I'm thinking about buying a new TV, and since you guys seem to be into your home electronics, I thought I'd ask some questions here. I'm sure what I need to know is found in a FAQ somewhere, and if so, feel free to point me to it, but basically I'm looking for feature pros and cons, with, occassionally some explanations. For example, one of my basic questions is whether I should go for an HDTV monitor or just stay with NTSC for now. And, if HDTV, 16:9 or 4:3. And so on and so forth. I recognize that there's not a correct answer for everyone, but I need a little more information to get started. Oh -- I'm in the States, BTW, if you couldn't tell from the NTSC reference.

Toshiba make some of the best tv's in the world :)
check out their models....

I'm pretty happy with my Mitsubishi rear-projection HDTV.

Even if you don't have an HDTV receiver, widescreen DVDs look breathtaking on these televisions. I enjoy watching movies on this TV more than I do going to a theater.

And if you're into tweaking stuff, the Mits televisions have got an empeg-like group of tech-heads messing with them and exchanging information. They can be found in the Mitsubishi forum of www.hometheaterspot.com. Very useful stuff.

I don't know how the Mits televisions compare to other rear-projection brands, though. I hear good things about the other brands as well. My main point is that widescreen RPTVs are nice if you've got the room for one.

That's cool about the tech-heads. What kind of stuff is there to tweak on a TV? Unfortunately, I'm not into projection TVs for multiple reasons.

Regardless, while I appreciate your efforts, the advice I'm looking for would be more along the lines of ``Stay away from the 16:9 TVs because you'll always have black on the sides, even with widescreen movies'' and ``Avoid HDTV if 99% of your viewing will be normal NTSC'' and stuff like that. I don't know that any of that's true -- I just made it up, but that's the sort of info I'm looking for.

What kind of stuff is there to tweak on a TV?

On a regular tube television, not a lot. On a projection TV, plenty.


Stay away from the 16:9 TVs because you'll always have black on the sides, even with widescreen movies

I know you just made that up, but a discussion of this is important if HDTV is going to be part of your decision process.

Movies/HTDV and regular television shows are different shapes. The black bars are going to be a fact of life as long as there's more than one format.

If you have a square television, then widescreen movies and widescreen HDTV broadcasts will have black bars. If you hav a widescreen television, then square movies and television shows will have black bars. You can't win. You're going to get bars one way or the other.

Even among widescreen movies, there are different shapes. The most common are 16:9 and 2.35:1. So you sometimes even get small black bars when watching the 2.35:1 movies on a 16:9 screen.

Something to note: The Mits widescreen televisions have some interesting stretch and zoom modes which allow you to watch differently-shaped material that still allows it to fit the screen. Personally, I don't use them. I prefer to watch the image in its correct shape. It's nice when that "correct shape" happens to fill my 16:9 screen, but it's not a problem, really.

See, the RPTVs are great because their screens are so big. When I watch a 4:3 television show on my wide screen, it's still bigger than a tube TV and looks fine even with the side bars. On the other hand, watching a widescreen movie shrunk down to tube-TV size is painful. This is why the widescreen RPTVs are selling so well, because they make the real movie-watching experience possible without sacrificing the regular TV experience.

Avoid HDTV if 99% of your viewing will be normal NTSC

This is only true if your only viewing will be from a little-dish satellite system. Those are so heavily data-compressed that when you enlarge them to big-screen HDTV size, the data compression artifacts become painfully obviuous. If you watch a lot of broadcast television or have C-band satellite, then an HDTV monitor will allow you to watch regular television just fine while also giving you a great experience for DVDs and HDTV (with proper receiver).

The only problem is that most people can only get HDTV through a little-dish satellite system these days. When you buy one of those, the HDTV part looks great, but you will be underwhelmed by the NTSC part in comparison.

This is the kind if stuff I'm looking for! Great!

I can't get a projection TV mostly because I don't have room for one. (I have powered-off computers littering the floor as it is. ) I also just don't like the way they look. It's very subjective -- nothing I can quantify.

I understand that there will always be bars in one half of the combinations. I'm used to it -- I've had LD players for years. What I was going for in my exaggerated statement was that if you try to play a widescreen movie on a 16:9 TV, then you might end up with it showing a 4:3 image with the TV leaving black bars on the sides, and with the player leaving black bars at the top and bottom. I'm sure that there are instances where this is more likely (playing a widescreen movie from my VCR probably being one of them -- can I get the TV to stretch that out?), but I want to make sure it isn't always likely with my setup.

