HDTV kind of sucks at regular TV

[SimMike2]

I went to the store looking at possibly upgrading to a 43" to 50" HD TV rear projection TV. While DVDs looked outstanding, almost like real film, when I asked them to switch to an over the air non-HD football game, the picture was not very good on any of the HD TVs. In fact the standard 30" to 36" tube TVs looked way better with this standard broadcast stuff. Since watching "regular" TV is going to probably be 90% of my viewing for the next year or so, I can't see spending money on HDTV.

 

[ShadowHunter]

Who stinkin' watches broadcast anymore??

Edit for more seriousness...

You get used to the "poor quality" on some channels. It's definitely worth it. Can't you get digital cable?

 

[Doggiedog]

That's why you need to get an HDTV with a line doubler like my Sony 36XBR400.

 

[CoderFirstClass]

 

[Murphyrulez]

The whole purpose of an HDTV is to watch HDTV. Not cable. Put up a UHF antenna and pick up all your local TV station HDTV over-the-air broadcast signals. There you go, digital CBS NBC ABC FOX PBS UPN. Looks excellent on my HDTV.
I guarantee you will not be dissapointed if you get one! It's the best buy I have made in 30 years.

Paul

 

[LiQiCE]

You might want to try one of the Direct View HDTVs like the 34" Widescreen ones or the new Sony 40" VVega ... I think they would probably look better for regular broadcast TV ... and like DoggieDog says, they can optionally auto-enhance your regular NTSC TV by using line doubling.

 

[yakko]

HDTV is suck. I hate the government for forcing it on us.

 

[Murphyrulez]

What are they forcing on you? If I'm not mistaken they will be broadcasting analog signals for years and years to come. If you want to stay in the back of the class, more power to ya!

Paul

 

[ShadowHunter]

<< HDTV is suck. I hate the government for forcing it on us. >>



Whiney people is suck. I hate people who hold back progress for the rest of us.

 

[SimMike2]

<< Can't you get digital cable? >>

So called "digital cable" is really just the cable companies way of squeezing more channels into their lineup. Digital cable was never about improved quality. Cable companies could support HDTV, but it would take using two channels or more of the digital spectrum. This means you might not get "Celebrity Chefs of Timbuktu," which means the cable companies get less money from all these red-headed step child TV channels.

 

[SimMike2]

Before this thread turns into a flame war, here is a serious question.

The guy at the store said an HDTV decoder costs about $500, which seemed kind of steep to me. Is there anyway around this, say some satellite connection that connects directly to the component inputs of the TV? Maybe it doesn't have to be full HDTV, but close to DVD quality.

 

[iamshady]

I live on Long Island and Cablevision has been showing off it's HDTV cable service at local Wiz stores. Knicks, Rangers, Devils, Islanders, and Nets games look so good, wish I had $2500 laying around. With HDTV you can see so much more it's amazing.

 

[BD2003]

Even though HDTV is supposed to totally take over by 2006, my guess is that analog cable companies are going to just to some D/A conversion on their side, and spit it back out to you as regular analog.

Not to sure about the legality of that though.

HDTVs need to come down in price something major. We need to see 20 inch HDTVs for $400, or not a damn person is going to buy them.

 

[Amused]

Are you implying that an HDTV or HiScan rear projection monitor looks worse than a regular rear projection TV when watching regular programing?

Or are you comparing a rear projection to a tube TV with regular programing? A rear projection will always appear worse, because the screen is bigger and therefore the lines will be farther apart. That why there is a minimum recommended viewing distance with bigscreen TVs.

How did the non-HDTV big screens look with non-HDTV programing?? About the same, huh?

To properly compare a 40 inch TV with a 50 inch TV, you must move comparatively closer to the smaller TV. I submit that you were standing too close to the bigscreens, and not close enough to the tube TVs to make a fair comparison.

The minimum viewing distance from a 53" rear projection TV when viewing non-HDTV programing is like 16 feet.

 

[Doggiedog]

I thought he was talking about the scan lines on large screen TVs. The interlacing scan lines are much more prevalent in larger TVs vs smaller ones. My friend bought a rear projection TV and it has horrible scan lines when watching TV. I almost laughed at him for getting it. If you are going to get a large screen TV (either tube or projection), you really should look at one with a line doubler. I think alot more companies are including them in their sets.

