Hi-def, flat screen TVs, Classic or Dud?

tracer otm. i think you'd get used to it quickly, but then going back to a normal telly would be horrible. that sadi tracer, you have to be watching something that is made for HD to fully benefit from it.

xpost: yes, it was made for HD. when they showed "what happened recently" clips at the beginning, it was from normal TV and the image was shrunken down and less clear; maybe this is the first season they've used the HD cameras.

2) another friend stuck cooper-black decals directly onto the center of his TV screen, two-inch-high letters that spelled "i love you." same story.

I bought an HDTV 2 mos ago and it got fried in last night's thunderstorm! I doubt that's covered under any standard warranty, and I opted to forgo Circuit City's extended warranty. Now I'm sorry.

When friends come over I switch between normal TV and HDTV to show them the AWESOMENESS of high definition. All channels should be high def. Also National Geographic is sooooo coooool when it is crystal clear. And in stereo.

Plasmas and LCDs without HD look worse to my eyes than a regular tube TV.

Buy happiness? Of course you can . Its suprisingly cheap.

One problem is that everyone thinks that Plasmas, LCDs and DLPs are so great and blow huge amounts of money on pictures that have ghosting, obvious digital artifacts and very poor contrast levels. The fact is, the cheaper and older HD technology is the best. In order of quality:

1. good old CRT HD - the absolute best possible picture, but I haven't seen any over 34" widescreen, and they're deep and heavy as f*ck. cost: $700-$1200

2. HD Rear Projection CRT - not as bright as the others (but perfect for normal home viewing), and with a constrained viewing angle (but not something you're going to notice if you're watching like a normal person). However, the picture quality rivals CRT and sizes go up to 60"+ - I picked up my 51" at bestbuy.com on black friday for $899 delivered (no tax). You can still find them in that range - they're also big, but are usually on casters.

3. Plasma - while very bright (which is why they look good in bright big box stores), the picture quality drops off quite a bit from the CRT technologies - especially if you want a cinema like experience - everything looks, well, very slightly digital. The price goes up exponentially for quality screens.

4. LCD and DLP - I find it difficult to watch these for a number of reasons - mainly the very obvious digital artifacts, the contrast is all wrong and the lack of true blacks.

5. Newer technologies like LCoS etc are ruinously priced but may be the future.

Some people will not notice what I'm talking about, but the distinctions are fairly obvious to me. I find it odd and a bit sad that the older (and currently cheaper) technologies which will make your sources look their absolute best will be gone within a few years. Oh well.

Here's a basic article on the various technologies:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6463_7-5023901-1.html?tag=back2

Also - even on my old fashioned tv Planet Earth on BBC1 looked amazing. How awesome that would have been on hd (unless interrupted by pixelly effect obviously).

When HDTV is launched here (not sure when it's scheduled for cable - Sky is first up) whether you get the pixelly thing will be down to whether they allocate sufficient bandwidth to the HDTV services.

And until it is launched you'll see no benefit at all.

Apparently, in the States, lots of people are returning their HDTV sets to the shop and saying they're faulty, because they didn't realise they also had to subscribe to HDTV services to get the high-quality pictures.

(this is a joke, btw)

i do occasionally wander around the lcd tv shops and wonder why nobody seems to mention the digital artefacts. do they not see them? do they not care? is it like all those people who don't bother changing the aspect ratio on their tvs and happily watch 14x9 stuff in 4x3?

This is them not inserting the WSS signal correctly to tell your freeview box to format the signal correctly, as you surmise. 4:3 and 16:9 pictures have the same number of pixels they are just formated differently.

In fact, you did!

'Cos I'm loath to move up to an hdtv when (on my cable) I get that pixelly effect occasionally.

If it's with clicks and totally cut-outs then yes, that's a reception thing, not to do with compression. Get a nice man round to fix your aerial!

