10 ft away, but the TV with the stereo took up the whole wall. Id like to have built ins with doors for the TV in this house

[JsARCLIGHT]

I know a guy who has a whole wall done out with that "screen paint" and it even has a picture frame boarder around it. His projector is suspended from his ceiling above the seating area aiming forward/down. He has all inboard sound so you really see nothing in the room... except for the projector box which looks kind of hinkey... he did his best to "hide" it in plain sight but you can always tell what it is and your eye instantly goes to it in the room.

Outside of that his setup is great. I think his screen is 100"+, it takes up a whole freaking wall and it's quite impressive. The overall "picture quality" is debatable but his is a case of size trumping clarity. He has told me the only down side to owning a projector based HD setup is that the thing blows bulbs like three times a year and each bulb is upwards of $400 to replace. Then again I know people with larger DLPs who have had those bulbs blow out on them quite regularly, meeting with similar bills.

For me personally the only way to go is LCD or Plasma... sure it limits your overall picture size but it leaves you with the best possible picture you can get.

[pfunk]

I think the bulb rating on the unit i saw was like 1700 hours (definatly dont want to watch regular tv on it) and the cost was 360 to replace,,,,,,,,the unit was 3500 though (1400 lumins HD),, thats a lot of cash I could put twards a really nice LCD RP I really like my buddies 70" rp LCD sony, we got a guy to get it for 2500 which I thought was amazingly low. Hell, by the time I make it to the inside of the house with remodeling BluRay will be considered old

[David Hingtgen]

I've used that calculator before, but I am exceptionally good at picking out individual "pixels", and as I said---an LCD's "brightness variation based on viewing angle" is also very noticeable to me. Technically I'm right in the range for 26-32in at 4-5ft. But that doesn't necessarily mean I'll like how they look.

[bandit29]

Well 300 is out in its several versions of media and giftsets etc.

I bought the Blu-ray version at Target for 24.99. I'll watch it tonight when I get home. I think Walmart and Fry's are around the same price(24.00-25.00). Bust Buy(according to their ad) is 29.99.

[Dangard Ace]

Well 300 is out in its several versions of media and giftsets etc.

I bought the Blu-ray version at Target for 24.99. I'll watch it tonight when I get home. I think Walmart and Fry's are around the same price(24.00-25.00). Bust Buy(according to their ad) is 29.99.

Rumor going around from SDCC is that there's going to be a new version of 300 for BluRay that includes the HD-DVD extras as well as some new extras as well.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Well, I picked up my Xbox 360 HD DVD player from Best Buy last night and it is turning out to be quite the score. I managed to capitalize on the BB.com price faux pas and got my player for $149.99... and to top it all off it was one of the ones that came with King Kong and the remote. So if you tally that with the 5 free HD DVDs to come by mail in 8 to 10 weeks I will have paid $160 (cost plus tax) for a HD DVD player with remote and 6 movies. Not too shabby.

While I am no fan of King Kong I picked up Hot Fuzz on HD DVD and wanted to get Shaun of the Dead but aparently Saint Louis Best Buy stores forgot to order them as none had them in stock... not even the nearby Circuit City had it. Anyway...

I got it home and hooked up and watched Hot Fuzz last night.

All I can say is Daaaaaaaaaaaammmnnn.

Hot Fuzz is not really an "HD" kind of movie but the picture quality and sound quality were out of this world. It was only this morning when I popped over to HighDefDigest.com did I discover that Hot Fuzz is their one and only FIVE star rated HD movie. It's the king of the hill in their eyes and to be honest, they're right. Hot Fuzz on HD DVD put my Blu Ray movies to shame. The picture was perfect... PERFECT. Zero grain... zero bleed. It was, to date, the best HD movie (picture quality wise) that I have seen. The sound mix, while not quite "HD", was superb as well. A lot of stereo separation, surround elements and choice usage of multichannel sweeps the audio really put you in the movie experience. Too add to it all the HD DVD has something along the lines of EIGHTEEN HOURS of bonus material on the disc. This is the first time in a long time that I feel I have without a doubt got my money's worth in a purchased movie.

If Shaun of the Dead is even close to this good of a presentation I'm going to crap myself.

What makes me giddy even more is that HD DVD has no real region coding yet... thoughts boggle my mind of a Spaced HD DVD release that I can just buy and play without a special player or adapter.

Blu Ray may be winning the war but the Hot Fuzz HD DVD single handedly slaughters the lion's share of the Blu Ray movies on the market and makes me glad I bought the HD add on for my Xbox.

