Advice on Buying an HDTV

well i spent the big bucks, got a 55" mitsubishi a few years back that does 1080. i also bought an RCA DVR with 1080 upscan. so i dont even have HD TV signal... but do watch movies in hi def and i am pretty happy with it.

as far as viewing distance. in our old apartment, the living room was small so we put the TV in a bedroom that was even smaller. we were exactly 6 feet from screen. well it took all of about 5 minutes to get used to it.

now that we live in normal house we are at a normal 12 feet and it still cool, but for action type movies, the upclose version was waaay better

 

We bought a 42" Panasonic plasma last year, after doing quite a bit of reading and research. My favorite site is CNET. You can get loads of information and links there, particularly on how to configure the settings on your particular model to make it look its best in a home environment. Note that the settings in the store are usually maxed out to compensate for all the ambient lighting, so it's not always easy to judge the picture quality that way. Better to check out reviews that have picture test results.

We chose 42" because that's how much space we had. Anything larger would not have fit and would look really out of place. Since we don't watch TV a whole lot and don't leave the TV running all the time, electricity consumption is not a major consideration. But the angle of viewing is important, due to the layout of our living room, hence plasma instead of LCD.

As for cables, I concur with everyone else: do NOT buy them from the big box stores.

 

Sony 46" Bravia KDL46V2500 LCD HDTV $1530 at Circuit City with 10% off for in-store pickup coupon (code XUAH3CJAT3).

 

A friend of mine has a Bravia in a 40". Great picture.

 

A 720p projector - 1080 (i or p) would just be overkill, are below 1000$ it seems. It's more priced like a 37-42" flat panel set.

My point is that regular TV viewing, most people don't need very big. It might seem small at the store, but it's going to be huge in your living room.

I only use projector with my laptop and DVD player. You don't want to watch regular TV on those, bulb life is more expensive, and the TV signals are usually bad.

Also, if you're on a budget, start small, and work your way up. Here's my Buy-In-This-Order List

1. Excellent speakers and powered sub-woofer. This alone can be 800$+.
2. Decent amp, at least 550 watts.
3. Smaller than expected HD TV, or rather, follow viewing guidline exactly.
4. Laptop / game console
5. HD Projector

 

I prefer to it close and be engulfed in the image.It does emulate a theater experience.I watch a 50 in from about 5 ft at times.And a 10 ft from 6 or 7 ft. But you don't need a huge sound system.Your regular 2 channel stereo will provide enough audio.Which will already be an improvement over tv panels builtin speakers.

 

I'm personally looking into getting a projector. I rarely watch TV, mostly just movies and play around on the computer with games and such so the type of use fits for a projector (bulbs have limited life so leaving it on all the time isn't good for it). I'm currently looking at the Mitsubishi HC1500 with 720p native resolution (also capable of 1080i which is more than good enough for me) and would be very easy to connect a computer to it and even do 3D gaming!!! Check it out:
www.edimensional.com

Looks like lots of fun... I could have a 90" screen using an $800 projector that only consumes about 235 Watts.

 

Hi All,

As far as a very acceptable (probably damn good, I just do not have the experience to tell) OTA HDTV tuner the Samsung DTB-H260F was my selection. All the downtown DT stations here in Chicagoland are acceptable here, 30+ miles out from the Sears Tower with inside attic level in a two story house antennas (CM-4221 four bay and homemade folded dipole for channel 3 using cheapo Magnavox preamps at UHF and after a Winegard CC7750 diplexor filter-combiner). Even WBBM-DT, which is transmitting with a very meager 3700 watts to a .89 dBd (Yea, less than the gain of a dipole!) antenna on Channel 3 (60 to 66 MHz) is good copy. This ERP (5850 watts) is less than many ham VHF dxing stations! If this antenna is broadside west, people up the north and south will be in the nulls of its pattern.

One thing even with a 1080 projector, is that projectors and LCD computer monitors expect progressive scan only, typically. So, if you have a tuner, they typically put out what is broadcast, or downconvert to the next standard format. So, a 1080i signal will not be acceptable to allot of 1080p 60 hz LCD computer monitors (1920 by 1200 typically). One has to set the transfer format to 780p to get the monitor to lock on. I imagine this is the same with projectors, as projectors are typically computer display devices.

I am not aware of any economic 1080i to 1080p converters. Is somebody on here aware of such things? This seems to be the proprietary core competency of the TV makers at this time.

 

What you wrote is pretty much irrelevant since projector mfgrs market both data and home theater projectors, and the home theater projectors all accept the typical video scan rates coming out of HD set top boxes, DVD players, and HD-DVD and Blu Ray players (480i/480p/720p/1080i/1080p).

The market for such a product does not exist, for the reason I stated above.

Hardly. Companies like Genesis (Faroudja), Anchor Bay (Silicon Image/DVDO), and Silicon Optix (Reon) all make chips that perform many kinds of video processing like deinterlacing, inverse 3-2 pulldown, scaling, noise reduction, and a dozen other functions, and sell them by the tens of thousands to put into DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu Ray players, televisions, projectors, etc.

 

Hi Priusenvy,

Thanks for the reply. I am in the computer LCD monitor boat myself. 720p is pretty impressive on a 24 inch monitor. But, I was hoping to get 1080 resolution, and did have it with the component video inputs. I switched to the monitor DVI input driven from the tuner hdmi output, as that results in much better color and contrast performance, expecially for basketball games. Just the monitor wont accept the 1080i. Even though the monitor is just fine with the 1920x1200 60 Hz progressive scan output from the computer on the VGA or DVI ports, as well as the 720 p output from the tuner on the DVI port.

My intent was to awaken people who might buy an economy computer presentation projector to use as TV display what the difference was. Or even buying an older TV projector, what the cost of the newer models is buying.

Thanks again for the clarification. I am very new to this HDTV stuff. Maybe an electronics magazine will do a scan converter project board I could make a copy of?

 

If you're viewing your monitor at typical TV viewing distances, you won't see any benefit. If you're viewing it at typical computer monitor viewing distances you might be able to see the difference. What matters is whether the angle subtended by two adjacent source (not display) pixels is greater than the threshold where the eye can distinguish two objects (probably has to do with the density of cones on the retina).

I think this is less of a problem than you may think, with the price of projectors dropping as much as it has over the past few years. By the time you add the cost of a older used data projector to the cost of a new lamp, you could buy a new home theater projector.

I doubt it. The chips I mentioned probably have minimum orders in the thousands, and they're so bleeding edge, you probably have to sign a non-disclosure agreement to get the information needed to integrate them into a product, and the sample board schematics. You wouldn't be allowed to share that information under the NDA.

Better to just go onto videogon.com and find a good used processor.

 

Just be aware that almost nothing comes with HDMI cables. Apple TV may be an exception, but almost everything else you buy won't come with them. At the prices on monoprice, I just bought a couple so I had them on-hand when I got HDMI-capable devices (I've now used up both of the ones I bought).

Oh. . . and congrats on the new TV.

 

Plasmas have a better picture than LCDs. The Pioneer Elite has the best plasma picture. It is superb. My 50" is amazing. Burnout is not a problem.

 

What a bummer! At least the only thing you're out is time.

 

Sharp Aquos #1 Pick, Pioneer Elite #2. I have the Pioneer 50" and the only tv that can beat it is the Aquos, of course nothing comes close to the Aquos.

 

Are your eyes healthier with better picture quality TV (1080i/p) or with lower picture quality 480?

For me, my eyes are happier (healthier) with 1080; this justified for me to get the best set that I can afford.