Advice on Buying an HDTV

If you had more than a passing knowledge of how TV signals are broadcast you would not have written this.

As far as the format of the broadcast signal, you are correct. But movies and scripted TV shows (not game shows or reality shows) are shot on film at 24fps, and when broadcast as 1080i60, the original 24fps frames can be perfectly reconstructed. Not every TV can do this, but many can. I have two JVC LCoS sets that do this perfectly (from HDMI, but not component input).

http://www.hometheatermag.com/hookmeup/1107hook2/

So the fact is, even though the broadcast signal is 1080i, you can get perfectly reconstructed 24fps 1080p on your TV. And if you get a 120Hz set, you get 5-5 cadence rather than 3-2 like with a 60Hz set (3-2 bothers some people).

 

A 480p TV is called EDTV (Extended Definition TV).

 

Of course, be sure you can tell the difference; you might be able to skimp out and save money. Many people can tell the difference between 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, etc... but many more really can't. As an anecdote, my parents raved about how fantastic their new 42" 1080i TV was, how sharp and clear the picture was... before I came over to hook up the HD cable box for them. There was a such a big subjective difference going to a big, flat screen with vibrant colour that the resolution difference from SD->HD didn't really impress that much. The incremental differences between the various grades of HD are smaller yet, and I doubt they would influence the viewing experience (for most people -- audio/videophiles are out there, and if you are one, then just ignore me).

 

And many people are so clueless they don't even know what they have.

Only CRT-based displays can be interlaced. All other display technologies (LCD, LCoS, DLP, Plasma) are inherently progressive. Highly doubtful that your parent's new TV was 1080i.

 

who needs a source just use common sense man.

30 years ago computers had hardrives in the megabytes
now there using terabytes

10 years ago there wasnt enough bandwidth to broadcast 1080i. To think that they wont be able to broadcast 1080p is insanity, you assumption goes against everything we have seen in technological advancement EVER.

 

I'm late to this thread, but there were a few things I wanted to add that didn't seem to be addressed. I did a ton of research and bought a 32" HDTV in February. I actually learned this was not the best time to buy, since the "2007" models came out shortly thereafter. So, if this type of thing matters to you, wait a few months before you buy.

Someone mentioned not to buy Sony, and I agree up to a point. As with most electronics, Sony makes very nice TVs, but they generally overcharge for them. You can often get as nice of a TV from Sharp or Samsung (the type I bought) or Panasonic for several hundred dollars less.

One thing that no one seems to have addressed from your original post (unless I missed it) is the PC-to-TV connection. Most HD TVs these days have a direct VGA input. I've certainly found that useful for displaying my laptop on my TV.

It's also been mentioned here to not buy cables (particularly HDMI cables) in the store. I just want to stress this again: DO NOT BUY HDMI CABLES IN THE STORE (can you tell I feel strongly about this? )The markup for HDMI cable is like nothing I've ever seen. In the store, you can easily pay $75+++ for something that you can get online for $5-$10. This unjustified markup has always been true for audio/video cabling (i.e. Monster), but the markup seems to be particularly egregious for HDMI (in that there are NO available inexpensive cables in the store), which is ironic because since it's a digital signal, the quality of the cable doesn't matter as much. I highly recommend monoprice for cables.

Finally, if you're looking for a good forum for HDTV stuff, I learned a lot from the AVS Forum when I was looking to buy. Although you should be aware that they are just as fanatical about HD stuff as some people here are about Prius stuff.

 

I will strongly second this, first time buying a hdtv 3 years ago we got the tv and the guy at the store was like ok we'll just get you some monster cables, we asked how much that was, he said $300 like it was nothing.

We said are you serious? and went to another store where they advised us that you can spend 20 bucks on cables if you want and have it look great

 

Sigh. My post went completely over your head. I was making the distinction between the format of the signal used to deliver the payload, and the original format of the source contained contained within that signal, and the ability to reconstruct that original source format.

The 19.4Mbit/sec payload of ATSC HDTV is not sufficient for decent quality 1080p60 using MPEG-2 encoding. But movies and scripted TV shows are only 24fps, not 60fps. And, as that link I posted showed, several few TVs (in 2006, more in 2007) can perfectly reassemble 1080p24 when it is broadcast as 1080i60. So while satellite and OTA may only be broadcasting 1080i60 signals, the fact is that the original 1080p24 source is contained in that signal, and a good deinterlacer can recover that progressive 24fps signal, so you can actually get 1080p24 end-to-end (well, your set has to display it with 3-2 cadence since it's 60Hz, or 5-5 if you have a newer 120Hz set).

