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CNET's HDTV World
xerid writes "CNET.com has a collection of articles and videos on HDTV and related technologies. It looks like a good starting point for anyone interested in buying an HDTV in the near future. They also include Editors' Top HDTV picks. For top flat-panel HDTV plasma: Panasonic TH-42PHD7UY." From their Ultimate TV Buying Guide: "Since the first HDTVs appeared in 1998, high-definition television has been on the mind of every TV buyer. The big question is whether now is the time to pay a few hundred to a few thousand dollars more and take the plunge on an HDTV set. We can't answer that question for you, but we can provide some basic information that may help you decide."
Huh? Really? HDTV didn't spring to mind at all when about a year ago the hand-down TV from my parents died. Well, I still wanted a TV at my place and these were the criteria:
In the end, I bought a CRT 83cm 16:9 "flat" screen for about 900€. The thing weights over 80kg, but I don't move it every day, do I? I understand that these days, such a TV is even less expensive because they're pushing Plasma and LCD screens.
In my eyes price/quality of a good CRT cannot be beaten by the newer technologies (yet). Of course, I could just as well not have bought a TV, because if I use it once a week it'll be a lot.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Something I've noticed about HDTV is that you almost have to look at the screen from a distance to see the most quality difference.
so much for news... anyway I think the next big thing will be 'real' dlp (digital light projection) sets. The limited but increasing number of theater ones can produce trillions of colors, and they can change color around 1000 times a second. For the consumer these days, one can only get a single chip system that uses a weird color wheel to translate grayscale into color. It looks good, but it kind of reminds me of those sets before color came around that came with cellophane color screens. Also, there is a weird rainbow effect sometimes with fast moving images. TI, the makers of the chip, has a pretty neat demo on their site. Essentially, the chip is just an array of millions of tiny mirrors that are capable of being toggled on or off quite fast. In 1 chip systems, which are avaliable from mitsubishi and some others, the grayscale deal is used. In 'real' three chip systems, each chip gets a primary color all to itself. The more time per second each mirror is 'on', the more of that color will appear in each pixel, = really good image. check it out.
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
I have a 22" monitor capable of 1,920x1,080 (1080p) which cost me around 300 , a HDTV tuner card is around 150 . I already have a computer that has PCI slots .. Seems like a far cheaper option at the moment for those who have computers .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Of course, it was all worthwhile to get every game my hometown Redskins play on TV every week without having to drive to a bar and spend 3.5 hours sitting on an uncomfortable chair. I was just frustrated last week when I couldn't get HDTV for their Monday Night Football game versus the Cowboys. I also won't be able to get their December 12th game against the Cardinals because the game will be blacked out.
Anyway, this is probably the least audience appropriate comment ever written on Slashdot; feel free to moderate me down. If it makes you feel better, I sometimes ramble like this to football loving meatheads about the wonders of open source software.
There is no comparison.
Sports in regular definition looks like garbage.
I watched the Super Bowl 2 years ago on a friend's TV in HD. It ruined me. I couldn't watch non-HD ever again.
-Michael
Threshold RPG
If we're talking about value, why couldn't they take a look at some of the 30" CRTs that are out there from Samsung, Toshiba, Panasonic, etc.? They manage to get sets out there for well under $1,000. And, again, the complete omission of CRT RPTVs from their Editor's Choice list leaves out a lot of VERY good-looking sets (my parents' 57" Hitachi puts on a NICE show) that give more screen size bang for the buck.
I know flat-panel sets are cool, much easier to move around, and much easier to locate within a room, but it seems like a lot of folks have blinders on and assume that these are the only HDTV-ready sets on the market. This contributes to the notion that HDTV is still super-expensive. When you can get a Samsung 26" 16:9 CRT with HDMI input and an integrated HDTV receiver for $600 at retail, that's just not the case...
Time for a HDTV camcorder!
D UCTS/HDR-HC1/ :D
I picked me up one of the Sony's new HDR-HC1 HDV camcorders and holy shit it rules.
http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/handycam/PRO
The video quality is awesome, native resolution being 1440x1080i with nonsquare pixels,
and even though its only 1 CMOS imaging sensor (as opposed to 3CCD in the $4000 HDR-FX1), it still looks damn good. For $1500 you can't go wrong
BTW, while the plasma screen linked in teh article isn't all that "bad", consider the fact that most low-priced plasma "HDTV-ready" displays are hardly even "HD" to begin with. Pay close attention to the panel resolution, as some plasmas can be as low as 480 horizontal lines of resolution (definitely not HD) while claiming to be HD-ready (including component input and having a hardware scaler).
