High Definition Media & Technology Thread

[eugimon]

ah, okay, using my TV as a pass through, all the audio gets converted to dolby pro logic, so no DD or DTS support. boo.

[myk]

So can't you just route your audio-out to the receiver directly?

[mikeszekely]

Wait, how's this supposed to work? Let's say you've got the PS3 on HDMI, so you run that to the receiver and then run the receiver to the t.v., but...why would you want to carry the audio signal to the t.v. as well (since HDMI carries a/v)? I guess I'm out of it, but I always thought it was source audio to receiver and source video to t.v.

There are audio receivers that are little more than a stereo component, or audio receivers that are really just DVD players with a few extra audio inputs. When you go up one more step, they're audio/video receivers. So, in your scenario, if you have just an audio receiver, you'd run HDMI to the TV, and Toslink to the receiver.

If you have an A/V receiver, though, you'd just run HDMI to the receiver, then HDMI from the receiver to the TV.

If you only have one HDMI port on the TV, but you have more than one on the receiver, you could hook up your PS3 and, say, an HD-DVD player to the receiver, then receiver to the TV. The TV would be set to HDMI, but you could go between HDMI 1 and 2 on the receiver.

[eugimon]

So can't you just route your audio-out to the receiver directly?

I can, I'm just lazy. I would need to buy a few more optical cables and a splitter.

I can live with pro logic until I upgrade to an actual av receiver. And I'll probably hold off on that for a while. I have no desire to run wires and what not. My currrent setup uses a wireless thing for the rear channels.

[David Hingtgen]

If I can get Dolby pro out of an optical output on the TV from an HDMI source, but it still just goes into a basic stereo with only 2 speaker locations (left and right), is there really any point to do that vs RCA cables? Since that stereo's not going to do surround sound no matter what signal it gets. Would the Dolby pro over optical have an inherently better signal/clarity/quality, even if it does end up being 2-channel?

[eugimon]

I don't think it would be worth it if you have to do any fanagaling to get it to work. But I would suppose optical would give you a cleaner sound than RCA cables.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Optical is optical... it's a pure digital signal. Very, very little chance of signal degradation.

Will you get better sound? No. Will your receiver receive better data? Yes. It doesn't sound like it can do anything with that data though.

And then you have the whole questions of speaker power, cable they are hooked up with, distance and elevation relative to the listener, etc. etc. etc... but it all boils down to: Dolby 2.1 at best.

[Alpha OTS]

4 months later......my HD dvds from the free offer August promotion arrive, and somehow I really don't care.....

[myk]

If I can get Dolby pro out of an optical output on the TV from an HDMI source, but it still just goes into a basic stereo with only 2 speaker locations (left and right), is there really any point to do that vs RCA cables? Since that stereo's not going to do surround sound no matter what signal it gets. Would the Dolby pro over optical have an inherently better signal/clarity/quality, even if it does end up being 2-channel?

I'm seriously tempted to donate an old pro-logic receiver to you, or at least sell you a 5.1 receiver for cheap...

[Dangard Ace]

I'm seriously tempted to donate an old pro-logic receiver to you, or at least sell you a 5.1 receiver for cheap...

DOOOO IT! The spirit of Kris Kringle commands you!

Oh and for any of you that bought the BluRay Harry Potter Boxset 1-5: reports are that Warner Bros messed up and swapped one of the movies with an HD-dvd version. I think it was Goblet of Fire but check all your discs....just in case.

[myk]

DOOOO IT! The spirit of Kris Kringle commands you!

Lol. Dude, he CAN'T have a next-gen console, hooked up to a jaw dropping, modern HDTV playing screaming games like AC6 while listening to it on anything less than basic surround sound. If Dave's game I might send him an old JVC 'pro-logic unit that I'm using as a paper weight...