[David Hingtgen]

Wasn't BETA actually better than VHS, yet VHS won?

[eugimon]

Wasn't BETA actually better than VHS, yet VHS won?

I think beta was widely regarded as having superior picture quality but VHS tapes allowed far longer record times. Beta players cost more to manufacture and Sony wasn't as willing to allow other manufacturers to tweak the standards. And initially, beta was selling more units than VHS. But JVC allowed different manufacturers to tweak the design, the units were cheaper and eventually, consumers chose cheap and long record times.

[Necron_99]

I think beta was widely regarded as having superior picture quality but VHS tapes allowed far longer record times. Beta players cost more to manufacture and Sony wasn't as willing to allow other manufacturers to tweak the standards. And initially, beta was selling more units than VHS. But JVC allowed different manufacturers to tweak the design, the units were cheaper and eventually, consumers chose cheap and long record times.

I thought that the deciding factor was the p0rn industry decided to go to VHS exclusively.

[eugimon]

I thought that the deciding factor was the p0rn industry decided to go to VHS exclusively.

well, there is the porn factor... this is true.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Well, you also have to think that Betamax was the forerunner of Betacam. Betamax may be dead as a dodo but Betacam is still the "industry" tape media of choice around the globe. Sony may have lost the consumer market in the '80s with the failed Betamax format but they won the professional market and held it with a near monopoly for decades. Many folks who like to tote the Beta versus VHS battle forget that.

[eugimon]

that's a good point. And betamax actually lived on in japan until 2002 so it's not like beta was a colossal failure or anything.

[mikeszekely]

Rumor going around from SDCC is that there's going to be a new version of 300 for BluRay that includes the HD-DVD extras as well as some new extras as well.

Yeah, but the HD-DVD is one of those ones that has the regular DVD on the flip side of the disc. If I had an HD-DVD player, that'd sell it for me every time.

Too bad, all I got is a PS3. I'll rent the Blu-Ray, but I'm holding off on any purchases for now.

[Dangard Ace]

Well, I picked up my Xbox 360 HD DVD player from Best Buy last night and it is turning out to be quite the score. I managed to capitalize on the BB.com price faux pas and got my player for $149.99... and to top it all off it was one of the ones that came with King Kong and the remote. So if you tally that with the 5 free HD DVDs to come by mail in 8 to 10 weeks I will have paid $160 (cost plus tax) for a HD DVD player with remote and 6 movies. Not too shabby.

While I am no fan of King Kong I picked up Hot Fuzz on HD DVD and wanted to get Shaun of the Dead but aparently Saint Louis Best Buy stores forgot to order them as none had them in stock... not even the nearby Circuit City had it. Anyway...

I got it home and hooked up and watched Hot Fuzz last night.

All I can say is Daaaaaaaaaaaammmnnn.

Hot Fuzz is not really an "HD" kind of movie but the picture quality and sound quality were out of this world. It was only this morning when I popped over to HighDefDigest.com did I discover that Hot Fuzz is their one and only FIVE star rated HD movie. It's the king of the hill in their eyes and to be honest, they're right. Hot Fuzz on HD DVD put my Blu Ray movies to shame. The picture was perfect... PERFECT. Zero grain... zero bleed. It was, to date, the best HD movie (picture quality wise) that I have seen. The sound mix, while not quite "HD", was superb as well. A lot of stereo separation, surround elements and choice usage of multichannel sweeps the audio really put you in the movie experience. Too add to it all the HD DVD has something along the lines of EIGHTEEN HOURS of bonus material on the disc. This is the first time in a long time that I feel I have without a doubt got my money's worth in a purchased movie.

If Shaun of the Dead is even close to this good of a presentation I'm going to crap myself.

What makes me giddy even more is that HD DVD has no real region coding yet... thoughts boggle my mind of a Spaced HD DVD release that I can just buy and play without a special player or adapter.

Blu Ray may be winning the war but the Hot Fuzz HD DVD single handedly slaughters the lion's share of the Blu Ray movies on the market and makes me glad I bought the HD add on for my Xbox.

See this is why I want HD-DVD to fail so that movies like this from Universal come out on BluRay. That and Heroes. (I'll buy an HD-DVD player in Dec. 2008 if Heroes isn't on BluRay by then).