I do watch most of my TV via DirecTV, but I watch a lot of DVD as well. When you say I'll be underwhelmed by the NTSC in comparison, do you mean in comparison to the HDTV or in comparison to other NTSC monitors?

Oh -- I'm not a total video idiot -- I understand aspect ratios and why Ben Hur will still be letterboxed on a 16:9 TV, etc. -- I just got left behind on the new technology. If I come to the conclusion that I want to avoid the HDTVs, I'm more than capable of picking one out. I know how to look for blooming, tearing, etc. I just need to get up to speed on why I would want or not want certain features. All I know right now is that I need something better than this 15" TV that I'm using since my old 32" stopped working. (When it rains, it pours.) Thanks for the great start.

What I was going for in my exaggerated statement was that if you try to play a widescreen movie on a 16:9 TV, then you might end up with it showing a 4:3 image with the TV leaving black bars on the sides, and with the player leaving black bars at the top and bottom

AH! That's a totally different issue! I know what you're saying, and yes it can be an issue.

Here's the problem. There are two different kinds of widescreen movies on DVD:

1) Plain-old letterbox widescreen, which is a 4:3 image where 30 percent of the picture area is wasted on black bars.

2) Widescreen anamorphic (sometimes called "enanced for widescreen TVs" in fine print on the box). This actually uses the full 4:3 frame and has a flag which tells the DVD player to use its widescreen mode. On a 16:9 television, this image is stretched to fill the whole screen and no pixels are wasted on black bars.

If you play version #2 on a widescreen TV or an HDTV, it looks FANTASTIC.

If you play version #1 on a widescreen or HDTV, then the television needs to have a "zoom" mode which allows you to zoom in on the tiny little letterboxed image (to avoid the postage-stamp double-bar syndrome you just described). This is usally a lot more grainy than watching an anamorphic version of the film.

There is one other option, which is that some DVD players (such as certain JVC players) have scaling built into their chipsets which will automatically zoom the letterbox movies for you on your 16:9 television. This is a neat feature and I plan for my next DVD player to include this feature. Supposedly they do a good job at this, better than the Zoom mode on a TV set.

playing a widescreen movie from my VCR probably being one of them -- can I get the TV to stretch that out?

Depends on the TV. On a Mits set, yes. Tends to look a little fuzzy blown up like that.

When you say I'll be underwhelmed by the NTSC in comparison, do you mean in comparison to the HDTV or in comparison to other NTSC monitors?

A little of both, actually. Most HDTV monitors have bigger screens and will enlarge the artifacts on the DirecTV satellite, so that they are bigger than the DirecTV people ever intended them to be viewed at.

Also, most HDTVs have to run NTSC video through a line doubler, which slightly softens an already-soft DirecTV picture. The line doublers usually look pretty good on non-data-compressed pictures, but tend to oversoften pictures that are already data-compressed.

If you do a lot of NTSC watching on an HDTV set, make sure your set has a really good line doubler.

I think I see what anamorphic means now. I was used to it being used in film technology terms and wasn't seeing that it was being extended in a slightly new way to TV terms. So anamorphic widescreen, as far as DVDs go, means that it's sending out a 4:3 signal, but it's squashed laterally, just like a 35mm film, and the TV widens it back out, like the lens on a film projector. Cool! Is that signal going to be an NTSC signal? (I know -- I'm being US-centric.) Can I check my current DVDs to see if they'll play on my current TV as fullscreen-squashed to verify that they're anamorphic? Now that I think about it, I think I've seen some 4:3 TVs that will squash vertically instead of expand laterally to do the same thing. Is that right?

At one point, you mention widescreen TV or HDTV. I've seen in the shops around here HDTVs that are 4:3 as well as ones that are 16:9. Is a 4:3 HDTV a bad idea? And is the 1080i the highest resolution thats out these days, and will TVs that claim they do that also do the other HDTV resolutions?

Wow, what a lot of questions.

So anamorphic widescreen, as far as DVDs go, means that it's sending out a 4:3 signal, but it's squashed laterally, just like a 35mm film, and the TV widens it back out, like the lens on a film projector.

Yes, precisely. "Anamorphic" in DVD terms is exactly the same thing as it's used in the movie industry. If I understand the way it works correctly, the telecine transfer of an anamorphic movie to an anamorphic DVD is a 1:1 shot. So the DVD player or the TV is tasked with doing the re-distortion at playback time, in much the same way as the anamorphic lens on the film projector makes the movie the correct shape at playback time. Interesting, huh?

