I am an HDTV total newb, help please

[MrHat]

The problem with those composite/s-video is that once you experience DVI, everything else looks like shit and you'd wish you had more component/HD-plugs.

[Sky]

I'd put DVI first, but you've got it right (HDMI also carries sound and enables copy protection). And yeah, some signals are friendlier to some hookups. My cable box looks great on component, and I reserve the DVI for the pc because of the perfect sharpness of pixels it delivers. The cable looks a tiny bit better over DVI...but not enough to deal with slightly blurrier pc pixels imo. If you aren't hooking up the pc (boo! ) then you are still a bit short for connections...do you have a component switching receiver? Mine's cheap and has that capability, it's not just high end stuff.  Assuming cable-DVI and everything else component...but thinking about it, you'd need to upgrade your DVD player (or use your pc! powerdvd ftw), so you could get away with *shudder* svideo for DVDs until you get a progressive scan DVD player, which are getting cheap. Not sure what tivo can do, I use the cable DVR (psst..it's a cylon).

My set scales all 1080i content to 720p, it's native format. Afaik (which probably isn't far two years later), all sets scale to their native resolution.

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/05/news/international/matsushita.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes

I am starting to save up now.

[HaemishM]

http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/05/news/international/matsushita.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes

I am starting to save up now.

My God, it's full of stars.

[jpark]

Rather than create a new thread I thought I would ask here:

1.  What's the status of the color quality of LCD displays vs. CRT monitors these days for PC games?

It used to be that CRT monitors - good ones - had superior color quality to the LCDs.

2.  The impression of superior color quality - it appears to me - seems to be in part based on how "black" the monitor can achieve this "color":  inferior color quality monitors have the first giveaway that their appearance of black sucks/light - this make sense?

(as long as you don't read that second question aloud it won't come across as a run-on sentence  )

[Pococurante]

So where are we now?  My 25-yr old inherited projection TV is dying but I'm pissed that I'd have to buy a replace DLP spinner at some point.  Damn but I hate transition points.

[Trippy]

Rather than create a new thread I thought I would ask here:

1.  What's the status of the color quality of LCD displays vs. CRT monitors these days for PC games?

It used to be that CRT monitors - good ones - had superior color quality to the LCDs.

2.  The impression of superior color quality - it appears to me - seems to be in part based on how "black" the monitor can achieve this "color":  inferior color quality monitors have the first giveaway that their appearance of black sucks/light - this make sense?

For color quality if you are willing to cough up $6K or so, you can get an LED backlight (aka Lumileds) LCD which will give you an even wider color space than a CRT (though not necessarily more accurate). Unfortunately response times of these LCDs is poor for gaming.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/10/28/a_revolution/index.html
http://www.behardware.com/articles/570-1/lumileds-the-future-of-the-lcd.html

[MrHat]

Didn't Toshiba or someone announce some crazy tv screen at CES?

Schild will answer.

[schild]

Yes. I'm holding off on getting my TV because of it. It's called something something somethign there's a D at the end. It deals with Electronics or sommat. EDLP or something. I don't remember. Doesn't matter. It's a broken screen. It needs to be nerfed.

[MrHat]

100000:1 Contrast ratios or some shit.

[Sky]

I'm pissed that I'd have to buy a replace DLP spinner at some point.  Damn but I hate transition points.

The only consumer replaceable part is the lamp. Expect two years of fairly heavy usage.

[murdoc]

necro Necro NECROPOST!

Finally grabbed a HDTV this past weekend: Sony 50" SXRD Projection TV

I debated the 60", but the 50 fits in my designated home theatre spot a bit nicer, plus I got it for $1,999.99 CDN which fit the budget perfectly. That price point made it possible to add another new receiver to the mix: Yamaha HDMI switching receiver

Haven't got it all set up quite yet, but I  HD gaming on the 360. Can't wait to get the sound all hooked up.

[Morfiend]

I have the 60inch SXRD. Gaming on the 360 is pure luv. You wont be disapointed.

[Cyrrex]

necro Necro NECROPOST!

