Possibly dumb HDTV questions.

[Isocene]

I have 50" panasonic plasma and it still looks great with regular tv.

 

[Linux23]

I don't watch much SD tv with my 50" Samsung DLP (I bought the older HLP series on closeout prices), but from what I have seen, it is definately watchable.

 

[ShowdOWN]

that sammy you are looking at is the most highly rated model(HLRxxx) in the market right now for price/performance. im planning to get a 70" sammy later on in the year when the newer 1080p models arrive.

 

[MustISO]

Sony and Mitsubishi have 70" models coming out as well. Should be an interesting fall.

 

[Muadib]

You should wait until 1080p models become more common. You will be able to get this set cheaper then.

 

[MaverickBP]

sd does look like ass on a dlp..its a common prob on most big screens. sd is a crappy signal and ur blowing it up to cover the screen area

 

[LordSnailz]

Originally posted by: Muadib
You should wait until 1080p models become more common. You will be able to get this set cheaper then.

more waiting for me as well Any idea when 1080p will be more common?

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: LordSnailz

Originally posted by: Muadib
You should wait until 1080p models become more common. You will be able to get this set cheaper then.

more waiting for me as well Any idea when 1080p will be more common?

Many models were supposed to come out this month, but haven't.

 

[Mani]

1080p is getting a lot of hype for something that costs a lot more and actually makes 720p looks worse at full screen than an HD2 or HD3-based TV. And I don't even want to hear about 1080p content because decent availability of it is a LONG ways away, by which time 1080p TVs will be ubiquitous and cheap anyways.

 

[Viper GTS]

With a $2K budget I would be looking seriously at this.

There are of course lots of good RP sets in that price range.

There has been rumor of a serious excess in supply of HD sets in the near future, if that's the case waiting a little while might not be a bad idea.

Viper GTS

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: Mani
1080p is getting a lot of hype for something that costs a lot more and actually makes 720p looks worse at full screen than an HD2 or HD3-based TV. And I don't even want to hear about 1080p content because decent availability of it is a LONG ways away, by which time 1080p TVs will be ubiquitous and cheap anyways.

1080P content may be available far sooner than you think. With Dish moving to H.264 all kinds of stuff will become possible. Of course OTA & cable will be a long time coming but satellite has the luxury of moving quickly.

Plus with a display like that the obvious source is a HTPC. 1920x1080 via DVI from a good HTPC & you can upconvert any damn thing you want. Not to mention high end video processors which can deinterlace & upconvert 1080i to 1080p.

There are lots of current ways to take advantage of a display capable of 1080P, but native 1080P content won't be mainstream for a while yet.

Viper GTS

 

[Mani]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: Mani
1080p is getting a lot of hype for something that costs a lot more and actually makes 720p looks worse at full screen than an HD2 or HD3-based TV. And I don't even want to hear about 1080p content because decent availability of it is a LONG ways away, by which time 1080p TVs will be ubiquitous and cheap anyways.

1080P content may be available far sooner than you think. With Dish moving to H.264 all kinds of stuff will become possible. Of course OTA & cable will be a long time coming but satellite has the luxury of moving quickly.

Plus with a display like that the obvious source is a HTPC. 1920x1080 via DVI from a good HTPC & you can upconvert any damn thing you want. Not to mention high end video processors which can deinterlace & upconvert 1080i to 1080p.

There are lots of current ways to take advantage of a display capable of 1080P, but native 1080P content won't be mainstream for a while yet.

Viper GTS

H.264 buys dish some bandwidth but it's a sure bet they'll use that bandwidth on expanding their HD content in the current formats before adding 1080p when just about no HDTVs sold today will even display 1080p. Besides, Dish isn't even the one to make that call on content format - it's almost entirely in the hands of the networks themselves.

HTPCs are such a tiny percentage of the market, it's highly doubtful they will drive content providers to 1080p.

Think about how much sense it makes for any content provider to go all out on providing 1080p content when 99.9% of all TVs today aren't even capable of downscaling 1080p to their native resolutions due to scaler bandwidth limitations. Creating 1080p content to satisfy the tiny subset of users who purchase 1080p televisions just doesn't make any sense in the near future.

