Standard definition and the perfect display

[WildW]

While I'm normally the type who needs things to look and sound good, when it comes to TV I've mostly let high definition pass me by. I've always watched and been happy with standard definition TV - DVD still looks great to me, and it's all I need and want.

I have a lot of standard definition content on my HTPC. Long ago I used to connect to a 28" widescreen CRT via s-video, and it was fine. At a normal viewing distance (I guess 8 to 10 feet) it was pretty good. The fuzzyness of CRTs always worked pretty well.

I later got a cheap 32" LCD TV, and the sharpness of a DVI-to-HDMI connection looked great. You got a little more in the way of compression artifacts becoming obvious, but everything was still looking pretty good. I ended up giving that TV to my girlfriend when her old TV died, and it's still working well there.

These days I watch my stuff through a 24" Samsung LCD TV/monitor at 1920x1200 - it sits on my desk as a second monitor and TV. Everything looks pretty lousy on it to be honest. If I feed it a 1920x1200 source like playing a PC game, or my XBox 360 at 1920x1080, everything looks gorgeous. . . but anything standard definition - video on PC, and DVD or Digital Satellite via the SCART input. . . well, it's horrible really. All the extra resolution does is let me see the monsterous compression artifacts, especially from the satellite (SKY) box. Admittedly I sit a couple of feet from the screen because its on my desk, but I never had this issue with a similar size CRT at the same distance. All that modern displays seem to achieve is making standard definition content, that I'm perfectly happy with, look lousy.

So, if I'm in the market for a new, large display, and I'm chiefly concerned with performance at standard definition, what should I buy? Another cheapass 1366x768 LCD? I see cheap plasma screens at 42" with relatively low 1024x768 resolutions - would these "poor" quality displays actually make standard definition look better than a full HD set at the same size? I'd love a big screen, I just don't need extra pixels.

 

[erwos]

You can't polish a turd. It's really that simple.

 

[s44]

Get a TV with better upscaling -- a Toshiba LCD, for example.

But the real answer is: harass your satellite company until they give you more HD channels. And buy a Blu-Ray player.

 

[WildW]

Perhaps I'm not being clear in what I'm trying to ask. . . I realise my question is kind of against all that is holy in home theatre terms. The real issue is this. . .

Do plasma screens look better than LCD for standard definition pictures? They share the phospor dot display mechanism that I've always associated with CRTs smoothing out noise in lower quality pictures.

Or is it more important to find a TV with a lower resolution screen such that compression artifacts aren't reproduced so well? If you have a video file on the PC and the original resolution is 720x480, displaying it on a 1920x1200 display requires more pixels to be interpolated, introducing more compression artifacts. . . right?

I know that standard definition will never look like HD. Don't care. I just think there must be some happy medium of bigger TV size that can look not-at-all-bad with an SD input.

 

[erwos]

You should consider buying an external video scaler like the DVDO VP50, something like that. Yes, it costs good money, but you're set "for life".

 

[88MVP]

Not sure if this is a plasma/lcd difference or maybe the upconversion abilities between different brands or what, so take this for what it's worth - my panasonic plasma still looks really great with the few channels I still only get in SD while my Sony LCD looks like crap on those same channels.

 

[s44]

Yes, plasmas generally will look better for SD material, but you really should look into the scaling and processing engines as well.

Of course, what best scales the detail of a good DVD may not be what best hides the crap of a crappy compressed digital SD channel.

 

[bobdole369]

Plasmas look better than anything LCD - IMHO - and Tubes look better than plasmas. Unfortunately both tubes and plasmas are practically gone.

Perhaps the most important feature in a TV set is its longevity. After all do you want to buy another one in a couple years?

I find a good video scaler is PARAMOUNT - such as whats in the Panasonic Pro 50" plasmas - they have a native 1280x768 or something like that - and the screen is just breathtaking. Everything coming in gets converted to that resolution. Something like a Vizio wouldn't even come close. I'm willing to bet that the OP's 24" samsung had no scaler, or since its a computer monitor - a very poor one.

 

[WildW]

The 24 incher is a Samsung T240HD. I bought it knowing that for the moment I need a small TV because of where I live, and that when it's finished being a TV it will make a decent PC monitor - rather than getting a little LCD TV with crappy resolution that'd be no use for anything else. Don't know what the scaler is supposed to be like in them, but as I said, most likely it looks poor with SD sources like Sky because I'm sat 2 feet away.

The fact that video from the PC looks crappy is probably a different issue. At that point it's being driven as a monitor at full 1920x1200 resolution by the PC. . . any scaling is down to the media player software/codec and the quality of the source file. It's just that, compared to my old TV (1366x768), the same low def stuff looks awful, even on a smaller screen (24" vs 32")

 

[newnameman]

At that distance vs. screen size, highly compressed SD content is going to look bad on any screen. Your best bet is probably to sit further away from the screen.