Edited December 13, 2007 by myk

[David Hingtgen]

LOL---how big is it? Room is a critical factor. (It's why my SNES is boxed up at the moment)

But honestly, speakers are the main problem. I have 2, and that's only because one is squished on top of my dresser, surrounded by model airplanes, and the other just sits on the floor. There's not really a good way (or any way I think) to get a surround setup right now in my room. I basically sit "back left corner", relative to the TV. Any speaker mount would have to be basically touching the ceiling, and ahead or to the right. (every inch of wall space in my room is either the closet, window, or shelving). I have LOTS of shelves. Many airplane books, and many airplane models sit on those shelves. And I have CD and DVD towers tucked in anywhere there's room.

[myk]

LOL---how big is it? Room is a critical factor. (It's why my SNES is boxed up at the moment)

But honestly, speakers are the main problem. I have 2, and that's only because one is squished on top of my dresser, surrounded by model airplanes, and the other just sits on the floor. There's not really a good way (or any way I think) to get a surround setup right now in my room. I basically sit "back left corner", relative to the TV. Any speaker mount would have to be basically touching the ceiling, and ahead or to the right. (every inch of wall space in my room is either the closet, window, or shelving). I have LOTS of shelves. Many airplane books, and many airplane models sit on those shelves. And I have CD and DVD towers tucked in anywhere there's room.

I dunno, about 18"x18"x6" or so. It's the JVC RX-3TH, to be exact. It was my first receiver that I bought back in '97 and featured Dolby Pro-Logic but did NOT have a sub-out, so you'd be running just 5 speakers. Still, it's better than just running 2 speakers or t.v. speakers, although I guess space is really tight for you though, and your neighbors would end up hating you like they did me...

Edited December 13, 2007 by myk

[David Hingtgen]

Space is tight because my movie/gaming TV is in my bedroom, not the living room. And my bedroom is packed with models and books. The big living room TV would cost WAY too much to upgrade to an HDTV, and I wouldn't want to anyways, as I will be doing far more HD gaming than HD movies or TV.

(I have mecha on top of both speakers and the stereo, including valks--actually the stereo has more valks than any other place they're displayed)

(yet another reason to buy electronics with FLAT tops)

[Ishimaru]

never trust the store displays unless you can verify the input and adjust the settings yourself. For example, at all the BB around my area, the HD demo units look like crap. The pictures are grainy and the sound is jacked compared to the BD display which always looks good. Thing is, I have a lot of those demo movies at home and they don't look anything like.

And don't buy them at Fry's. Look on the net, I bought my samsung on amazon foe 30% less than retail and saved myself a grip on tax. or wait until CC has one of their crazy sales.

I'm not trusting retail prices, I just use them as a reference to what I'm going to be buying online.

But I'm seriously considering the Samsung, good quality and price.

LCD monitors (as well as LCD HDTVs) have one set resoultion. Any other resolution is either scaled or unsupported. Most LCD computer monitors that support 1080p, aren't true 1920x1080 displays. They often have a native resolution 1920x1200 (with an aspect ratio of 16:10 compared to HDTV's 16:9). This will often result in slight pillarboxing.

What will be used with the monitor? Will it be a game console or HD player?

So if its only set on its native resolution I can't do anything about it?

I'm setting up my 360 on it.

[eugimon]

I'm not trusting retail prices, I just use them as a reference to what I'm going to be buying online.

But I'm seriously considering the Samsung, good quality and price.

So if its only set on its native resolution I can't do anything about it?

I'm setting up my 360 on it.

No, an lcd screen has X number of pixels on it and that won't change. That doesn't mean it can't accept inputs for different resolutions, it will just cheat and stretch the image, if you want full screen, or it will show the image as a smaller "screen" inside the screen... you know, like if you're watching a video file that's at a lower resolution than the your monitor is set for, it will show as a small image surrounded by black. and then you can zoom the image, make it fit player, etc... same concept with the TV.

Just get the 1080p set, you can't go wrong and your 360 will look great on it.

[David Hingtgen]

But most 360 games output 720p, so showing it on a 1080p set is kinda pointless, since it'd have to downscale everything. I'd assume scaling 1080 to 720 takes more time than scaling 720 to 768 (more pixels to deal with). More lag.