POTC missed out on also being five stars because it didn't have the same amount of extras that Hot Fuzz had. PQ they both rated the same(5) but AQ and supplements POTC edged out Hot Fuzz by a 1/2 star each. Extras won it for Hot Fuzz hands down with 4 stars to POTC 2 stars. I agree with HDD that POTC BluRay only deserved 2 stars because the POTC DVD has so much extras on the second DVD that they should've included on the BluRay version.

[bandit29]

Watched Sleepy Hollow on Blu-ray last night...meh it looked like an upconverted DVD. The DTS track sounded awesome though. Thank you netflix. I'll wait for a remaster or when its 9.99.

[Dangard Ace]

Watched Sleepy Hollow on Blu-ray last night...meh it looked like an upconverted DVD. The DTS track sounded awesome though. Thank you netflix. I'll wait for a remaster or when its 9.99.

Yeah it's ass. Most early BluRay movies were ass. I don't think the video bar for BluRay was set until after Planet Earth was released. IMO that's when the picture/audio quality got alot better.

PQ and AQ for HD-DVD and BluRay for Sleepy Hollow was the same.

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/sleepyhollow1999.html

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/sleepyhollow.html

The Video: Sizing Up the Picture

As I noted in my review of the HD DVD version of 'Sleepy Hollow,' the film is hardly "picture perfect" source material. It's is a very grainy image, with the majority of the film veiled by a thin veneer of jumping, alive movement. Just check out the opening credits -- the film has been so drained of color as to almost be black and white, contrast flattened, and dark areas fall off into black like a steep flick. (All that fog doesn't help, either.) It looks very moody and atmospheric, but also rather dirty and gritty. Personally, I enjoyed the retro feel, but have to admit that it does not lend itself to the kind of truly three-dimensional picture that immediately springs to mind when you think of high-def.

That said, technically this 1.85:1 widescreen, 1080p/MPEG-2 transfer is on par with the HD DVD version. (Not necessarily a good thing, depending on your opinion). On the few colors that do appear vibrant and saturated, saturation is fairly stable (though there is some wavering) and occasionally fuzzy. Contrast also exhibits noticeable fluctuation in density and clarity. Detail overall is superior to the standard DVD release, and fine subtleties are more apparent, everything from textures on the film's lavish costumes to etchings in the bark of twisted trees. As for noise, which has been a problem on Blu-ray releases, it is hard to judge here. This picture looked just as busy as the HD DVD, but when you're dealing with source material as problematic as this, it is to be expected. Again, 'Sleepy Hollow' just doesn't have the sense of depth of some of the most revelatory high-def transfers I've seen, but given the source material it could have been far worse.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Sleepy Hollow is known for it's poor HD master. I've seen a lot of people at a lot of sites badmouth how poor it's HD encode is in both Blu Ray and HD DVD... lots of grain, lots of "fuzz" and not much clarity.

That all goes back to my original feelings that the lion's share of the Blu Ray and HD DVD titles on the market are "shovelware"... they don't have a good enough remaster to justify the HD media. Their distributors just crapped them out on an HD media seemingly just to "have them out on the market". I hate to keep beating a dead horse but the first release of The Fifth Element on BD is the prime case study for this sort of behavior. They just dumped it on the disc... crappy encoding, crappy picture quality, no special features... it was totally not worth the upgrade. Now that they have come back and re-released it with a decent encode and decent picture quality it really only raises it's "purchase worth" only a tad. Yes, now it looks better but it still has no special features.

I hate to say this but it's like the distributors forgot all the lessons they learned for why people switched from VHS to DVD. People want the better picture quality and audio clarity yes but they also want extras and bonus materials... something to justify the near double cost of the new media. After a while the outstanding picture clarity and audio quality will become second nature, and at that point you have to rely on your fall back gimmick: special features. It's just sad when some releases mess up even the most basic reason to buy something on next gen media...

[JsARCLIGHT]

I don't think the video bar for BluRay was set until after Planet Earth was released. IMO that's when the picture/audio quality got alot better.

That point of demarcation with Blu Ray is usually associated with the switch from MPEG2 to the newer codecs. Pretty much every first release on Blu Ray was in the old, crappy codec... the new ones use the newer, better codecs and have visibly better picture quality.

[bandit29]

ya you were right Js about Blu-ray shovelware lol. Sleepy Hollow is very grainy and fuzzy. I thought it was my eyes at first.

I'm netflixing some more bluray movies before I buy them.

I remember the early DVD market was like this. Alot of movies first released were taken from LD masters.

