Another HiDef rant

[fiasco]

Problem with LCoS is, it is a projection TV. Which means very expensive lamps that regularly burn out. So, when buying a TV like that, factor in the lamp replacements (frequency depends on how much it is used). Large screen plasmas are dropping in price as well, pushing the projection TVs (with lamp cost factored in). I personally would go for a projection only for a front projection setup - a basement room, 10' screen, projector ceiling-mounted.

Although I hope that by the time I finish my basement, we'll see large size OLED screens. OLEDs can be set on a flexible substrate, meaning you could have a 12' screen that rolls up into a tube when not used - just like a screen for a projector - but screen is a display itself - no projector needed. Hopefully, we'll see those by 2010.

My Panasonic LCD RPTV is two years old and the bulb is fine thus far. I'd suggest you are grossly overstating the fact when you say they regularly burn out. Yes the bulb is a wear item (like brakes on your car) but they do not fail "regularly". Most premature bulb failure is due not following proper shutdown/turn on steps or a defective bulb. (Unplugging a RPTV with a hot bulb can kill the bulb for example). I believe my bulb in my Panasonic is rated to 10000 hours and is warrantied for free replacement until 2010. I should look in my TV service menu, it would be interesting to see how many hours are on our bulb.

Plasma's have their own drastic shortcomings. They suffer from burn in and they consistantly lose luminance from day one gradually growing dimmer and dimmer with use. (and you cant just go buy a replacement bulb to fix that). If you're going to factor in the replacement bulb in the RPTV televisions then you have to factor in the entire plasma television pricetag as well right?

[fiasco]

JR,
No, it was a rant, not a rave. My post caused a debate with people expressing conflicting opinions, raves or gloats usually generate nothing but "you suck". Gloats are pointless (IMO) but I was looking forward to following a debate. I believe people are confirming what I suspected. When you change display resolution of your computer screen from 640 to 800 - all icons and fonts get smaller so you can fit more information on the screen. When you feed 720 resolution signal into 1080 lines display you will lose real estate and will be able to put less information on the screen. These types of things people see immediately because the resolution change affects the amount of information on the screen. But when you feed the same amount of information and it is properly scaled to occupy the available real estate and the only difference is if the picture is displayed using 720 lines or 1080 lines - human eye cannot tell the difference between 720 and 1080 on a screen 55" diagonal from 10 feet. That means that quality of processing logic in the TV (ability to deinterlace, to handle artifacts, etc) is more important than number of lines the display can handle. The quality of logic and ergonomic factors (how comfortable is the remote) separate good quality display from poor quality. Like everywhere else there is quality and there is fashion. 1080p resolution today I believe is a fashion statement. Thanks to everybody for your opinions.

Scorpio - you are correct about projection TVs and lamps. That's why I got mine with 4 year warranty including lamps. I will worry about lamps after 4 years. Something tells me that not many HD TVs will survive the next 4 years. It is a period I want to get by on the cheap.

It depends on the source as to the 720/1080. I browse the interent on my bigscreen and you would definately tell the difference at 10 feet between 1080 and 720. It isn't just that you can fit more on the screen, the detail is exponentially higher. With a moving picture you may very well not be able to see the difference but with text you absolutely can see the difference. There are more pixels to create the same image and that means better definition and a more legible screen.

Other the a PC or HD DVD is there any other source that provides 1080P regardless? I know my locals broadcast in 1080i as does DirecTV.


If you are just watching TV I would agree that the importance of 1080p is greatly overstated.

[germdoc]

1965: 3 stations, 1 (B&W) Sylvania with rabbit ears. Remote: "Son, get up and change that to Gunsmoke, will ya?" Dad and clan are happy.

2006: 70-170 stations, analog + digital + HDTV, TiVO vs. other DRD's, Widescreen vs. regular, CRT vs. LCD vs. plasma vs. RPT, cable vs. satellite vs. fiberoptic, 1 TV plus tuner plus "home theater system", interlaced vs. progressive scanning. Remote(s): require an advanced degree to figure out. Dad's really really confused, family's irritated.