Finally grabbed a HDTV this past weekend: Sony 50" SXRD Projection TV

I debated the 60", but the 50 fits in my designated home theatre spot a bit nicer, plus I got it for $1,999.99 CDN which fit the budget perfectly. That price point made it possible to add another new receiver to the mix: Yamaha HDMI switching receiver

Haven't got it all set up quite yet, but I  HD gaming on the 360. Can't wait to get the sound all hooked up.

Where'd you get it at such a tasty price?  I'm looking for a good all-around source for A/V equipment.

[murdoc]

It's more of a 'who you know', than a 'what you know' sort of deal. It's nice when someone who owes you a favour can get employee discounts. ;)

[Sky]

My super-deal method was an employee typo (he took $1350 off instead of $350). Thanks, employee!

[Signe]

necro Necro NECROPOST!

Finally grabbed a HDTV this past weekend: Sony 50" SXRD Projection TV

I debated the 60", but the 50 fits in my designated home theatre spot a bit nicer, plus I got it for $1,999.99 CDN which fit the budget perfectly. That price point made it possible to add another new receiver to the mix: Yamaha HDMI switching receiver

Haven't got it all set up quite yet, but I  HD gaming on the 360. Can't wait to get the sound all hooked up.

Where'd you get it at such a tasty price?  I'm looking for a good all-around source for A/V equipment.

It's CANADIAN money!

[WayAbvPar]

I am in the market for a new TV as well. Debating between the Sony LCoS tech and the Samsung DLP atm. Looking for a 50 to 60 inch screen.  Pros? Cons? Thoughts? Donations?  :-D

[Morfiend]

I am in the market for a new TV as well. Debating between the Sony LCoS tech and the Samsung DLP atm. Looking for a 50 to 60 inch screen.  Pros? Cons? Thoughts? Donations?  :-D

Sony Rear Projection:
Pros: Better picture. All around awesome set.
Cons: As with all rear projections, you have the posibility of "burn in".

DLP:
Pros: Usually cheaper, more "hardy" when it comes to useage. Wont suffer burn in.
Cons: Worse picture.

[murdoc]

Check about gaming lag too if you're playing the "older" systems on it. If I remember correctly, Samsung DLPs had some of the worst gaming lag for the original Xbox and PS2.

[Sky]

Isn't that with the sound running to the set? I have played my xbox many times on my DLP without any lag issues. Definitely no sound lag on the pc.

I haven't seen an LCoS screen, so I dunno. The picture on George is totally awesome, though maybe you could consider it 'low res' now because it's 'only' 720p. Most new DLPs I've seen are 1080p and really nice. As Morph says, no burnin with DLP.

Biggest downside imo is the replacement bulbs. An extended warranty should cover at least one bulb, I bought mine early enough they will buy me two. After that, I'll be replacing the bulb on my own every two years with my fairly heavy usage, at $300 a pop (or sell the set and get a 1080p set...).

I think I've mentioned all this before in this thread ;) Oh, and:

;)

[Strazos]

God damn, how many times are you gonna link that?

[Morfiend]

God damn, how many times are you gonna link that?

As many times as it takes?

You cant understand what its like playing on a 60 inch TV until you see it. It really is awesome.

I swear to god Hat, you have my same TV, you NEED to get a 360. Its just so awesome.

[WayAbvPar]

Cons: As with all rear projections, you have the posibility of "burn in".

I thought that was just a plasma issue? Several reviews have mentioned the TVs having 'game modes', which would indicate to me that burn in isn't a worry.

[Strazos]

Um, I have played on large TVs such as Sky's. Sure, it's cool, but I'm not a big A/V whore. Case in point: I still console game on a 32"/36" (Not sure on the size) TV from about 1982.

It, in no way, hinders my ability to enjoy games. You will never see more spend more than...I dunno, $500 on a TV. $6000 for a TV (some prices I have seen for high-end units around here)? I'd rather get a pimp PC, a car that I love, travel, hockey tickets, nice skiing gear...

It's great if you have one/can get one, but it's just not that high on my personal list of "things to get."