Sopranos shot on old fashioned 35MM film cameras, not HD.

http://www.consumer.philips.com/catalog/37/37PF9830_10_webImage198.jpg

I mean it looks pretty nice for sure but two and a half grand (sterling) - can it really be worth it?

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007420012,00.html

i'm considering the Samsung LN32A450, 32", 720p. it's around $500 new here and there.

anyone have any other recommendations? tips?

i had a 32" samsung

it was a beautiful tv

my god what happened

i sold it and got a bigger one

phew!

It was a very good year for hi-def, flat screen TVs
And soft summer nights
Wed hide from the lights
On the village green
When I had a Samsung LN32A450 32" TV

who can recommend a Samsung around $300? The one I'm pricing has all these grumpy reviews about the sound. I do NOT wanna make a mistake.

go back in time and buy s1ocki's used one

If I could go back in time I'd unbuy my BluRay player and never write film reviews.

Vizio? anyone have one of those?

What I learned buying mine recently is that the cheaper your budget, the fewer fine-tuning options you have re: color, contrast, audio, etc. I ended up with a Sharp Aquos that I like, but it's soooo sensitive about color depending on what you're watching. It renders something like 'Mad Men,' which is shot in warm tones, very very well. But if you're watching something filmed in cool tones, it has trouble with green/violet overload.

I have a Vizio around $300. Its about 3 years old, but as far as I can tell, the sound is just balls.

I mean, I don't know if there's some secret way to make the audio not suck, but we've just been dealing with it.

The one I bought sounds about like an old tube tv—not superb, but also not terrible. I just had to bump the bass almost all the way up, or else it sounds like it's coming through a phone.

I've never read anything positive about the sound on HDTVs. I think manufacturers cheap out on the audio thinking/assuming people will hook them up to their 3.14159 speaker systems or whatever.

Yeah, I've been assuming that if I went out and bought a surround-sound system that it would probably up the quality.

hmmm, well how the eff am I supposed to review the audio on BluRay discs then? I don't really want anything better than 32 inches, or more than $400.

*bigger than 32 in

Are there non-surround audio reviews?

from me, there are

(esp since I can't tell if Surround is playing, or if I have it. this is how much I care)

wirecutter reccomends this samsung 32" http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-UN32EH4003-32-inch-720p-Black/dp/B0078LSTWU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372783149&sr=8-1&keywords=Samsung+UN32EH4000

I would say that 1080p is worth paying a little extra for, and you can get that resolution in 32 inch ones now.

i don't know from personal experience, but a lot of reviews i've read say that with a 32" screen at a normal viewing distance you can't really tell the difference between 720 and 1080.

yeah, that's the one I was poised to buy that has all the customer reviews complaining about the sound... xxp

I've just read in several places that on 32" you can't tell the diff btwn 720 and 1080p. God, I hate this shopping rabbithole shit. xp!

surround involves multiple speakers. There's a fake surround mode on some TVs that do some clever trickery to try and simulate rear speakers, but I don't know how well they work.

I'd suggest headphones if you just want to test audio cheaply

Yeah, fake surround is good enough for me... I don't want to test anything, I want to buy online with certainty.

Going with the Vizio, cuz I've spent too much time on this.

If all I'm gonna do on this is watch discs, I don't need more than 2 HDMI ports, correct?

If you don't have cable and don't have a gaming system or some other device like a Roku, 2 is plenty.

dr. morbius plays a lot of gaymes iirc

i mean "test" using headphones as in evaluating the movie audio, which avoids any crap speaker issue.

Do most Blu-Ray players (or Hi-Def TVs) have headphone jacks? I wouldn't think so.

Every hdtv I was shopping for a few months ago seemed to have a headphone jack. Seems like an omnipresent feature.

I inherited a big (55") Vizio LED when my brother moved to Maryland, it's probably 5-6 years old at this point and hasn't had any issues.

Newer Vizios that I've set up for folks are fine, but the audio is very mid-dy. You can monkey with the audio settings and get perfectly fine sound if you aren't listening to music and don't give a shit about big action effects.