[JsARCLIGHT]

You might want to do what I and few others do, go to HighDefDigest.com and read their reviews of Blu Ray and HD DVD movies. I have found them to be very, very accurate in their reviews and they have actually saved me some money in the past few weeks by avoiding certain movies that I would have bought without thinking and encouraging me to check out other movies that I would normally have avoided just to see how good they looked.

It will also surprise a few people just how many next gen media releases there currently are in the market right now and just how many of them barely rate 3 stars out of 5. If I had to guess I'd say only something like 20% of the releases rate 4 stars or above.

[David Hingtgen]

Went to Best Buy today, and they finally (9 months after every other BB) re-did their TV section. All the CRT's are gone, just a giant wall of HD now. The entire left side is 32in, so I spent some time looking.

Of course, the one TV I'm most interested in at the moment (Samsung LN-3253H I think) was the one TV that BB had totally F'd up. I couldn't even fix it (I'm pretty used to adjusting color/aspect ratio in TV stores to get a correct picture). Never seen anything like it. I'm curious as to what was wrong with it:

1. The aspect ratio was correct. But, there were massive black borders on all 4 sides, in proportion. It was like the entire screen was zoomed out to 50% or something.

2. Image quality was horrendous. Not just "bad connection shared among 50 sources". Every other TV in the store was about as good as I've ever seen, so obviously the reset included better sourcing for the TV's. It was like this TV was playing a copy of a copy of a copy of a VHS tape. Blurry, streaky, rainbow bands, tearing. But it was the same "HD demo" every other TV was playing.

3. The source itself seemed to have a much lower resolution. Even accounting for borders, aspect ratio, etc ---it seemed to be getting a very low-res pic. Blowing it up ("4:3 full zoom") to fill the screen showed that. It's like the other TV's were playing a 1080p version of the demo, and this one was playing a 480i VHS tape with dirty heads. It looked a LOT like a bad VHS tape.

I fiddled with every aspect ratio/source setting I could find, and nothing helped---because the aspect ratio was correct to start with, it was just zoomed way out. And the source just seemed wrong---horribly pixelated. Even zoomed down small, it had a much lower resolution than the other TV's. Like looking at a jpeg at 800%. It's like it was playing a 56k stream when all the others had 700k streams. Very similar effect.

Sigh, I just have to hope they fix it fairly soon so I can do some comparisons.

I did learn some things though:

1. 32in is a very nice size, and I'm pretty sure it'll fit, and look good at 4-5ft distance. I *might* be able to do 40in, and could thus get a LED backlit one when they come out--but they cost 3x what I plan to spend, so that's not going to happen.

2. Brightness/viewing angle on LCD's is notably better than even 6-9 months ago. Not perfect, but "acceptable" now.

[the white drew carey]

Went to Best Buy today, and they finally (9 months after every other BB) re-did their TV section. All the CRT's are gone, just a giant wall of HD now. The entire left side is 32in, so I spent some time looking.

Of course, the one TV I'm most interested in at the moment (Samsung LN-3253H I think) was the one TV that BB had totally F'd up. I couldn't even fix it (I'm pretty used to adjusting color/aspect ratio in TV stores to get a correct picture). Never seen anything like it. I'm curious as to what was wrong with it:

1. The aspect ratio was correct. But, there were massive black borders on all 4 sides, in proportion. It was like the entire screen was zoomed out to 50% or something.

2. Image quality was horrendous. Not just "bad connection shared among 50 sources". Every other TV in the store was about as good as I've ever seen, so obviously the reset included better sourcing for the TV's. It was like this TV was playing a copy of a copy of a copy of a VHS tape. Blurry, streaky, rainbow bands, tearing. But it was the same "HD demo" every other TV was playing.

3. The source itself seemed to have a much lower resolution. Even accounting for borders, aspect ratio, etc ---it seemed to be getting a very low-res pic. Blowing it up ("4:3 full zoom") to fill the screen showed that. It's like the other TV's were playing a 1080p version of the demo, and this one was playing a 480i VHS tape with dirty heads. It looked a LOT like a bad VHS tape.

I fiddled with every aspect ratio/source setting I could find, and nothing helped---because the aspect ratio was correct to start with, it was just zoomed way out. And the source just seemed wrong---horribly pixelated. Even zoomed down small, it had a much lower resolution than the other TV's. Like looking at a jpeg at 800%. It's like it was playing a 56k stream when all the others had 700k streams. Very similar effect.