I think that the reason some DVDs are letterbox-widescreen instead of anamorphic-widescreen is because the publisher just went the "cheap" route and dumped the widescreen VHS videotape master onto a DVD instead of doing a proper anamorphic remaster. What a waste!

Cool! Is that signal going to be an NTSC signal?

Yes, if it's played on a US DVD player. If it's on a european DVD player, it'll be a PAL signal.

Can I check my current DVDs to see if they'll play on my current TV as fullscreen-squashed to verify that they're anamorphic?

Yes. Simply go into your DVD player's configuration menus (the menu for the PLAYER ITSELF not the features of a given DVD movie), and tell the DVD player that you own a widescreen television. Then imagine watching the DVDs with the 4:3 image stretched to 16:9.

4:3 titles will still look right. Widescreen letterbox titles will look like normal letterbox movies. Anamorphic titles will be squashed.

Also, you can look at the fine print on the box of the DVD and look for the words "anamorphic" or "enhanced for widescreen TVs" to see if the title is anamorphic. Note that some boxes are misprinted. For example, my copy of "2010" is labeled as enchanced, but it is not. Made me really mad when I got home!

I've seen in the shops around here HDTVs that are 4:3 as well as ones that are 16:9. Is a 4:3 HDTV a bad idea?

HD is by definition a 16:9 screen, just like NTSC is by definition a 4:3 screen. So if you watch an HD broadcast on an HD-capable 4:3 TV set, it'll letterbox it for you.

Personally, I like having the extra size of my 16:9 television with which to watch the HD broadcasts. The extra resolution is really worth blowing up so you can see all of it. It ends up looking like 35mm film projected. Shrinking it down to tube-TV size is fine, if you're already used to watching letterboxed widescreen movies.

Something you need to keep in mind though. Even the HD broadcasters don't have enough material to fill their entire broadcast day with HD. For instance, the one station which shows the most true HD material is HBO right now. And only about 50 percent of their broadcast day is 16:9. The rest of it is 4:3 upconverted and side-boxed into the 16:9 HD frame. So on a 4:3 HDTV, you will get certain portitions of the broadcast day as a 4:3 postage-stamp in the middle of the screen if you're tuned to the HD channel. BUT if that's the case it's easy to change channels to the standard-def version of the same channel (regular HBO for instance) and have it fill the screen.

And is the 1080i the highest resolution thats out these days,

1080p is the highest resolution available for HD, but I've never seen a TV that'll do it.

The HD resolutions are:
- 540 progressive
- 720 progressive
- 1080 interlaced
- 1080 progressive

There is also:
- 480 interlaced (NTSC)
- 480 progressive (progressive-scan DVD).

Most HDTV sets on the market today will do 480i and 480p for TV and DVDs, and will do 540p and 1080i for highdef.

Note that each "p" mode requires twice the scan frequency, so for instance 1080i and 540p are essentially the same "mode" to many TV sets.

and will TVs that claim they do that also do the other HDTV resolutions?

NO. For instance, most current HDTVs will NOT do 720 progressive.

This is not to worry, though, as your HD receiver (whichever one you get) will have a mode switch that tells it to always use 1080i. In that case, it will upconvert a 720p broadcast into 1080i as necessary to properly send to your television.

I think the recent HBO Bruce Springsteen concert was this way (720p upconverted to 1080i) as I could see jaggies on high-contrast diagonals despite a very sharp and obviously high-def picture on the screen.

If you are going to spend any more than $500, get an HDTV-ready set. Basically, and HDTV Set without the tuner. At least in the US, there are too many formats, and no real "standard" so any tuner you get will be overpriced (having to cover too many formats) and of a short life span (because many of those formats will change a little bit).

I have a HDTV-Ready rear projection Sony and love it. Even with NTSC, the line and pixel doubling makes it look amazing. No scan lines even on my 53".

Unless you've got money to burn (and I dont mean that in a bad way!) I'd get a 4:3 set. The 16:9's are nice, but the cost per square inch ratio isn't as good....

The space I have to put the TV is limited in width, but not so much in height. Therefore, it makes more sense to have a 4:3 TV, all other things being equal, because I can get more screen that way. That makes sense, right? I don't really have any HDTV signals to feed to the TV, so HDTV isn't immediately important, but it might become so at a later date. (Then again, with the luck I have with TVs, this one'll go bad before anything interesting happens on that front.) Oh -- and the 4:3 HDTVs are really HDTV, right? It's just that when they go to HDTV 16:9 mode, they blank the top and bottom instead blanking the sides in 4:3 mode, right? And some of them have modes to compress anamorphic images vertically instead of stretching horizontally, right? It seems to me that a TV that can do 1080i must require better convergence than a regular NTSC TV. Is that true? Bad convergence has always been one of my pet peeves, and that might be a selling factor, even if I don't directly use the high resolution initially. Of course, I suppose I can just look at it at the shop. My DVD player is not progressive-scan, but I might think about getting one in the future. Do I need to make sure that the TV will support 480p, or is that a standard feature, or a standard HDTV feature?

the 4:3 HDTVs are really HDTV, right? It's just that when they go to HDTV 16:9 mode, they blank the top and bottom instead blanking the sides in 4:3 mode, right?