[murdoc]

Isn't that with the sound running to the set? I have played my xbox many times on my DLP without any lag issues. Definitely no sound lag on the pc.

Long cut/paste INC!

Why does the lag occur? There are two related answers to this question. The first is the issue of native resolutions. Every TV, be it High-Def or Standard-Def, has a native resolution--a fixed display quality. Old-school CRTs are 480i, while more modern EDTVs and HDTVs run the gamut from 480p to variations of 720p (1024x768 [lower res than true 720p], 1280x720 [real 720p], and 1366x768) to 1080i and 1080p (1920x1080), as well as some odd resolutions in between.

Just as every TV has a native resolution, just about every source has a particular resolution as well. Every console that came before the PS2 produced a 480i signal. The PS2 was primarily a 480i system with a few 480p games, while the GameCube and Xbox were both primarily 480p, with a few 480i games and, in the case of the Xbox, a couple of 720p games. The Xbox 360 is able to output 480p, 720p, and 1080i, though the majority of the games are designed with 720p in mind. The Nintendo Wii will be a constant 480p. The first generation of HD-DVD players output 1080i as their native resolution, while the first generation of Blu-ray players will output native 1080p.

Here's the meat of the native resolution issue: While just about any HDTV can accept any other signal, like a 1366x768 native resolution HD-LCD accepting a 1080i signal from an HD-DVD player, the incoming signal must be scaled to match the native resolution of the TV, in this case down from 1920x1080 to 1366x768. This sort of processing takes real work to accomplish, which is handled by the internal scaling circuitry of the HDTV. The heaviest load usually occurs when an HDTV must up-scale a 480i signal to native resolution, which requires both enlarging the image and converting the signal from interlaced (the 'i' in 480i) to progressive-scan (the 'p' in 480p, 720p etc.).

Some HDTVs handle this task better than others; however, almost all models will develop at least a little lag in the time it takes them to up-scale an old-school 480i signal. This becomes a problem for retro-gaming fans who aim to play their 16-bit consoles on their expensive new HDTVs. Some HDTVs even produce a game-killing degree of lag when working with 480p or any signal that does not exactly match the native resolution of the TV itself.

The second cause for HDTV-gaming-lag is some HDTVs' image-enhancement processing, a related issue of image-scaling. Most common in older HDTVs that aimed to make DVDs and other Standard-Definition content look good compared to competing models, internal image enhancement spends time refining incoming signals before putting them on-screen. Samsung's DNIe technology is a well known variant of this technology. While image-enhancement can certainly help make HDTVs look better, most manufactures did not worry about introducing a degree of lag as a result, as the only application on their minds was DVD and TV signals, cases in which a half-second delay would hardly matter. For gamers, however, heavy image-enhancement can seriously add to the time it takes for commands executed in-game to make their way onto the screen.

As we mentioned earlier, some HDTVs are better at scaling and generating lag-free videogaming than others. While there can't be any hard and fast rules, HD-CRTs are generally credited with producing the least amount of lag, while DLP-based HDTVs (Samsungs in particular thanks to DNIe image enhancement) are often considered the worst. Of course, we've read a number of reports of laggy LCDs and plasma displays as well, which means that no HDTV technology is truly safe

Also, a great AVSFORUM link about it: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=558125

[Morfiend]

Cons: As with all rear projections, you have the posibility of "burn in".

I thought that was just a plasma issue? Several reviews have mentioned the TVs having 'game modes', which would indicate to me that burn in isn't a worry.

My TV has a "game mode" setting. I found that I had a tiny bit of lag on Xbox, when I first hooked it up, after switching to Gaming Mode, the lag went away.

Burn In can affect pretty much all TVs except DLP I think. Plasma is the most easy to burn, with rear projection after that. To burn a rear projection tv you would probably have to leave some thing on pause for like 48 hours straight or so I think.

[Sky]

Oh, yeah. I remember the lag issue now, it's been a while. Mostly a 480i thing, which would be why I don't see it much, I think I have maybe one 480i game. I mostly send it 720p directly, with the couple of xbox games I play and of course the pc is 1280x720 90% of the time (damn you Civ4). I also turn off DNIe, and it's automatically disabled with DVI, iirc.