Sigh, I just have to hope they fix it fairly soon so I can do some comparisons.

I did learn some things though:

1. 32in is a very nice size, and I'm pretty sure it'll fit, and look good at 4-5ft distance. I *might* be able to do 40in, and could thus get a LED backlit one when they come out--but they cost 3x what I plan to spend, so that's not going to happen.

2. Brightness/viewing angle on LCD's is notably better than even 6-9 months ago. Not perfect, but "acceptable" now.

When it came time to switch to a flatscreen TV, I decided to run with a 32" widescreen. It's not a bad decision at any time. I justified to to my wife that if we ever move to a bigger place, the 32" can go into the bedroom, and we can get a bigger one for the living room. Haha!

I was just a big cheapskate and got a cheap-o Westinghouse 32". I tell you, it looks just as good as my friend's top of the line giant widescreen. It works well enough for me.

Oh well. I hope you're happy about any purchase you make. I originally purchased a Toshiba 36" widecreen HD CRT, but man, did that thing suck!

[eugimon]

Looks like sony is allowing porn to be put on blu-ray:

http://www.cnettv.com/9710-1_53-28824.html...;tag=cnetfd.vid

I guess the format war is officially over.

[JsARCLIGHT]

In regard to the question posed by David, that Samsung model looks to be an "off resolution" LCD. Meaning it's max display is 1366 x 768, which means it's input is most likely capped at 720p. From my limited experience with HD items, I have seen that certain sets that are designed to only accept one signal type (like 720p or 1080i, etc) tend to have display issues when given a signal they can't display. I've also seen that many HD LCD sets are not really "HD sets" but rather are akin to computer monitors and possess strange max resolutions. And as we all know computer monitors have that -one- resolution that they love but they handle the others in strange ways.

A friend of mine who has one of those old CRT HDTV's had this problem. His Phillips CRT can only display 480i and 1080i, nothing else. If you give it a 720p signal (say, from an Xbox or PS3) it won't show it... it will just throw up a bunch of rolling bars and garbage until you reset the signal to one it can read. My plasma can display 720p or 1080i but if I give it a 1080p picture it will do the same thing. It could be that the carrier signal BB stores have running is in a resolution that set cannot handle, so perhaps it is detuning itself to 480i to display some sort of piggybacked low grade signal. My satellite box has the ability to decode an HD signal into a standard 480i def signal and if I hooked my plasma up to that output the image I would get on the screen would be a 16x9 widescreen image letterboxed on all sides (because it is outputting a letterboxed 4:3 image which when played on a 16x9 screen gets letterboxes on the sides as well) and it looks really, really crappy because the box is realtime downgrading the signal to 480i which results in some color banding and artifacting.

From what it sounds like the folks at BB are either feeding that TV a signal it can't handle and it's kneecapping itself, or someone for some reason is feeding it a low grade 480i signal that it is doing it's best with.

Plus you also can't rule out some kid with chocolate smeared on his face screwing it up. It IS a demo unit after all.

[bandit29]

Looks like sony is allowing porn to be put on blu-ray:

http://www.cnettv.com/9710-1_53-28824.html...;tag=cnetfd.vid

I guess the format war is officially over.

Ya there are a few Blu-ray American porn preorders up at various places...thank god

They aren't cheap though. around 50.00

[JB0]

And as we all know computer monitors have that -one- resolution that they love but they handle the others in strange ways.

That's actually a limitation of LCDs, not computer monitors.

I still find it ironic that TV moved to an explicitly multi-resolution setup at the same time it moved to an explicitly single-ersolution display format.

From what it sounds like the folks at BB are either feeding that TV a signal it can't handle and it's kneecapping itself, or someone for some reason is feeding it a low grade 480i signal that it is doing it's best with.

Most likely. Hell, I've seen them using NTSC RF feeds to demo HD sets before.

[bandit29]

Yep at the BB near me, that is true. I was there Saturday, looking behind some of the DLPs(the picture was horrible) and they were hooked up via RF. Not sure about the LCDs/Plasmas...but considering Bust Buy pushes LCDs/Plasma more...

[David Hingtgen]

But the weird thing was every other TV was fine. Typically BB has several different sources for even a small group of TV's, often some very poor ones, with some TV's in 4:3 mode or something. But for the new setup they just did--it looked like they were all done right (maybe someone from corporate who knew what they were doing came down for the initial setup) with the exact same source and settings. Except one, which was so wrong I couldn't figure out the problem.