Right.

And some of them have modes to compress anamorphic images vertically instead of stretching horizontally, right?

Right. Exactly.

It seems to me that a TV that can do 1080i must require better convergence than a regular NTSC TV. Is that true? Bad convergence has always been one of my pet peeves,

Heh, most people looking at tube TVs don't care about convergence. Us RPTV owners are very picky about it because it's adjustable on our sets. I remember making a joke on The Spot about "you know you've been tweaking too long when you start to notice convergence errors on tube televisions".

I would assume that a TV capable of 1080i would have tighter convergence than a regular TV, but I haven't actually done any comparisons. I don't know.

Do I need to make sure that the TV will support 480p, or is that a standard feature, or a standard HDTV feature?

It is a standard HDTV feature, not necessarily a standard TV feature.

BTW: Beside the line doubling making even VHS tapes look decent on a 53" screen, the real benefit for ME is being able to go into 16:9 mode for anaphoric DVD's. (You will need component outputs on your DVD player, but that is a pretty standard feature now.) The image is just amazing! No information is wasted making "black bars", instead, that part of the TV just isn't used. I can't stress this enough. Tony brought it up and I just want to re-iterate it. You will LOVE watching DVD's at home. It will be nice too when friends bring by their HDTV capable X-Box's!

(edit: added everything below)

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I can't get a projection TV mostly because I don't have room for one.

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Are you sure? Rear-projection TV's have a smaller foot print and can be placed closer to walls than tube sets...

FWIW: DirecTV does do a painful amount of compression now in order to provide local stations, yet their compression has gotten better in the last year or so. However, I do watch DirecTV through my HDTV-ready set and am very happy with it. I think Sony does a great job with their scanning. The do conventional "line-doubling" AND horizontal pixel doubling. It may not be accurate, pixel for pixel, but the image isn't too soft and there are NO scan lines even from 2' away. I did spend a good month with Video Essentials tweaking it. (Make sure your "Sharpness" is set to 0 on any set you use please!) I have found that cable, even Digital cable (at least in the Detroit area) looks worse. That depends on your provider.

Mitsubishi is my other favorite brand and Toshiba would probably fall in 3rd.

Tony's advice is very good. I do have a couple of points to add.

Something you need to be aware of with the 4x3 vs. 16x9 choice is burn in. CRT's get dimmer as they age. If you are only using a portion of the CRT face then you will get uneven wear and it will become visible. For example, if you have a 16x9 screen but you primarily watch TV in 4x3 mode, the 4x3 square in the middle will become darker and you notice that when you do watch something in 16x9. Some (all?) 16x9 RPTV's use gray bars instead of black to avoid this. Many find these gray bars objectionable. A good solution if you don't mind the hassle is to display the gray bars but physically mask the screen with something like black cardboard fastened with velcro.

Tony is absolutely right about the interaction of heavily compressed digital video (like DSS and DISH) and marginal line doublers. This is made much worse by improper calibration (more below). One option is an external line doubler. You can get a pretty good one for $500 that is likely better than what is in the TV. However, some HDTV's have compatibility issues with external line doublers. The most common problem is that the TV locks in widescreen mode when receiving a 480p signal. (480p is what you'll get from a line doubler or progressive scan DVD player.)

Mostly, you just have to accept how crappy DSS and cable are when blown up to a large size. I have a 100" screen with my front projector and I've gotten used to it.

My final bit of advice is no matter what you buy, get the AVIA DVD and follow it's instructions to properly calibrate the user settings. Nothing you can do will improve your picture more than this.

-Dylan

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BTW: Beside the line doubling making even VHS tapes look decent on a 53" screen, the real benefit for ME is being able to go into 16:9 mode for anaphoric DVD's. (You will need component outputs on your DVD player, but that is a pretty standard feature now.)

