Lcd, Dlp Or Plasma Looking For Big Screen Advice

[Loves2Shoot]

Nice

[EricW]

I have two technical degrees and understood about 15.63% of the preceeding discussion. It's hard to believe that a DVD player that will actually drive an HDTV to full rez is still so expensive.

[standles]

I have two technical degrees and understood about 15.63% of the preceeding discussion. It's hard to believe that a DVD player that will actually drive an HDTV to full rez is still so expensive.

LOL

I am with you Eric. I thought I spoke geek fluently till I read this thread

Steven

[Right2Bear]

I don't know if this has been brought up, but when deciding between plasma and LCD, at consider this... glare.

Plasma screens look great in controlled lighting, but put one in a bright living room on a sunny day and it can be very difficult to see the screen because of all the glare. With an LCD, you get very little if any glare at all. So for my conditions, it is LCD all the way.

[Franksremote]

Only word of warning I'd give about LCD projections is their lamp life. It seems that they last about 1 year and the manufacturer only covers it if it happens in that 1 year period. After that, they are around $400 to replace.

[ima45dv8]

Only word of warning I'd give about LCD projections is their lamp life. It seems that they last about 1 year and the manufacturer only covers it if it happens in that 1 year period. After that, they are around $400 to replace.

The one in my Sony is predicted to be ~$150. I can live with that.

What WAS a pain in the a$$ was when an in-line fuse in the main PSU let loose about 6 weeks ago (2 months out of warranty), and it cost me $264.00 to have it repaired. Listening to the very nice and competent tech who came on the call, I got the distinct feeling this was a "known" factory issue (the replacement was an "upgraded" component that he went directly to as the source of the trouble). If that's the case, I think it should have been handled on Sony's dime -- not mine.

Anyone with a large-format Sony 3LCD. . . . . .beware.

[kimel]

The problem Eric is that DVD's do not have that high of a resolution to begin with. Yeah, it was great for old TVs but now we have surpassed the level that most DVDs are recorded at. If you want HD quality you just aren't going to get it with normal DVD media. Period. Now there are some gizmos that will upconvert a standard DVD to "HD like" quality but they are majorly hit and miss. I have seen one that was okay and many that sucked.

So, you have to go to HDDVD or BlueRay. Take your pick. Remember BetaMax versus VHS? Same deal. Once one of them wins (and it looks like HDDVD is ahead of the race at the moment) then the price will fall.

One thing to be aware of with DLP and other projection TVs is that some people see rainbows off these. I am one of those people. Drives me nuts. Before you buy, make sure you really run it through the ringer.

[EricW]

Thanks all.

FWIW, I have zero intentions of buying a projector TV. I'd rather just buy a Vizio LCD once a year and be done with it for that kind of reliability. (And no, I won't buy a Vizio...read the reviews...Yikes! )

One last question, I noticed a lot of what I will call "jaggies" on the LCD TV's with rapidly moving images, like sports. Is that an artifact of the video signal, or is that a limitation of LCD technology? Not sure if I care, I don't watch sports much, but it might get irritating if regular movies have the same issues.

E

[Loves2Shoot]

I don't know how they work, but Arcam make some DVD players that read disks that are so damaged the other $1500 players won't even play and they look and sound great.

I don't understand how the really good stuff works, but I know it is in another world as far as performance, and when you get used to hearing/seeing the good stuff, it is hard to accept less. That can get very expensive in a hurry.

[kimel]

The LCD "jaggies" are an artifact of the refresh rate of LCDs. The newer technology LCDs (and the drivers behind them) are less prone to this. Hockey, soccer and other fast motion sports can be nearly unwatchable on some LCDs.

I was in Costco on Sunday comparing stuff. Even in the horrid lighting there were clear winners in the LCD aisle. Easy to find...look for the bigger price tags. Sure wish the wife hadn't been along and looking at the prices. Dang.

[George]

Ayup, refresh rate and the quality of the processing chips are what the jaggies are mostly comprised of IF they are present in all parts of a video (still and motion). The other issue that causes "jaggies" is scaling, where a pixel pitch is hbeing translated by a projector/display processing engine. This crap's thing up. Also, DVD is very low rez as mentioned. Think about it, a DL DVD is 8.5GB, 1 hour of standard def full rez video is 10GB minimum before DVD authoring and it's compression. Where is all the extra data going? It's being removed from the motion frames with blurring algorithms and other math processes that create jaggies in intermediary frames when DVD's are created. So also, jaggies are a normal part of DVD compression and if they only exist in the fast motion areas of a piece of video, chances are high that it is the result of compression artifacting and the removal of 3/4 of the actual video signal. A lot of folks think DVD is hiigh rez, but it's actually got less rez than the old 3/4 U-Matic analog video tape format from the early 70's. SL & DL DVD is nowhere near true broadcast video rez.

[bberkley]

We ventured into the world of HDTV in November, and purchased a 37" Mitsubishi 1080p LCD TV. It has 2 HDMI, 2 Coax, 2 Cablecard, 2 Component, and 2 S-Video inputs. It is an awesome set, fits in our entertainment center, and has a motorized swivel base.