Also, video games don't render "different sizes" for different resolutions. For the same 360 game, running it in 480i, and 720p, on a CRT, 720p, and 1080p set, will all have the exact same dimensions, and aspect ratio. No black bars. (unless it's a forced 16:9 game on a 4:3 set).

AFAIK.

PS--Ishimaru---there is almost no set currently made that has a truly native 720p resolution. The vast majority of "720p" are actually 1366x768. Yet almost all 360 games are 720p. You don't see massive amounts of posts about people complaining about scaling and incompatability of the 360 with every HDTV ever, do you? The TV's out there are really 768, and 1080. Your 360 is going to have to upscale regardless of what you buy. And personally, I'd go with the least amount of scaling.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Well, it's best to buy for what you primarily do, TV wise. My intent is to see 1080p/24 movies via Blu Ray, so my upcoming TV purchase is putting emphasis on maximum stats. I really want to get my Xbox to output 1080p for HD DVDs as well but I don't know if it can until I try my VGA cable on my new set when I get it. "Gaming" comes second to me and to be honest I don't care much if my Xbox (or PS3) is upscaling itself to meet my monitor's resolution. Seeing as how most "next gen" games are only made to run at 720p or 540px1080i I figure I'm always going to be seeing something that is upscaled... except for the PS3... it seems to output native resolutions. When using my PS3 and playing a demo of a game that is in 720p my plasma shifts itself to 720, telling me it's receiving a 720 signal, but when the game is over and it goes back to the menu system it pops back to 1080i.

[Ishimaru]

No, an lcd screen has X number of pixels on it and that won't change. That doesn't mean it can't accept inputs for different resolutions, it will just cheat and stretch the image, if you want full screen, or it will show the image as a smaller "screen" inside the screen... you know, like if you're watching a video file that's at a lower resolution than the your monitor is set for, it will show as a small image surrounded by black. and then you can zoom the image, make it fit player, etc... same concept with the TV.

Just get the 1080p set, you can't go wrong and your 360 will look great on it.

Ah, well I kinda knew that.

But I'm not sure about purchasing a 1080p set though, the cheapest one I can find is the 32" Aquos which is the actual size I'm looking for to fit into my room. Not sure about it though, I don't want to blow 1.2k even though my 360 will look nice, my budget just does not fit it.

But most 360 games output 720p, so showing it on a 1080p set is kinda pointless, since it'd have to downscale everything. I'd assume scaling 1080 to 720 takes more time than scaling 720 to 768 (more pixels to deal with). More lag.

Also, video games don't render "different sizes" for different resolutions. For the same 360 game, running it in 480i, and 720p, on a CRT, 720p, and 1080p set, will all have the exact same dimensions, and aspect ratio. No black bars. (unless it's a forced 16:9 game on a 4:3 set).

AFAIK.

PS--Ishimaru---there is almost no set currently made that has a truly native 720p resolution. The vast majority of "720p" are actually 1366x768. Yet almost all 360 games are 720p. You don't see massive amounts of posts about people complaining about scaling and incompatability of the 360 with every HDTV ever, do you? The TV's out there are really 768, and 1080. Your 360 is going to have to upscale regardless of what you buy. And personally, I'd go with the least amount of scaling.

Well thats just interesting, but aren't most 360 games coming out now utilizing 1080p? (Mass Effect for example)

And why wouldn't sets be truly native to 720p, is it because they can downscale and upscale 480p, 1080i...?

But yes David I hardly ever about any incompatibility issues with the 360 on HDTV sets, most are just compliments of how good it looks on it.

The current sets I'm looking at is the Toshiba (Generally for price) and the Samsung, and the Aquos if I had the consideration and money.

Any ideas, I know how nice 1080p would look with my 360, but it wouldn't make much of a difference with the other sets if I was only a few feet away.

Sorry I'm not much of a expert on this, generally I don't want to buy when it comes to HD since it's something completely new to me and something that I have never experienced.