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Anamorphic DVD's do look great on a 16x9 TV but don't require component outputs. The anamorphic image will be passed by any of the DVD player outputs. Component outputs allow you to bypass the color decoder in the TV and, essentially, give you a straight signal path from the DVD to the TV's display circuitry. The improvement from component outputs is inversely related to the quality of the color decoder in the TV.

With regards to requiring component outputs, you may be confusing anamorphic with progressive scan. It's true that progressive scan only works on component or VGA outputs.

-Dylan

It must be a Sony specific limitation then... The only way that I can get into 16:9 mode is with a component input. Basically, the TV sees it as a signal from an external digital decoder. I do not have a progressive scan DVD player either. So, I set my Sony DVD to "Auto" for aspect ratio and the TV has to manually be put into 16:9 mode.

However, some HDTV's have compatibility issues with external line doublers. The most common problem is that the TV locks in widescreen mode when receiving a 480p signal.

Only the older TV sets should do that. I don't know of any new TV sets which have this problem. Newer sets should allow you to do all of its stretch/squish/zoom modes for 480p as well as 480i.

My TV set is a couple years old, so it just so happens that mine has this problem. This is actually an important factor in my choices for buying a progressive-scan DVD player. Because of this limitation of my TV set, I have to make sure my DVD player has built-in automatic scaling. The players based on the Mediamatics chip set have this feature-- the JVC players will automatically scale/stretch/squish the image so it's the right shape for my TV screen.

Something you need to be aware of with the 4x3 vs. 16x9 choice is burn in. CRT's get dimmer as they age. If you are only using a portion of the CRT face then you will get uneven wear and it will become visible.

This isn't generally an issue with tube televisions, as their CRTs don't burn as quickly as those in projection televisions. The projection TVs burn quicker because their CRTs run brighter in order to do the projection. And yes, burn-in is an issue for projection televisions if you leave up a static image all the time. This even counts for those irritating "logo bugs" on many stations. Plenty of owners have complained that the Fox News logo is burned into their sets because they left that station up for a few weeks nonstop.

Part of the problem is that the sets come from the factory with the white-level setting cranked up too high (so they can compete with tube televisions in the store). This is commonly called "torch mode" among projection TV techs. The first thing you should do when you get a projection TV home is to turn down that white level. This is the biggest step to help prevent burn-in. Next is to vary the viewing so that the same static image isn't up 100 percent of the time. For instance, if you tend to go back and forth between widescreen and 4:3 material, you should be fine. And as you said, gray bars instead of black is a big help, too.

My final bit of advice is no matter what you buy, get the AVIA DVD and follow it's instructions to properly calibrate the user settings.

Hear, hear. Avia rocks, plain and simple. I heard the author was working on another version of Avia that was due to come out soon. Can't wait.

Hi,

This looking as an all American discussion, I might as well put in my 0.02€'s worth:

I have a Philips 32" 16:9 TV-set, which was bought about a year ago. The reasoning for this is:

- I love movies, and expect to expand my DVD collection. The wide-screen format is IMHO the way to go. The 4:3 format doesn't give you the "full" experience, as you would either have to loose some of the original content or live with
- More and more european stuff is being sent in 16:9 format, though formatted for 4:3 (with black bars on the top and bottom of the screen).
- The stuff that is in 4:3 format, can be 16:9 resized by the TV-set. The Philps set does this in a very clever way, that you (well, at least I) do not see. It cuts away a tiny amount of the top and bottom of the screen. Then it streches the left and right 1/8 of the screen somehow, and you have a 16:9 picture. You would probably expect the perspective to look WAY off, but it doesn't. Surely you can see the difference when you switch back to pure 4:3 format, with black inserted at the left and right, but in everyday use I never see it (and I'm picky).
- I don't care about HDTV as the TV-set is as small as it is (but HDTV isn't really a European thing as far as I know).

If you have little room for the TV, but wan't a large picture (and cost is no question :), I'd go for a LDP projector. They have superior color, and the newer 1000+ lumens things do not need you to dim the room completely.

The new digital projectors have built in line-doublers, and give you a stunning picture.

Tony, this being the off-topic forum, I might as well sidetrack to the DVD-thread you posted on recently. If you want great looking DVD-quality, you should let someone demo you a DVD played in XGA on a computer equipped with a good software decoder or a hardware one (I have the Hollywood+ which is really great). You get more details out of the DVD than with a regular PAL/NTSC encoding.

Lars, thanks for the mention of Home Theater PCs for DVD playing.

