Any Electronic Experts In The Field ?

[gioarmani]

If I can throw in my two-cents without sounding like some boring professor giving a lecture, I am ABSOLUTELY MANIACAL over the quality of my home-theatre and have spent way too much money & years researching, investing & upgrading it. Throughout the house, we have the new 46" Sony HD LCD flat-panel, a Sony XBR 34" widescreen HDTV flat-screen(CRT), a 27" Phillips HD plasma flat-panel, & a little 17" sharp HD LCD flat-panel. So here's the homework lesson:

Basically speaking, LCDs will give you sharper edges than plasma and almost as much contrast as plasma (although nothing is as crisp, sharp, clear, or colorful as a true CRT, glass televsion) without the issue of burn-in & clarity fade that all plasmas acquire upon aging. LCD's are said to experience some modicum form of artifacts or interpolation while viewing an extremely fast moving picture (jerky camera movements, fast action editing, etc), but not so much any more, and not as bad that the picture becomes intolerable & is still well worth it.

Because of their basic structure & composition, the entire screen (as a whole) on a plasma will burn out simultaneously, rather than expire a pixel at a time, like an LCD or DLP will. I prefer the LCD, as the human eye can't spot individual pixels from 6 or more feet away, and from personal experience when the plasma image begins to fade, it fades fast and the whole screen goes at the same time. I plugged my 2 year old Samsung plasma in next to this years same Samsung model and the store & the noticeable fade in clarity was shocking to say the least, considering how much I paid for it and how young it was (needless to say, it was immediately sold). You don't notice it disappearing for the same reason you can't see the age progression on a daily basis in humans, cars, watches, etc; there's no common frame of reference to an unaged product to compare it to and the progression is to slow to visibly notice.

DLP's have fantastic picture quality but are rear-projection units, and like all other rear-projection TV's, the short comings are quickly noticeable upon movement & placement. The only way to get the best viewable picture from a rear-projection unit is to be sitting directly in front of it in the dead center of the screen; not to the side, and not up or down any from the center of the screen--the more you move one way or the other, the brightness, contrast & general picture-quality fade dramatically. not to mention the projection bulbs are upwards of $500 a piece to replace, and with average TV viewing time, need to be done every 5+ years.

According to Consumer Reports, CNET, & other electronics rating services, the CRT is still the best picture money can buy when everything from contrast, to sharpness, to color-richness is taken into effect. Of course, CRTs weigh an absolute ton and have obvious size limitations because of it. The Sony XBR 34 inch is still rated one of the best pictures of any TV in the world. But because it's 200 pounds & because of it's limited screen size (which is measured diagonally on all TVs, from bottom corner to the opposite top corner, in case you didn't know) a lot of people opt to go for the flat-panels. I think the LCD is the smartest compromise between them all.

I am still amazed--even after 2 years--at the XBR's picture quality & the way the colors absolutely "pop" like on no other plasma or LCD on the market, and am quite satisfied with the screen size, as the couch in that room is only 8 ft away from the screen. Which by the way, as a rule of thumb, for optimal viewing experience, your seating area should be a minimum of twice the screen measurement, if your TV is over 32 inches (e.g. if you have a 50" screen, for the clearest picture, your couch needs to be a minimum of 100" from the screen, and so on).

As for your input source, there is no need to have a Blue-Ray or HD DVD player any time in the next 5 years. The only way to get the best picture out of either one is to have a TV whose resolution is 1080p, which 95% of current TVs on the market cannot produce. Normal picture--VCR, non-progressive scan DVD, or non-HD broadcast television--is 480i (interlaced). One step up from that is progressive scan, which is 480p (progressive), then 720p (where High Definition actually begins), then 1080i ("true" High Definition). After that, the next step up from 1080i and is the newest technology on the market; you guessed it--1080p. So unless you bought a 1080p television, you wasted your money on a Blue-Ray & HD DVD player, as 720p or 1080i is the highest resolution your HDTV can possibly achieve. There also isn't really that much of a recognizable difference between an HDTV with an upconverting DVD player and an HDTV with a Blue-Ray. Also keep in mind there are less than 50 titles currently available on Blue-Ray or HD DVD format, so do you really feel like spending thousands more replacing your entire media collection? I know current DVDs can be played on HD DVD & Blue-Ray because they're backwards-compatable, but so is the up-converting one, so you can save your money all around.

So the best solution is to buy an "up-converting" DVD player, which will turn your 480p progressive scan signal into either a 720p HD or 1080i HD signal (Note: your TV must be HD compatible to receive a progressive scan signal--non HDTV's will only get a fuzzy picture on a progressive scan). Sony currently manufactures the best up-converting DVD player on the market--some of the best color & sound processors money can buy. I have one hooked up to my 1080i TV, and the picture & sound are flawless. I've tried other brands of up-converting DVD players like the Samsung, and their sound quality is [censored]; avoid them like the plague.

Also make sure you're feeding your DVD player's signal to the TV on an HDMI cable--it's the best quality for video on the planet; better than S-link, better than monster/component cables, better than AV, etc. If your TV doesn't go up to 1080i or 1080p, I highly suggest a Harman Kardon progressive scan DVD player--best color quality on the market and they even use Wolfson audio-processors...PHENOMENAL sound quality through your receiver.

