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HD really worth it?

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HDTV looks substantially better
Click to expand...

Only if you're watching HD content.

90%+ of the material I watch on TV is standard broadcast, or the occasional DVD. Other than lacking 480p, watching conventional broadcast on a big honking HDTV looks 1000x worse than my 7yr old 31" conventional Toshiba CRT.

 
Some friends were over last weekend watching football and when I showed them the difference between the game on ESPN2 Standard and one of the HD games they were sold on HD.
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NFL games and Discovery channel. Discovery channel and NFL. NFL and Discovery channel.

There, I've listed the 6 main reasons to go HD. The digital Comcast I get in my area presents a worse HD broadcast signal than I've seen from conventional broadcast on dish.

All things being equal, HD sets combined with properly delivered HD programming is quite stunning and sells itself. There is NO comparison to conventional programming.

Otherwise there are simply too many compelling arguements against HD sets to be ignored.

(1) The price of bigger sets and glut in the LCD market makes buying a year or two from now a bigger consideration.

(2) Universal HD programming is at least that if not longer off.

(3) HD DVD has at least that long for all the suckers to buy up the first generation disks made from upscaled vs true HD masters which we won't see for a couple of years.

(4) Conventional DVD/TV looks worse on HD than EDTV or standard sets. If you disagree with this, you are visually impaired.
 
you might as well, the "hd" displayed by a 32" crt is probably rather marginal too. any stats on the exact amount of actual detail the thing displays? crt can claim "hd" if it scans 1080 times, regardless of whether that detail is actually rendered... not enough phosphor dots etc can be a problem. somehow i doubt its got super fine dot pitch for 500 bucks. so essentially the detail will be the same, edtv. get the larger picture area of the plasma.

as for difference between hdtv and edtv when only considering displays that can really display hdtv? its a big difference. but at that price who cares.
 
Originally posted by: spikespiegal
(4) Conventional DVD/TV looks worse on HD than EDTV or standard sets. If you disagree with this, you are visually impaired.
Click to expand...

No, if you agree with your statement you shouldn't ever post again on video and need to have your eyes checked.

yet another reason why one shouldn't EVER go to ATOT for TV advice. The misinformation is simply mind boggling.
 
Originally posted by: spikespiegal
HDTV looks substantially better
Click to expand...

Only if you're watching HD content.

90%+ of the material I watch on TV is standard broadcast, or the occasional DVD. Other than lacking 480p, watching conventional broadcast on a big honking HDTV looks 1000x worse than my 7yr old 31" conventional Toshiba CRT.
Click to expand...

90%? thats odd. pretty much every prime time show has been hd for years now. late night comedy like conan/leno have been too. so have pbs and plenty of cable channels. most stuff worth watching with your eyes actually glued to the set insteadof walking around doing chores or whatnot is in HD and has been for yeares.
 
Originally posted by: spidey07
Originally posted by: spikespiegal
(4) Conventional DVD/TV looks worse on HD than EDTV or standard sets. If you disagree with this, you are visually impaired.
Click to expand...

No, if you agree with your statement you shouldn't ever post again on video and need to have your eyes checked.

yet another reason why one shouldn't EVER go to ATOT for TV advice. The misinformation is simply mind boggling.
Click to expand...

Please go into more detail. I have seen statements both ways. My own experiences have been that it is no worse than my former CRT but do you have a factual basis to the argument that you can explain?
 
get it. you can still tell the difference between hd and sd. looks a lot better.

check out avsforum for more info on the tv.
 
Originally posted by: Reel
Please go into more detail. I have seen statements both ways. My own experiences have been that it is no worse than my former CRT but do you have a factual basis to the argument that you can explain?
Click to expand...

Reel,

As far as factual information you and I will probably never find it. It is subjective. Folks that say "well, SD looks crappy on a HD set" can generally be immediately lumped into the "you wouldn't know what good video looks like if it slapped you in the face with a wet trout" crowd. Basically just lump those guys into the bose crowd.

Factually however:

Scanlines (SD) give people's eyes a perceived sharpness and contrast on the display (at a sever loss of resolution/detail. Couple this with being trained to view a small screen at a long distance and you have the perfect misconception - "SD looks bad on a HD display"

So when people watch SD on this huge display from the same distance as their 32" TV they see all the crap that is in a SD feed/resolution.

People want the TV to "WOW and SIZZLE" them as opposed to accuracy.
 
Originally posted by: spidey07
Originally posted by: Reel
Please go into more detail. I have seen statements both ways. My own experiences have been that it is no worse than my former CRT but do you have a factual basis to the argument that you can explain?
Click to expand...

Reel,

As far as factual information you and I will probably never find it. It is subjective. Folks that say "well, SD looks crappy on a HD set" can generally be immediately lumped into the "you wouldn't know what good video looks like if it slapped you in the face with a wet trout" crowd. Basically just lump those guys into the bose crowd.