I have already experimented with going that route and have ruled it out. Reasons:

1) Software players on HTPCs don't do motion-adaptive deinterlacing and aren't good at cadence reading. All of the problems which plague the flag-reading players (fuzzy-looking video mode, combing, etc) are there on HTPC-based players. Note that in the shootouts I linked in the DVD thread, some PC players were compared to the consumer players as part of the reviews. You can look at their comments about them there. My tests in this area (hooking my PC up to the TV with a breakout cable and using PowerStrip) bear this out. For less than $250.00, I can get a Consumer progressive DVD player that doesn't have any of these problems.

2) Layout of my home theater system. I need the DVD player to be a standard-sized component in order to work nicely in my living room.

3) Reliability. Sorry, my cheap consumer DVD player still beats an expensive computer any day in that area. My DVD player never crashes or locks up with a blue screen of death.

4) Users. The other people in my household need to be able to use it. Consumer DVD player wins again.

5) Noise/Heat. PCs have fans. Consumer DVD players don't.

6) TV inputs. In order to do an HTPC proper justice, I need to use the RGB input on my TV set. I've only got one of those inputs, and it's already taken up by my HDTV receiver.

After all of that, there is nothing about using a PC as a DVD player that improves upon a properly-made consumer DVD player. HTPC's are a nice idea, but I'd rather just use a good DVD player which does everything right.

And by the way, things like the PS2 and Xbox, although they will play DVDs, tend to be lousy DVD players I'm told. You're still better off getting a dedicated DVD player.

You should take a peek at the Sony Wega line of 4:3 sets. They are able to show anamorphic movies with full resolution at the proper aspect ratio. Looks awesome. Only a few sets on the market can do this.

Most showrooms don't have this set-up properly. The DVD player needs to be in 16:9 mode!

- Jon

When we went shopping for our TV, our original intention was to get a Wega. I had it all worked out ahead of time. Those are good sets, and if you're dead-set on a tube 4:3 television, it's hard to go wrong with a Wega.

Oddly, it was my wife who decided on the rear projector while I was looking at the Wegas in the showroom.

Her reasoning was as follows: The only reason we wanted a new TV was because we were sick of our tinly little screen for watching letterboxed DVD movies. We wanted a bigger screen so that we could watch widescreen movies without squinting.

Well, as nice as they were, even the biggest of the tube-screen Wegas were still small for watching widescreen DVDs. When compared to the 16:9 rear projectors, it looked positively tiny. And this was compared to the smallest of the 16:9 sets, which was 46". And the price worked out to be about the same as the biggest Wega. I'm glad she wanted the Mits, because "DVD nights" are amazing now.

When we first put the 16:9 set in the living room, we thought it was too big. But you'd be surprised how quickly they shrink!!! Now I'm secretly wishing I'd gotten a 55" or a 65"...

A lot of my friends have rear projection sets. I like em when I'm watching a football game and drinking beer, but when I'm watching a DVD and really scrutinizing the quality, I find that rear projection sets just don't compare with the good old tube... Just my opinion.

You can't get a tube set to compare with the sheer size, but when you talk quality, I don't see that it's a fair comparison.

- Jon

I find that rear projection sets just don't compare with the good old tube... Just my opinion.

You haven't been to my house and seen my carefully-calibrated and tweaked Mits showing an anamorphic widescreen DVD. The quality is there, in spades. With decent source material (i.e., anamorphic widescreen DVD), I prefer the picture of my RPTV to any tube TV.

You experience is probably with some older projection sets. They've made great strides recently. The old projection sets were dim, had bad off-axis viewing, etc. That's all been fixed with recent models.

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After all of that, there is nothing about using a PC as a DVD player that improves upon a properly-made consumer DVD player.

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This may be the case with your equipment but it isn't true as a blanket statement. For film based material, an HTPC provides the best image for a reasonable price when used with front projectors. The advantages of an HTPC are scaling to virtually any reasonable resolution and refresh rate. A 72 Hz refresh rate elimintes the need for 3:2 pulldown and eliminates the judder effect on slow pans. Many CRT projectors benefit from higher resolutions than 480p and fixed panel devices (LCD, DLP, DILA) always benefit from the having the input be at their native resolution.

Now I agree with your other practical points. It's why I continue to predominantly use my standalone DVD player even though I've got an HTPC in the room.

-Dylan

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Only the older TV sets should do that. I don't know of any new TV sets which have this problem. Newer sets should allow you to do all of its stretch/squish/zoom modes for 480p as well as 480i.

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Oh good. I'm glad to hear that they stopped doing this. I haven't kept up with the latest RPTV's.

My last RPTV before I moved to front projection was a Toshiba first gen HDTV ready set. I remember that Toshiba only expected the 480p input to be used with HDTV and there was some colorspace issue when using external line doublers and progressive scan players with it. I hope problems like this don't still persist.