My eyes are glossed over from all this crazy talk. When we got a new TV recently to replace an old fossil I went to Sears, found the best/cheapest slim CRT I could find--a 28" inch Samsung, a bargain (IMO) at $350, and went with it. It ain't HDTV but it will accept HDTV signal and convert it to analog.

OK, I realize I'm out of my league with you videophiles. But, do I really need LCD or plasma, or HDTV for that matter to watch Green Bay get beaten on Sunday afternoon? I try NOT to watch that much TV to preserve the few brain cells I have left. This TV still looks and sounds (stereo) better than any TV I've ever owned. And it's almost a grand less than a comparably-sized flat-panel TV.

I might upgrade again, in 2016, when the kids are all out of college and maybe they've got all the formats figured out so even a simpleton like me with incipient dementia can understand them.

[MilDoc]

Jeff -- in 2009 simple analog TV (ie, no HDTV) will be no more. But if your set will convert HDTV to analog, great! I blame this entire HDTV fiasco on the FCC. The gov could have made it simpler, but gave in to bigbus as usual (witness the mess with cell phone transmission technology).

[HarmsWay]

This almost getting religious. Can we at least agree that matching source and display resolutions gives the optimal image (all else being equal)?

There are pros and cons to all existing technologies and not everyone's needs or desires are the same (thank goodness!). And there is more to making a good display than resolution alone, but I'm definitely getting a big 1080p display when the hidef DVD war has been decided because I believe it makes a difference. Nothing wrong with a good CRT either unless you want one bigger than 32" and don't have a crane to move it around (or the space to put it). However for anyone that's been in a computer store lately knows, it's getting pretty tough to find a CRT monitor. I doubt there is much R&D going into that technology and I suspect that transportation costs will make CRT TVs obsolete very soon (sorry Jeff). I have to admit that I miss the blacks that CRTs can produce (or not produce I guess). I won't go back though and I wouldn't want a plasma.

Four years ago my trusty 20" Sony CRT died. I mourned for a week then started looking for a replacement. In the mean time watched DVDs and TV on a nice 14" CRT. We ended up getting an 720p LCD front projector with a 92" screen. Give it a nice signal and it looks good. Give it a bad signal and it shows everything that's wrong about it. It has a good internal scaler but looks best when given a 720p stream from satellite - significantly better than DVD. We have three other 720p displays in the house. At maximum source resolution, the optimal sitting distance for all is about 2x the screen width. The lower the source resolution the less optimal that is.

I won't hold my breath waiting for 1080p off air, on cable or by satellite, but it's here now....sort of if, if you're okay with a choice of 10 movies and a format that may be obsolete in two years.

Bob

[scorrpio]

Rear projections (and lamp issue) are a matter of how much TV is watched. If it is on average 3 hours a day, 10,000 hours would be about 10 years. But my grandma, for example, has her TV on all day. And that number has a lot of disclaimers. Usually it means low brightness setting (which is no good if TV is watched during day in a well-lit room), and letting the lamp cool down now and then. Here at the office, we have projectors going all the time, showing 'company news' feed. The one not far from where I sit, needs lamp replacement approx every 5-6 months.

But then, if you got lamp warranty, you are covered.