Burn-in /can/ occur on any non-DLP. It can happen to any pc monitor, too. However, it's usually way overstated. Unless you are playing the same game all day every day for weeks on end, it's probably nothing to worry about. Look at an airport monitor or an old monitor that's running a cash register, or anything where the same GUI is on the screen all the time. We use to game on my buddy's old 50" 480i CRT (the old huge box kind), and there are dire warnings everywhere about those burning in, and it never did (though he never paid to service it after years of use and the convergence is all out of whack).

It's great if you have one/can get one, but it's just not that high on my personal list of "things to get"

That's cool. I'm just pimping for those for whom gaming is their primary past-time, or high on the list. I'm happier with my $1500 guitar than my $3350 tv, guitar is my primary past-time. Luckily, I could afford both, though it took me a couple years (and remember, I gave up BEER for six months to save for the tv, heh). I could also say it's a shame to spend $2k on a pc and then feed that into a $400 monitor :)

@Morph: I would like to get a 360, it's on the list. However, building a new pc takes precedence because I mostly play pc games and I'm kinda resisting the idea of paying $60 instead of $40 for new games. Also, trying to fit a mortgage downpayment savings plan into that...I's got's ta make ma choices. As Straz says, I'd rather get a hard-disk digital audio workstation or a pro tools setup rather than a console.

[Strazos]

Pro Tools, lol. Have fun with those plug-in packages. 

[Sky]

Probably not, since I want a control surface and would have to go with the digi002, which is around $2200, about $1700 over my budget :P Though the factory plugins are standard now.

[MrHat]

Morph: I know, I know.  GoW might put me over the edge come tax return season (super heavy awesome tax return I predict!)

I love my tv so much.  It was super awesome playing games on the shuttle on it, but now the shuttle is borked.  I've shifted from the "prebuilt computers will save you money" to "fuck you, I'll build it myself" to "wish my console natively supported a keyboard and mouse, and bit torrent".

I got the tv to work 1800x1000ish (over HDMI) beautifully off the shuttle, and lots of games will let you put in a custom rez one way or another (BF2, oh beautiful BF2).

I also bought a shit 27" LCD for the bedroom (westinghouse).  Looks great from about 8' away, but like ass up close (signal is nonhd is over standard composite plugs, bleh!).

[Furiously]

Finally grabbed a HDTV this past weekend: Sony 50" SXRD Projection TV

I debated the 60", but the 50 fits in my designated home theatre spot a bit nicer, plus I got it for $1,999.99 CDN which fit the budget perfectly. That price point made it possible to add another new receiver to the mix: Yamaha HDMI switching receiver

Haven't got it all set up quite yet, but I  HD gaming on the 360. Can't wait to get the sound all hooked up.

My in-laws called a couple nights ago as their old non-hdtv stopped working.  I recommended the 60inch version of this set. They ended up with the same set you got.

Very nice set. I might have to bring over my computer and see how BF2 looks on it.

[WayAbvPar]

Finally grabbed a HDTV this past weekend: Sony 50" SXRD Projection TV

I debated the 60", but the 50 fits in my designated home theatre spot a bit nicer, plus I got it for $1,999.99 CDN which fit the budget perfectly. That price point made it possible to add another new receiver to the mix: Yamaha HDMI switching receiver

Haven't got it all set up quite yet, but I  HD gaming on the 360. Can't wait to get the sound all hooked up.

My in-laws called a couple nights ago as their old non-hdtv stopped working.  I recommended the 60inch version of this set. They ended up with the same set you got.

Very nice set. I might have to bring over my computer and see how BF2 looks on it.

I am looking at the 55 or 60 inch version. I want to snipe people in BF2 on it, but my wife doesn't like that idea for some reason.

[Furiously]

Sounds like we should organize a group buy!

[MrHat]

BF2 looks great on it, there's a custom resolution guide on the net somewhere that worked great for me.

You'll end up doing ~ 1800x1100 iirc.