There may well be a very limited amount of content available soon (in fact there already is some) but not nearly enough to justify the purchase of a 1080p TV at this point.

 

[Pacfanweb]

You'll be happy with the Samsung. I have a 50" and it looks fine with pretty much anything. There are some picky sob's to bitch about pixels with SD.
I upgraded from a 35" Mitsubishi CRT and the Sammy is better on everything.

 

[Entity]

Well, ended up getting the Sony 42" Grand Wega. Great TV, great picture. Now I'm just trying to figure out how to get the most HD materials for the least price. I bought a cheap (~$20) antenna and seem to get a few local channels pretty well now. I currently pay ~$40/mo for extended basic cable in the Seattle market; anyone have suggestions for the best way to get the most HDTV service?

Rob

 

[RossMAN]

Which $20 antenna did you buy?

Did you enter your complete address into AntennaWeb.org?

 

[suse920]

Originally posted by: Entity
Well, ended up getting the Sony 42" Grand Wega. Great TV, great picture. Now I'm just trying to figure out how to get the most HD materials for the least price. I bought a cheap (~$20) antenna and seem to get a few local channels pretty well now. I currently pay ~$40/mo for extended basic cable in the Seattle market; anyone have suggestions for the best way to get the most HDTV service?

Rob

I have an antenna and an amp. With this i get all the national hd channels... good enough for me.

 

[Argo]

I have the same exact TV (albeit 42" version). SD pictures look slightly stretched on it (although you have an option of adding 2 black bars from the sides). In the end you kind of get used to the SD getting stretched, and it only highlights the difference between HD and SD.

 

[CHfan4ever]

Originally posted by: teckmaster
the samsungs have an awesome picture no matter what the technology. SD will look like it always has on your 27".

Not true

 

[Argo]

Originally posted by: Entity
Well, ended up getting the Sony 42" Grand Wega. Great TV, great picture. Now I'm just trying to figure out how to get the most HD materials for the least price. I bought a cheap (~$20) antenna and seem to get a few local channels pretty well now. I currently pay ~$40/mo for extended basic cable in the Seattle market; anyone have suggestions for the best way to get the most HDTV service?

Rob

Where in Seattle? I live in West Edge and I only get Fox and NBC (if I try very hard) through indoor anthenna. I ended up getting a Terk but I'm hearing that it's junk. Which antenna did you end up getting?

 

[Entity]

Originally posted by: suse920

Originally posted by: Entity
Well, ended up getting the Sony 42" Grand Wega. Great TV, great picture. Now I'm just trying to figure out how to get the most HD materials for the least price. I bought a cheap (~$20) antenna and seem to get a few local channels pretty well now. I currently pay ~$40/mo for extended basic cable in the Seattle market; anyone have suggestions for the best way to get the most HDTV service?

Rob

I have an antenna and an amp. With this i get all the national hd channels... good enough for me.

What antenna? What amp?

Rob

 

[Entity]

Originally posted by: Argo

Originally posted by: Entity
Well, ended up getting the Sony 42" Grand Wega. Great TV, great picture. Now I'm just trying to figure out how to get the most HD materials for the least price. I bought a cheap (~$20) antenna and seem to get a few local channels pretty well now. I currently pay ~$40/mo for extended basic cable in the Seattle market; anyone have suggestions for the best way to get the most HDTV service?

Rob

Where in Seattle? I live in West Edge and I only get Fox and NBC (if I try very hard) though indoor anthenna. I ended up getting a Terk but I'm hearing that it's junk. Which anthenna did you end up getting?

My antenna is just a cheapo RCA I think. I live in Greenlake.

 

[RossMAN]

Why did you go with Sony rather than Samsung or Toshiba?

 

[Entity]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
Why did you go with Sony rather than Samsung or Toshiba?

The PQ is great, I prefer the LCD projection technology to the DLP projection which has problems with lag in some games, etc. The price was also right, and the form factor is excellent.

Rob

 

[RossMAN]

Ah ok, I've seen some beautiful Sony LCD's.

 

[bootymac]

I have a Toshiba 46HMX85 series. 46" widescreen and it's simply amazing.