[David Hingtgen]

Mass Effect is rendered by the 360 at 720p, then upscaled by the 360 itself to 1080 if you have it set that way. I don't know of any 360 game that REALLY is 1080. I mean, MS could design the 360 to upscale it to some "superHD" spec of 2440p before it sent it over the cables to your TV, but it wouldn't actually be rendering the polys and textures like that.

ME is 1080p just like Halo 3 is 1080p. The 360 will scale it however you want it, but it won't make it any prettier.

[Roy Focker]

You're thinking of 32 inches? I'm thinking of going 42 inches. My old tube TV is 27. I gotta go big! Problem is the cost. I think I can buy one and pay off the credit balance in two months. I don't have money to buy a big enough entertainment to put it on.

[David Hingtgen]

I plan on getting 32 for two very good reasons:

1. Space.

2. Cost.

I cannot fit a 37, period, even if I had the money. Actually, based on distance, a 32 might actually be too big--I'm going to have to move it as far back as I can. But 30's are no longer made, and 26 is just not worth it---they cost 90% as much, yet seem to be inherently lower quality. 32 is the smallest LCD you can get that can be as high quality as the 40's/50's etc. Cost is not really THAT much of a concern--a nice 32 costs roughly a grand, or a bit lower. Yes, I could get a cheap or even decent 40 inch for that much. But I want a GOOD TV, not a BIG TV that sucks. (And I don't have room for a cheap 40in)

[Oihan]

I plan on getting 32 for two very good reasons:

1. Space.

2. Cost.

I cannot fit a 37, period, even if I had the money. Actually, based on distance, a 32 might actually be too big--I'm going to have to move it as far back as I can. But 30's are no longer made, and 26 is just not worth it---they cost 90% as much, yet seem to be inherently lower quality. 32 is the smallest LCD you can get that can be as high quality as the 40's/50's etc. Cost is not really THAT much of a concern--a nice 32 costs roughly a grand, or a bit lower. Yes, I could get a cheap or even decent 40 inch for that much. But I want a GOOD TV, not a BIG TV that sucks. (And I don't have room for a cheap 40in)

Still going to go with a 720p unit? And if so, same models still? I'm still thinking long and hard about it...but every time I do I come back to the 1080p set from Sharp at 32".

Edited December 14, 2007 by Oihan

[mikeszekely]

Still going to go with a 720p unit? And if so, same models still? I'm still thinking long and hard about it...but every time I do I come back to the 1080p set from Sharp at 32".

On a big screen, the difference between 720p and 1080p can be pretty noticeable. Not so much on a little 32" screen.

[David Hingtgen]

I've looked at the 32in 1080p Sharps side-by-side to several 720p. And the difference, at arm's-length viewing distance, is ONLY noticeable with large, static text. It's less jaggy. Slightly. On angled bits, like M and W and V. Like the logo of a movie at the start. And I stare for minutes on end looking for a difference. Maybe video games (HUD/text) would show it more, but for "general images" there's not the slightest difference. I really, really tried to see a difference but couldn't. Maybe the image is 1% clearer. But it's not worth paying more and having lower quality everything else. The Samsungs just looked to have the best overall picture. "Max resolution potential" is not the end-all be-all of TV's. Same as Megapixels in a camera--it's simply the highest possible resolution, not a direct indicator of quality of the image.

However, I do not know what the source was. I would guess 1080i. But if it was 720p, maybe the 1080's were simply upscaling the 720 to fit, and giving them a true 1080p source would really show the difference.

Also--the 32in 1080p Sharps have banding. It's subtle, but there and all over the screen. People have commented on it, but it's the only "known flaw" in 2007 sets of all brands that I immediately noticed in stores. (Every brand has some flaw this year, but it's usually subtle and you don't notice until you've owned it a week---but I saw banding on the Sharp's in an instant). That's basically a deal-killer. If I notice it in the store, I'll REALLY notice it and be annoyed at home.

[Roy Focker]

Went browsing today here are models that caught my eye. Trimmed the list from a dozen to five.

Any major issues I should know about the sets below? Other than wait for a really good sale.