-Dylan

Ah, OK, your points about projectors are well-taken. If you can get a 72hz refresh rate out of a projector (something my TV set won't do), then it's true that you can eliminate 3:2 pulldown judder. But in my particular case, I can't make use of that feature.

As far as higher resolutions go, that's all well and good, but upsampling an image that's inherently 480 lines to begin with will produce artifacts (such as softness) unless you're doing even-multiples. I prefer to have my 480 lines be sent to the screen at 1:1.

Boy, this is a lot of good information. Thanks, everybody. Somebody (I can't seem to find it now) suggested that I might have enough space for a RPTV. Let me explain why I don't as a quick tangent. I got an entertainment center in conciliation to my wife. The opening for the TV is taller than it is wide (or it might be square), thus, I can fit more 4:3 tube than 16:9 tube. But I can't fit an RPTV because I don't have enough vertical space. Plus, I still just don't like the way RPTVs look. Of course, if I could convince the wife to get a 60" TV, that argument would go out the window, but that would be nigh impossible and I don't really have -- oh -- they're not as much as I thought. There goes that argument.

Anyway, I just went down to the local Circuit City, because I didn't feel like bothering the real video electronics store folks yet, and looked at the TVs they had, just to get a feel. They had the same video running on all the TVs. It was a 16:9 signal, as the non-HDTVs showed it squashed, but when I asked an employee what kind of signal it was, he was unable to answer. (``What does 1080i mean?'' was one of the questions he asked me.) I was blown away by the clarity of the HDTVs, but if it was an HDTV signal, then that's not going to mean anything to me. So unless anyone knows what it is they might have been showing (there was a Melissa Etheridge concert with a VH1 bug in it), I'll have to wait and go to the real store to compare. Also, one of the things that I noticed was that the HDTVs had no gaps between pixels (bad terminology, I'm sure) -- it was a solid wash of color, whereas the NTSC TVs had a lot of black mixed in with the video. I'd noticed this before, but I'd never noticed how prominent it was. Anyone know if that lack of black will also exist when viewing NTSC?

Regarding entertainment centers:

I have seen some amazingly cool cherry wood entertainment centers meant to house an RPTV. Basically, they cover up everything except the screen. Looked amazing.

I know of at least one Spot member who made a deal with his wife based on getting a new entertainment center along with the TV. If you need links I can dig them up.

one of the things that I noticed was that the HDTVs had no gaps between pixels (bad terminology, I'm sure) -- it was a solid wash of color, whereas the NTSC TVs had a lot of black mixed in with the video. I'd noticed this before, but I'd never noticed how prominent it was. Anyone know if that lack of black will also exist when viewing NTSC?

I think what you're seeing is the difference between an interlaced picture that includes visible NTSC "scan lines", and a line-doubled progressive-scan picture that eliminates the scan lines.

Most HD sets will eliminate the scan lines, yes. That's all part of the image processing and line-doubling circuits. Looks really good when it's done right. Similar to looking at images on your PC monitor.

In reply to:

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If you can get a 72hz refresh rate out of a projector (something my TV set won't do), then it's true that you can eliminate 3:2 pulldown judder.

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Yeah, but what'll happen when they (hopefully) start making movies in MaxiVision48?

In reply to:

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As far as higher resolutions go, that's all well and good, but upsampling an image that's inherently 480 lines to begin with will produce artifacts (such as softness) unless you're doing even-multiples. I prefer to have my 480 lines be sent to the screen at 1:1.

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Nothing's perfect. Either you scale or you see scan lines when you have a very large image and a sharp projector. I don't know any front projector owner who wouldn't choose the output from a good scaler to be the lesser of two evils.

But I'm getting off topic since this thread was never meant to be about front projectors...

-Dylan

All right. I went down to the not-so-lousy A/V shop here in town and got some more first-hand information. I decided that I truly love seeing NTSC on an HDTV monitor. I've hated scan lines ever since I got my first largish TV. I also determined that I absolutely love anamorphic DVDs. But I think I also got some misinformation from the salesman. He was obviously very much into pushing the Sony. He claimed that he was unaware of a TV besides the Sonys (Sonies?) that would support unsquishing anamorphic signals. (We were talking specifically about CRTs.) This is bound to be untrue and I was hoping to get someone here to refute his statement. (The fact that they also had a dedicated DVD player running signals to one of the only TVs in the store that he claimed would do the unsquishing running in non-anamorphic mode was unsettling. I changed it myself and it looked way better.)