 

[WickedMotorcar]

I don't think the direct view (glass tube) HDTVs are true HDTV. They only up covert to 480P instead of the 1080 or whatever. I've owned 2 mitsubishi widescreen HDTVS but returned them because they were just too big. 65" and 55" respectively. I'm getting a 40" widescreen rear projection now. I feel the small size will be the best compromise between size and broadcast viewing pleasure. Remember to sit far enough away though. Some tuning will also help greatly.

 

[Murphyrulez]

HAHAHAHAHHA!!! I cannot believe my ears! You said 'too big' and 'HDTV' in the same sentence! I fart in your general direction!
My 100 inch diagonal HDTV looks SWEET, from a viewing distance of 14 feet. General guidelines for viewing distance is 1.5 times the screen width. My screen is 80 inches wide, and we sit 14 feet away = over 2x.

Your life is not complete until you see one of the gross interior body animations on CSI in HD. And Alias on ABC, Jennifer Garner is mighty hot, wearing those skin tight outfits bigger than life in HD.


Paul

 

[SimMike2]

I was mainly looking at a 42" Toshiba wide screen and 43" Hitachi regular format HDTV. You could stand about two feet away and the DVDs looked outstanding. But when they switched to the football game (non HD), even when you went back about 10 feet, the picture still looked bad. There was this funky type line crawl (more of a waver) on all the edges. All the HDTV rear projection TVs seemed to have this problem.

As far as sitting farther back from big screen TV, this is all well and good, but if you go too far back, it defeats the whole purpose of a big screen because the TV will effectively be smaller than a smaller TV when you sit closer. If you look at a 50" TV from one mile away, it will looked fantastic -- no dot crawl or anything else.

 

[LethalWolfe]

The reason analog TV looks "bad" on an HDTV is 'cause the HDTV shows you how low res broadcast analog TV is. Depending on where you live many prime time shows are being broadcast in analog and HD. Personally, I'm gonna wait on HDTV. But I think it's because I can barely afford rent, not because I don't want an HDTV to play with


Lethal

 

[yakko]

<<

<< HDTV is suck. I hate the government for forcing it on us. >>



Whiney people is suck. I hate people who hold back progress for the rest of us. >>

Progress should be decided by what the consumer wants not what the government mandates. If I want to keep watching TV I will be forced to spend money even though my current TV and VCR are working perfectly fine.

 

[arod]

<<

<<

<< HDTV is suck. I hate the government for forcing it on us. >>



Whiney people is suck. I hate people who hold back progress for the rest of us. >>

Progress should be decided by what the consumer wants not what the government mandates. If I want to keep watching TV I will be forced to spend money even though my current TV and VCR are working perfectly fine. >>



Im gussing you have never watched anything on HDTV extensively because if you had you would have a HDTV right now like me! I have and rarely watch anything on analog anymore unless its a show that is not on HDTV. Another think yakko, you are misinformed about the government mandates. You won't have to have a HDTV by 2006. All the mandate makes stations do is broadcast a HDTV version of their signal by that time.

 

[yakko]

arod,

A TV station will drop regular broadcasting as soon as possible because it is cheaper to only broadcast the signal once. I have seen HDTV but since I rarely watch TV anyway it is not a priority. I might watch a whole 6 hours in a week unless PBS has some good stuff on.

 

[WickedMotorcar]

<< HAHAHAHAHHA!!! I cannot believe my ears! You said 'too big' and 'HDTV' in the same sentence! I fart in your general direction!
My 100 inch diagonal HDTV looks SWEET, from a viewing distance of 14 feet. General guidelines for viewing distance is 1.5 times the screen width. My screen is 80 inches wide, and we sit 14 feet away = over 2x.

Your life is not complete until you see one of the gross interior body animations on CSI in HD. And Alias on ABC, Jennifer Garner is mighty hot, wearing those skin tight outfits bigger than life in HD.


Paul >>



It was too big, too big for my room. An HDTV signal looks stellar, however I am using Time Warner cable and only have two HDTV signals (HBO and ShoTime) at my disposal. I watch alot of regular TV and the big screens magnify the crappy signal to where it's unbearable. That's why i'm getting the smallest widescreen projection TV I can find.