Factually however:

Scanlines (SD) give people's eyes a perceived sharpness and contrast on the display (at a sever loss of resolution/detail. Couple this with being trained to view a small screen at a long distance and you have the perfect misconception - "SD looks bad on a HD display"

So when people watch SD on this huge display from the same distance as their 32" TV they see all the crap that is in a SD feed/resolution.

People want the TV to "WOW and SIZZLE" them as opposed to accuracy.
Click to expand...

Makes sense. I had a similar discussion with a coworker Friday. We went out to lunch and the place had a few HD-capable LCDs on the wall stretched to widescreen with SD feeds. Up close you could see how bad it looked but from across the restaurant only I could tell it wasn't HD. I think a real example was when we went to another restaurant after work and they had ESPN Sportscenter in HD and they switch between the HD + SD game clips. The poor quality of the SD feeds was apparent. However, I would never blame that on the TV. Are we on the same page or am I misunderstanding you?
 
Originally posted by: spikespiegal
HDTV looks substantially better
Click to expand...

Only if you're watching HD content.

90%+ of the material I watch on TV is standard broadcast, or the occasional DVD. Other than lacking 480p, watching conventional broadcast on a big honking HDTV looks 1000x worse than my 7yr old 31" conventional Toshiba CRT.
Click to expand...

 
I think EDTV for $450 would be great. Unless you get a 1080p set. A 720p set is only going halfway which is dumb. If you are only going 720p, you might as well bump down to EDTV since they are both stop-gap resolutions.
 
Originally posted by: spikespiegal
Some friends were over last weekend watching football and when I showed them the difference between the game on ESPN2 Standard and one of the HD games they were sold on HD.
Click to expand...

(3) HD DVD has at least that long for all the suckers to buy up the first generation disks made from upscaled vs true HD masters which we won't see for a couple of years.
Click to expand...

You are aware that it isn't upscaling when they take film and put "convert" it to HD, right? Film still has a higher "resolution" than HD.

This is why films converted to HD (whether it be on HDNet/HBO-HD, or HD-DVD/Blu-Ray) look better than they do on regular DVD.
 
For a Plasma type display, HD only makes a difference over ED if you're sitting very close to the display. If you're sitting on your couch a meter or so away it is hardly worth it when dealing with plasma. Enhanced Definition is pretty good too. With a good source material, 720p would be excellent on it.
 
well it also depends on the tvs resolution and scaler i bet. the more excess pixels you have the better sd picture you can potentially put out. just like computer lcds running at lower resolutions.
 
Originally posted by: five40
I think EDTV for $450 would be great. Unless you get a 1080p set. A 720p set is only going halfway which is dumb. If you are only going 720p, you might as well bump down to EDTV since they are both stop-gap resolutions.
Click to expand...

That alone doesn't make them interchangeable. Although I agree this is a good price, 480p is nowhere near as good as 720p, and the advantages of 1080p over 720p is negligible until you get into very large (56"+) sets.
 
A Panasonic EDTV is equivelant to the low end HDTVs by any other vendor

I would suggest buying it.

My Panny EDTV upscales my images to either 720 or 1080i
 
Originally posted by: jmgonzalez
A Panasonic EDTV is equivelant to the low end HDTVs by any other vendor

I would suggest buying it.

My Panny EDTV upscales my images to either 720 or 1080i
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say that it's "equivalent." It still has the same pixel-count limitations as a set by any other vendor. We have an EDTV Panny at work that looks very poor compared to my Samsung 720p DLP set.

Why would your set upscale to 720p or 1080i when it can't display those resolutions?
 
Originally posted by: secretanchitman
HDTV > EDTV.
Click to expand...


we all know that. the question is, how good is EDTV?

OTOH, I would only purchase it from a retailer w/ a warranty.

the question is, is ED more noticable over SD than HD is over ED? if so, how much noticable? Quantify it. Can I see 3 beads of sweat on Peyton's face on HD, as opposed to one bead on ED?
 
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
you might as well, the "hd" displayed by a 32" crt is probably rather marginal too. any stats on the exact amount of actual detail the thing displays? crt can claim "hd" if it scans 1080 times, regardless of whether that detail is actually rendered... not enough phosphor dots etc can be a problem. somehow i doubt its got super fine dot pitch for 500 bucks. so essentially the detail will be the same, edtv. get the larger picture area of the plasma.

as for difference between hdtv and edtv when only considering displays that can really display hdtv? its a big difference. but at that price who cares.
Click to expand...


I have a 30" crt that's high resolution. It uses the same type of tube (ultra-fine pitch) as in the Sony XBR TVs.

 
Originally posted by: secretanchitman
HDTV > EDTV.

480p is the maximum resolution you'll get out of that thing. correct me if im wrong though.
Click to expand...


EDTV is any resolution higher than standard broadcast resolution but lower than the HDTV resolutions. You have 480p EDTVs, but you also have ones which as slightly below 720p, and therefore can't call themselves HDTVs.
 
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