So anyone who claims 1080p is not important except for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is clueless, since they obviously don't understand how movies and TV shows are produced, or how 3-2 pulldown and proper inverse 3-2 telecine in your TV or processor's deinterlacer can completely reconstruct a 1080p24 source from an OTA TV or satellite signal.

That link I provided explained everything. Here's the same information a form that may be easier to read for for the layperson:

http://blog.hometheatermag.com/geoffreymorrison/0807061080iv1080p/

Those are the formats that your TV can accept (either from the OTA tuner or external sources). The format that your LCD displays is fixed by the resolution of your panel, which is most likely 1280x720p.

 

If you've ever shopped in a Fry's, you'd find that Monster Cable requires Fry's to locate the reasonably priced HDMI cables in another section of the store. If you need a cable in a hurry, you can find a reasonably priced HDMI cable at Fry's, you just need to look in the computer cable section, not the (ripoff) TV cable section.

I highly recommend monoprice.com for HDMI cables too. I think I paid about $24 total for four HDMI cables from them.

 

I'm willing to believe this is true about Fry's, although I've never been there personally. All I know is that at a lot of the electronics stores I've been to (Circuit City, Best Buy, etc.), there are no inexpensive HDMI cables that I've been able to locate. The Monster ones are available for $75 or $125 or $200 (or whatever they decide to charge for them), while the "budget" ones are available for $40 or $50. Even those "budget" ones are something like eight times more expensive than the ones you can buy online from monoprice or other stores. I couldn't believe how much these stores are trying to rip you off. I'm perfectly aware of the markups on things like network cables, CDRs, etc, but the HDMI cable markup just takes it to another level.

I got two semi-fancy (i.e. gold-plated, shielded, etc, etc) HDMI cables from monoprice for $10 (that's $5 each). Now, this was a particularly good deal, but it's representative of the prices you'll pay there.

 

Ah. Wireless. I didn't catch that. I've heard good things about the Slingbox, so it'll be interesting to see how the SlingCatcher performs. I often just take my laptop and put it next to the TV and hook up the VGA cable. Inelegant, but it works. Also, I see these HDMI-to-DVI adapters out there (check monoprice, of course), and I don't know if this means that you could plug a DVI-out directly into an HDMI port, but that's very appealing to me if that's the case. At that point, you may want to consider going "wired." I can't imagine that the wireless connection will give you the picture quality that the wired connection gives you, but I freely admit that this is just blatant speculation on my part.

One thing (among many) that I like about monoprice is that it's the nice cables that cost $5-$10. Now, I just got through saying that it doesn't matter what cables you use since it's a digital signal, so it may be that the cheapo cables work just as well, but I'm happy to spend a few dollars more to get the nice ones from monoprice (in addition to the fact that I'm giving my money to a really valuable cabling/adapter resource).

 

It varies by model. All of the rear projection LCDs I'm familiar with (Sony, Panasonic, Mits) are actually 1280x720p, square-pixel 16x9 displays.

I'm going to assume you meant rear-projection LCD, since rear-projection DLP and LCoS have been available in 1920x1080p for a couple years at least. I think rear-projection LCD is pretty much a dead technology, so no mfgr. is going to invest in updating it.

 

It is amazing. I've never seen a Monster Cable HDMI cable for less than $90 at Fry's, though that's a section of the store I rarely visit.

When I got my PS3, I wanted to hook it up via HDMI right then, so ordering online wasn't an option, nor was stealing the cable used to connect my Dish HD-DVR. So I went to Fry's and found an HDMI cable for $20 in the computer cable department. 3x the price of a better-constructed cable from Monoprice, but it was only $20, and I was playing Motostorm that night.

 

That's right. The way that the stores are able to really get us is if we can't wait for the cable. $20 is clearly worth it to be able to play your system that night (and component would *not* be an acceptable substitute )

Actually, this was the reason I bought my HDMI cables from monoprice when I did. I had nothing that needed an HDMI cable and no concrete plans to get anything that needed them soon, but I knew that it was going to happen some time down the road and the cables were a good deal. I was thankful for my foresight when I got my TivoHD.