Of course, having read about tearing issues on that Samsung in 720p mode (which is the main thing it'll be doing) and finding Youtube videos showing it, I've switched to looking at Sony's top 32in, the KDL-32XBR4, and their 2nd-highest, the 32S3000.

XBR cost 400 bucks more than most of the others, and is basically out of my budget. But it does have the 120hz (simulated) refresh thing, AND it'll accept 1080p24 (scales down to 720p though). That could be worth it. Mainly for the 120hz refresh.

The S3000 is rated very highly, but lacks the above 2 features. And is 300-400 bucks less. Also, it seems Sony is making a new "budget Bravia" line which will be sold in Target and Wal-Mart. And the S3000 series will be the core. They'll do 26, 32, and 40in versions of the S3000, called the M3000. And they're be ~200 less than even the S3000 series, and likely perform very similarly.

That'd basically make the M3000 "almost" as good as the XBR4, but cost almost 500 bucks less. I really need to find some 120hz TV's SET UP CORRECTLY to go see if it's worth the money. Of course, I don't plan to actually buy until Black Friday or so, prices could change drastically by then. Heck, the XBR4 dropped 100 this month, and is down like 300 from May.

(And there's always the new Panasonic one with 120hz)

[JsARCLIGHT]

That's actually a limitation of LCDs, not computer monitors.

That is what I meant, I was talking about LCD computer monitors.

IMHO the "HD" LCD monitors you see around these days are nothing more than glorified computer monitors. Nearly all of them cannot achieve the higher 1080i or 1080p resolutions and the vast lion's share are "off resolution" displays. Then again the new "push" in HDTV for the masses seem to be lower resolution, cheaper units. I myself am shopping for a new HDTV that can push 1080p and it's actually quite disappointing to see how slim my options really are... I was on BB.com yesterday perusing their offerings and the vast majority of them where all off res LCD units or low res DLPs. All the 1080p units were either way too large for what I wanted (50" +) or they didn't possess the options I wanted.

Looks like I'm going to have to mail order another TV.

[JB0]

That is what I meant, I was talking about LCD computer monitors.

IMHO the "HD" LCD monitors you see around these days are nothing more than glorified computer monitors.

An LCD is an LCD, far as I'm concerned.

Nearly all of them cannot achieve the higher 1080i or 1080p resolutions

Neither can plasma sets. Nor most DLPs, even the ones advertized as 1080 sets(for a while they were using offset mirrors to "fake" 1920*1080 display with a good deal less actual pixels)

and the vast lion's share are "off resolution" displays.

Yeah, I've got no idea where the 1366*768 LCD comes from.

I suppose it's POSSIBLE someone thought that elongating a 1024*768 panel was a good idea, but it doesn't really make sense to me from a PC OR TV perspective.

Then again the new "push" in HDTV for the masses seem to be lower resolution, cheaper units.

'S what happens when anything goes mass-market.

'S pretty embarassing how badly things get mucked up when they move to a market where buzzwords can make up for low quality.

Example: I was looking at mice a while back, and realized while everyone was hyping "high resolution," "2x resolution," and "superior tracking resolution"... no one was printing the actual resolutions except on the highest- and lowest-end products.

And I assume the lowest-end was just to impress with more technical-sounding "high" resolutions, since anyone of competence knows 300dpi sucks for a mouse.

Far cry from ye olde days, when most computer part manufacturers printed their actual product specifications on the packaging, often in absurdly high levels of detail.

[David Hingtgen]

Was at BB again today. They fixed the Samsung's problem, and I got a good look at the Sony S3000. But I can't make comparison judgments on a TV based on "how the people at BB set them up". I need to go on a day when there's few people there, and I can fiddle with the settings myself for a while and get them looking decent. Contrast=100, Temp=cool, is NOT going to sell me a TV... I love it when I mess with the settings on a "poor-looking" TV at BestBuy (every setting at 100 like usual), then someone stops and goes "wow" when they see what a decently-calibrated screen playing HD looks like. Maybe I should go mess with their BluRay demo set...

Annoyingly, my current top two TV's (both Sony), are not available at any store TOGETHER. One or the other. I really want to compare side by side to see if the extra money's worth it.

On that note--so, 120hz. Noticeable? Worth it? Not many 32in sets do it, but the latest Sony XBR and Panny do. And Sony wants a nice chunk of change for that feature. But if it makes the image clarity notably better during rapid panning/object movement (like the 90% of the time mine will be on playing video games) it'd be well worth the money.