The panel in the article is 1024x768 rectangular pixels, so it somewhat passes the "HD" requirements, though barely.
But I'm having a bit of trouble finding the parts of the articles where they say just how little, if any, Digital Rights Management are built into these televisions.
That would be one of the key factors to which HDTV to buy, for any geek, I would think.
His name is Robert Paulsen...
Note that many TVs have a "store demo mode" that is not really what you want to use at home.
As a good proportion of customers judges picture by brightness (geee look! that one is bright!) they always are set too bright and tend to wash out.
However, once you reset them to typical home conditions, the picture becomes much better.
You need to set both contrast and brightness in your own environment (preferably using a testcard) to make sure that the whole greyscale and colorscale are displayed correctly.
Still there is a definate small upperclass of screens that are way better than the rest.
Philips makes the "ambilight" models (37pf9986 and now 37pf9830) but I think they are not available in the US. Those really stand out when they are put between other LCD panels in a showroom. So much that you wonder why you would want to buy any of the others.
LCD also has some advantages over plasma.
- the power consumption is much lower (does not seem to be of interest to Americans, but still...)
- the front surface is dark and does not tend to mirror objects in the room
- there is no danger of burn-in of static displays
I just got one and its really cool. No static in the receiption (because of error correction?) and no paying a monthly fee.
And if you didn't mean a front projection tv, but a real projector. Sony Qualia 004 will set you back 27,000$, and 3,000$ for each lamp.
Actually, no. I have replaced a dead TV since 1998, and HDTV has *never* been on my mind. 90% of what is on TV is crap (and I'm a Brit, so I guess if I was in the US then that would be 98%) so I've no desire to pay a shed load of money for the latest techno toy.
Can I recommend psychiatric councelling as a cheaper and longer lasting alternative?
I purchased the Westinghouse LVM-37w1 a few months back from Best Buy for the then-low price of $1850 (I also got 18-months same-as-cash and $120 in gift certificates).
Most slashdotters would probably be surprised to find out that connecting their PC using the RBG or DVI inputs of most HDTVs isn't all it's cracked up to be. I probably spent a year or so researching my next television and something I learned (by visiting AV Science forums) was that using the analog input on most TVs limits you to to a 4:3 resolution of 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 1024. Using DVI was hit and miss: Depending on the make and model of the television, you'd either get a blank screen or be limited to 4:3 resolutions.
There didn't seem to be a television that was completely PC-friendly. Samsung DLPs seemed to be the closest to plug-and-play as you could get. You had to change some settings on the TV and mess around with your display drivers, but you could make full use of every pixel on the screen. The same couldn't be said with most other HDTVs on the market.
Until I'd come across this thread.
Anyway, when I went to check the Westy out it was next to a 37" Sharp AQUOS which is considered by many to be "the best" in it's category. But you know what? After I spent 40 minutes twiddling around with the settings on both televisions I came to the conclusion that while the Sharp had the better picture quality, it wasn't $2000 better. (The 37" Sharp was being sold at $4000 at the time.) There were other factors as well. The native resolution of the Sharp was 1366 x 768 (whereas the Westinghouse runs at 1920 x 1080) and from what I've read at the AVSForums, all the Sharp LCDs are unable to be used as PC monitors without purchasing a Gefen HDCP compliant DVI switch which "fixes" the EDID data coming from the display.
As a television, the "Westy" doesn't have the best picture quality I've seen. (It's black-levels could be better.) But it's not bad, either. As a PC monitor, it's untouchable. It's useful to have so much screen real-estate for coding. And for gaming? Well, Half-Life 2 at 1920 x 1080 is incredible.
Note: The westy doesn't have a tuner (HD or otherwise), hence why it's labeled as a "Video Monitor".
The only problem I have with football in HD is the fairly uniform green field seems to cause problems with the compression algorithm. You get large blocks where it trys to make the field the exact same color green. But with that being said, watching football (or anything) in HD is always much better than standard analog broadcasts or even SD digital broadcasts.
Does anyone know of a way to build a DVR for HDTV yet?
Something to plug into the cable box and get HDTV cable piped over to your computer's HDD in HD quality.