Of course with the new TV, my old DVD player and Surround Sound receiver had to be replaced, as well as upgrading our DirecTV service to HD.

DirecTV doesn't offer all of our local market stations in HD, so I installed a ChannelMaster 4228 UHF antenna on the roof to pull in the local HD stations from Eugene. I recommend these sites for info: www.avsforum.com, www.dbstalk.com, and www.antennaweb.org.

DirecTV is supposed to put a new bird in space this summer with over 100 more channels in HD available by September or so.

I did not replace my DVD player with a Bluray or HD DVD unit yet, I just got one that upconverted. Next year I'll likely get a HD DVD player, and keep my other unit and plumb it through the component input instead of HDMI.

[Franksremote]

Thanks all.

FWIW, I have zero intentions of buying a projector TV. I'd rather just buy a Vizio LCD once a year and be done with it for that kind of reliability. (And no, I won't buy a Vizio...read the reviews...Yikes! )

It wasn't my first choice for a 55", but my gf bought if for my birthday last year as a surprise. Didn't know I wanted a big screen until I got it The warranty folks were so screwed up they sent us 5 lamps so we're good to go for the next 5 years at least

I was glad to read the prices are dropping on the replacement lamps, they quoted us $395 per and a friend found one for $325 and thought it was a deal. They do get you coming and going.

[cking]

For hype and advertising George summed it pretty well, it sucks. You would think they would get the interfaces working so this stuff would plug together. IT is a small fortune to try an get a switcher/upscaler, a Satellite, DVD, and PVR functions to work together. I'm not buying until they do.

Best connection if you want all the pixels is DVI, but almost no DVD players support that and very few LCD/Plasma displays do either. HDMI doth truly suck unless it's an exact pixel pitch match and as EricW notes, it's a jungle out there.

The best way really is with the Y, Pb, Pr RCA jacks on the progressive players. This signal format, even though it is analog has killer capability when passed to the display on quality RG-59 coaxial cable with phono connectors (as opposed to audio grade RCA Phono cable).

PM me for more tech details, video engineering and high def display rentals are what I do for a living ;-)

[George]

For those looking for more information about DVI, HDMI and signal formats, here are some links:

White Paper on DVI:

http://www.siliconimage.com/docs/SiI-WP-007-A.pdf

The Education Center at the DVI Gear website:

http://www.dvigear.com/education/index.html

[EricW]

I decided that continuing to use my old 27" at $0 was better than spending $1200 on technology that doesn't appear to be quite "finished" and that I don't have the time or patience to try to understand.

Give me "plug and chug" and I'm there. Until then....gigantic tube it is.

[George]

CRT's are not bad technology to view video on. They have great color, they are smooth visually and they display analog signals without excessive artifacting. Until the tube is gone, it's worth keeping.

I spent 800 bux yesterday on a B-Stock 50" Panasonic Viera 1080P Plasma. It is a truly stunning image when viewing HD broadcasts on fiber optic pathed, digital cable TV and watching DVD from a progressive capable DVD player.

When I woke up this morning I found my wife Robin had spent the entire night on the couch in the living room watching broadcast HD programming. She said it was such an incredible image compared to the 27" Sony CRT TV we have that she just couldn't stop watching. She enjoyed the comercials that air in HD as much as the actual programming content ;-)

The video and audio in an HD broadcast are so superior it is almost worth upgrading just to watch tubage in this format.

[Putty]

I decided that continuing to use my old 27" at $0 was better than spending $1200 on technology that doesn't appear to be quite "finished" and that I don't have the time or patience to try to understand.

Give me "plug and chug" and I'm there. Until then....gigantic tube it is.

Not quite finished? Your killin' me...just come over and be amazed..

[EricW]

Not quite finished? Your killin' me...just come over and be amazed..

Will do. But I'm really only interested in watching movies. I haven't watched the...umm...Broadcast Arts for the better part of a decade now. Don't miss it a bit.

[shred]

Interestingly, the highest-def hi-def source available to most everybody but George is over-the-air HD TV broadcast... everybody else (cable, sat) cuts the bandwidth down over what broadcast does. Eventually that will change, but it'll be a while..

[George]

Comcast put all new fiber-optic cable into our neighborhood 2 years ago and we get awesome picture quality over their feed. Digital Cable is as good as Broadcast HD, or better. Analog Cable will not be as good ;-/

I get a better HD image from Comcast on their major network sourced HD feeds than my progressive DVD player provides on it's direct HDMI connection.

As far as not ready for prime time goes, I agree with Sandoz. Come on down to my place Eric and you will get your socks knocked off by the image quality I get over cable and through my progressive DVD player on a pixel pitch matched HDMI connection.

BTW, even though I feel DVI is a better signal format than HDMI, HDMI is a good signal choice with the right gear. Just don't bother paying for Monster Cable, the Radio Shack grade HDMI cables are every bit as good at half the price.

BTW, almost all PBS programming is in HD nowadays and that's the best reason going for HDTV! Screw the major networks and their crappola' programming content. Support PBS by watching and donating, it's the only real TV out there IMHO.