On the subject of receivers, Harman Kardon is the best way to go. Anything above the HK 630 is the best bang for your buck one can get. Believe it or not, HK has better sound processors & converters than Onkyo or Denon--both of which I tried and wasn't as satisfied with. I only have mine configured for 5.1 surround sound, but HK will allow you to go up to 6.1 or even 7.1 speakers! And make sure your audio feed from the DVD player into your receiver IS NOTHING BUT OPTICAL!!! You won't get better sound than fiber-optics. And try to make sure your speaker wire isn't more than 14 to 16 ft long per speaker, otherwise, your sound quality that's being fed to the speakers will start to diminish in the line.

Also, please don't be seduced by the powers of hyped-up marketing. Steer clear from Bose products; they're still using the same tinny sounding direct-reflector speaker technology invented in the early 70's. Why do you think the Bose section is usually segregated from the other brands of speakers in the sound-demo section of the store? So you won't notice the overly EQ'ed treble quality and lack of true mid-range sound from their satellite speakers. Stay away. Harman Kardon, JBL, and Polk Audio make far superior speakers with a better range of sound quality for a hell of a lot less money. I've got the HK-TS 14's from Harman, and they are fantastic--I can't tell you how many friends have been watching movies at our place & said, "Ooh, that's weird, I've never heard that part before".

Sorry to completely empty my brain upon you, but I hope this helps alleviate any worry as to what decision you make, so you don't feel screwed because some salesman either wasn't educated well enough, or conveniently left an important tid-bit out.

[Pugwash]

When you're talking about 1080p, you're talking about 1080p50/60 which will be the standard in about 5 years time when the bandwidth issues are dealt with. However, movies are filmed at 24fps so you only need 1080p24, which if your TV can't do, you can use inverse telecine to get that to 1080i60.

BluRay and HD-DVD movies will be 1080p24.

[cornerstone]

@gio: Great post! Thank you!

If you're not getting the full kit right now, modern PC's often do a better job of upscaling DVDs than many DVD players (makes sense, more processing power) - especially if you can get 1:1 pixel mapping onto the LCD screen.

[2005SUBMARINER]

thanx for the advice ! sounds good ..

[Everythingape]

Well then!

After listening to some advice here, and looking at a dozen potential TV's, I finally went ahead and bought a 40" JVC LCD.. Tried it at home for 4 days now, and I must say I am very happy! I'm typing a little review here.

First of all, the TV looks great in my living room, I opted for a 40" as I think huge TVs centered in a normal living room look a bit tacky. And having a lot of natural light through my windows, LCD was the way to go for me. Not caring about true HD yet, this is 1366x768 resolution.

The speakers being below the screen was a must, and the cabinet should not be much more than 1000mm wide. Sound was important, as I wont connect it to an external system, and the JVC did not disappoint. Actually this must be the best sound I have ever heard out of a decently priced set.

The silver lower part of the cabinet makes it look smaller, though it might make it look a bit dated in time.

On the back there's this weird looking cable collector gate thing, probably great for people who hang these on their walls.

Connections are plenty, 2 HDMI ports being what I was after, but I also use the 2 scarts and the VGA. I doubt most people will miss anything connection wise..

I have tried it with DVI-HDMI from my computer, and the picture is absolutely flawless.

Looking at other non HD media, from my DVD-player and such, upscaling and interlacing has its flaws when you stand 1-2 feet from the TV, but sitting down 10-12 feet from it, it's close to perfect with a little settings tinkering.

Colours are crisp, no detectable lag, all auto-scaling functions are there if you want it easy.. It was quite decent straight out of the box, but turning off the auto picture improvement and adjusting the contrasts levels made it that little bit better.

All this being said; I am not a fanatic, I have a shoddy cable TV signal through a normal coax cable, and I was not expecting much from it when watching cable, but it impressed me! Noise reduction is serious business for JVC, and it looks like they got it right.

All in all, this being a somewhat inexpensive TV, it does everything I want it to, and I am very very happy with my purchase.

JVC's product page

http://www.jvc.com/product.jsp?modelId=MOD...d=80&page=1

(Called LT-40S70BU in most of europe)

[Richard Tracy]

I just went through this,... wanted to upgrade my size from my 32" Lcd, to 42 or higher,..

After weeks of research, including live views,.. I found that 1080i is for the future, not now..

even x-box 360 only transmits in 720i.. so it's not worth paying the premium for it now.

Dlp has too many moving parts, and many, many owners experience horrible problems

soon after they purchase, plus the picture quality is number three on the list, under Plasma

and Lcd but above projection.

Projection units are not feasable unless your room is dark or, you watch only at night..

I went with Plasma and am I glad I did,... My Panasonic 42" has the best picture that I have

seen,.. native 720i,.. at a cost of $1200,...

Compared to my Lcd the picture is Amazing ! If you enjoy Sports,.. believe me,..

you need Plasma,..

I can't believe that I even considered Lcd again...

Yes there is a break in period however during this,.. the quality of the picture is still so far above

any television I have ever owned..

[2005SUBMARINER]

i was actualy looking at some Panasonic 42" in my local best buy

thanx for the info !

[rocket754]

i was actualy looking at some Panasonic 42" in my local best buy

thanx for the info !

you really can't go wrong with a panasonic plasma. They have set the standard for plasma.

cnet.com should be used for comprehensive reviews