Sharp LC-42D64U

Samsung LN-T4061F

Samsung LN-T4069FX

Samsung LN-T4066F

Sony KDL-40W3000

[David Hingtgen]

Here's the basic issues to look for of all 2007 LCD's:

Sharp: horizontal banding

Samsung: tearing

Sony: clouding (worse on XBR's, 3000's do better)

[Dangard Ace]

My Sharp LC42D64U has some minor banding in the very dark ranges only when running this test DVD on it. It passed every single other test there with flying colors. http://tvblink.com/

Actual viewing experience: when watching Bluray Planet Earth, as hard as I try I can't see banding. Didn't see the banding on all 3 Bluray Pirate movies or some of my upconverted DVD's(via PS3). ie Tron, Voltron: Black Lion tin set, Justice League, Moulin Rouge. Games display nicely as well. COD4, Uncharted, GT Prologue demo.

[David Hingtgen]

You have a 64 series Sharp with banding? Hmmn. I thought it was more limited to the 62/92 range. Well, regardless, I personally saw it constantly on the 32in ones. Maybe the bigger ones handle it better.

[Dangard Ace]

You have a 64 series Sharp with banding? Hmmn. I thought it was more limited to the 62/92 range. Well, regardless, I personally saw it constantly on the 32in ones. Maybe the bigger ones handle it better.

Hmm...it might not have banding issues. Just tested that "failed" test on my computer dvd/lcd screen and the same bands show up. The gradient test could be faulty.

Update, just tested that lcd test disk on my old CRT as well. Bands are there as well. The gradient tests on that download appears off to me.

As I said, in actual viewing I did not notice banding.

[Roy Focker]

I found a store just by openning the news paper that had one the top sets my list for $1400

Samsung LN-T4069FX

http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/sam...15.html?tag=sub

That is about $500 off of Best Buys sale price & $100 off Amazon's. I think the sale last till Tuesday. At $1400 is that a good buy for such a set?

[Roy Focker]

Best Buy workers know Sh*t. Went to browse at the model at BB and compare it to other on my list. A HDTV salesman came up and asked if I had any questions. I said I heard that some Samsung TV have a tearing problem? He never heard of such a thing. Funny Samsung offical FAQ even talks about it. That model isn't on Samsung list of TVs susceptible to the tearing problem. I guess fix it with firmware if it does happen. You think the salemans would have heard of it. Gonna try to find the ad I saw to see if can BB to price match. They are closer and I might to buy an extended warranty.

[David Hingtgen]

I check the Samsung thread at AVS daily, because the 3253H is currently #1 on my list of TV's. It SEEMS that Oct. and later builds have new boards and there are no problems (most problems are trying to fix older boards with new firmware--which helps but doesn't totally eliminate the problems).

But I am still waiting for at least one person to say "I have a 3253H built in October, that I play my 360 on using 720p over component and I have no problems at all". There's people with new 3253H's, people with 360's, and people using 720p over component---but none with that exact combo that I've seen. Because a 360 doing 720p over HDMI is a different issue--HDMI is better than component, when it comes to tearing on a Samsung.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....105&page=87

Sony S3000 is probably #2 choice. They have no real issues, just high odds of clouding and/or buzzing.

[Roy Focker]

Real Fast

Took the plunge and bought a LNT4069FX from Best Buy had to do a lot of persuasion to get them price match. I couldn't find the ad with lower price from the other store. BB called up the store to confirm things (I pre-called as well). BB told me that other store charges an extra $200 on top of the price I mention. I could swore the ad never said anything like that. Then it hit me. BB like all retailers keep other stores ad. I told them. Check you conference or breakroom. You have the other's guys ad for reference. I got them to then match the price of $1400. $600 less than BB wanted to charge me.

BB then tried to pad the deal. $300 service to caliberate your picture experience. I decided to take my chances on my own. I did buy the extended warranty. I'm disapointed that my PS3 doesn't automatically come with the right cables for HD.

[eugimon]

nice, congrats on your new set and on the price and much props for getting BB to actually honor their policy.