On the subject of CRT: Actually, the technology is not completedly dead. You might want to check into SED(surface emitter display) technology. Although I am not sure if it is still being developed. CRT has a phosphor - covered screen, and three electron emitters (red, green, blue) activating the phosphor through mask. SED, each pixel is essentially a cell with 3 phosphor dots and its own 3 nanotube emitters, so instead of there being a single beam directed to each screen pixel in turn by magnets, every pixel is serviced by its own beam. In the CRT, the electron cannon has to be very powerful in order to deliver the beam to every portion of a screen. (in a large CRT, about 25-30 kV), which means heavy burn-in potential and radiation. In a SED, the emitter is only fraction of an inch from phosphor, so it needs a lot less power, thus less burn-in and radiation. This technology was to be the most direct competitor to plasma - but I am not sure it has not suffered same fate as LCoS. A viable tech in itself, and good alternative to existing, but likely to be outdone by the time it reaches market.

germdoc - it is just one of those things 'you don't think you need till you get one and realize what you been missing'. Until fairly recently, we had a 19" CRT, which did not even have stereo sound. Gotta tell you, experience shift is dramatic. After installing the 7.1 HT system, and a 37" LCD, I loaded up Star Wars DVD - hearing that Star Destroyer flying from behind you, and feeling its engines via the sub... and we also really enjoyed watching winter Olympics in HD. Any guests who get to watch something at our place and experience positional audio, go like "we gotta get that too". The clincher of course, is not getting the gadgetry. Running totally concealed 14ga speaker wire to 6 speakers (center does not need in-wall) is a project few are willing to tackle.

[Russianwolf]

germdoc - it is just one of those things 'you don't think you need till you get one and realize what you been missing'. Until fairly recently, we had a 19" CRT, which did not even have stereo sound. Gotta tell you, experience shift is dramatic. After installing the 7.1 HT system, and a 37" LCD, I loaded up Star Wars DVD - hearing that Star Destroyer flying from behind you, and feeling its engines via the sub... and we also really enjoyed watching winter Olympics in HD. Any guests who get to watch something at our place and experience positional audio, go like "we gotta get that too". The clincher of course, is not getting the gadgetry. Running totally concealed 14ga speaker wire to 6 speakers (center does not need in-wall) is a project few are willing to tackle.

I'm like Germdoc, When the wife's old Mitshubishi died, we went and bought a 32" Sony Flat Screen CRT (NON-HDTV). I refuse to spend the money on something that is likely to be obsolete inside 5 years (Remember when you bought a TV and kept it for 20 years?). Now I do have a Sony Cineza Front LCD projector in the basement hooked up to a 5.1 surround system (where do they come up with th extra 2.0?) that kicks ass for watching movies. But that has more to do with the sound system and size of the screen than the picture being that much better.

[jziegler]

Mike,

The extra 2 channels are additional back surrounds. The left and right surrounds become left and right sides, and then the back wall gets a left and right back. It all started with Star Wars episode I with Dolby Digital EX (6.1). It grew from there.

Now, having been in theaters (and recording studios) with 6.1, and having been in the industry a few years ago, for home use, it seems to be mostly hype (not trying to start a flame war here). Unless the room is very wide, the difference in lacation between the sides and backs is minimal. Admittedly, I have not heard anything in 7.1, haven't heard 6.1 in a couple years, hate music in 5.1, but like it for movies.

Also, there is a different 7.1 format used in some movie theaters that use SDDS where there are 5 speakers behind the screen, left, left center, center, right center, and right. This comes from the old 70mm days. As far as I know, no one has tired that format for home use.

Sorry for the long off topic post.

Jim

[HarmsWay]

7.1 can be very good, unfortunately so few releases take advantage of it (Dolby or DTS versions). My favourite is the pod race in whatever Star Wars episode that was. It's quite impressive. My wife, on the other hand pretty much hates 7.1 because it means there are two more bloody speakers. She'd be happy with one mono channel for the whole home theatre thing as long as it was built into the wall or some piece of furniture that she likes to look at.

Bob

[MilDoc]

On the subject of CRT: Actually, the technology is not completedly dead. You might want to check into SED(surface emitter display) technology. Although I am not sure if it is still being developed.

SED is still under development and there may already be a TV with it on the market (? Sony). But, like all new technologies, expect it to cost an arm/leg or 2. And reliability still would need to be determined. Looks good, 'tho.