Anyway, I kinda wanted to stay away from the Sonys because they're real expensive, their convergence was not very good compared to other sets, and I've had trouble with them before. As a side note, does anyone know if TV manufacturers are using old NTSC tubes in their new 4:3 HDTV sets? That would explain the better convergence and the higher cost on the 16:9 sets.

But I think I also got some misinformation from the salesman.

No!



The difference between a car salesman and a TV salesman is the car salesman knows when he's lying.

He claimed that he was unaware of a TV besides the Sonys (Sonies?) that would support unsquishing anamorphic signals.

I'm sure that most modern televisions will do this. If the television is 16:9, it will definitely do it. If the television supports a progressive-scan signal (480p), it will most likely do it. If the television supports HDTV, it will most likely do it. I can't imagine anyone building a TV with 480p/HD capability which doesn't support anamorphic DVDs. Check the manual of any TV in the showroom, it should be in the manual.

As a side note, does anyone know if TV manufacturers are using old NTSC tubes in their new 4:3 HDTV sets?

I don't think that's technically possible. In order to display 1080i, you need a tube capable of doing the job.

Now, I'm sure many manufacturers are using the same sorts of technologies and assembly lines to build 1080 tubes as they did to build 480 tubes. But I don't think they are exactly the same tubes.

Well, I was looking closely at the tubes, and the 4:3 HDTVs all seemed to use the style of tube that has the red, green, and blue phosphors lined up in columns of all one color, Trinitron-like. That would definitely support 1080 lines, but the dot-pitch (or aperture grill spacing, more likely) wouldn't support a large number of horizontal pixels. But, then, maybe HDTV has analog lines, like NTSC. Doubt it, though. Anyway, I didn't have a loup with me to examine closely, but the AG spacing seemed to be about the same as on the NTSC sets. It still looked nice, but, nonetheless, I worry that they've just put a new yoke on an old tube.

Good point about the manuals, too. Thought about it after I posted and tried to find some on the web. Couldn't find anyone's. Guess I'll be going back. Maybe this time I'll go to the upscale shop. I don't like them so much, though, because they've already decided what I'm going to buy, and as such, only have those few sets on display.

Sony is the only maker of standard ratio televisions that can *automatically* squish the signal. The other manufactures that have autodetect on 480p signals have 16:9 TVs. There are other makers that can support squished 16:9 ratios on a regular tube, but you have to physically adjust/set the option. some of them require a kludgie modification. But by far, the Sonys are ahead of the game there.

Calvin

Ah, there's the trick: "Automatically".

Even my HD set doesn't do automatic detection of the source material. I have a button on the remote that switches aspect ratios.

Yeah, that's probably what the salesperson meant: The automatic thing.

It's no big deal to press a button.

It's no big deal to press a button.

Unless you're my wife....

Seriously, though, now that I think about it, autodetecting that the valid NTSC that's squished is different from other valid NTSC is pretty amazing. I can deal with the button push. My wife can't figure out how to use the DVD player anyway.

One thing I forgot to mention is that when the Sony I looked at was showing the non-anamorphic widescreen picture, it looked like the line doubler was having a problem detecting the edge between the picture and blackness, leaving a weird artifact where there was the field of blackness, then a line of picture, then a line of less bright picture, then normal through the picture field, and then the inverse at the bottom. I guess there's some sort of interpolation going on. It went away, as I expected, when I switched the DVD player to anamorphic mode. But it still concerns me, because even anamorphic DVDs will have such an edge when showing something filmed in an aspect ratio greater than 16:9 (Ben Hur comes to mind again). Does anyone else see similar artifacts on their HDTV?

You might have simply been seeing the excessive sharpening applied to the original DVD image.

Many DVDs are produced with sharpening and edge enhancement filters applied to them. The idea is to make the DVD look sharp on a small-screen television.

Some DVDs are worse than others in this respect. A recent DVD where this is very noticeable is The Phantom Menace. There is a very visible line at the edge of the letterbox that's caused by oversharpening. This is in the DVD itself. You don't usually notice it until you blow up the image to big-screen size. At smaller sizes, it achieves the desired result and makes the image simply look sharper.

Also, some TVs or DVD players have sharpening filters built into the television, which can cause the same effect or exaggerate the effect if it's encoded into the DVD. Usually this is adjustable on the device in question. For instance, my TV has an easily-selectable "sharpness" setting which allows me to control it.

Backtracking a second....

I was surprised to discover that the new A Clockwork Orange collector's edition is not labelled as anamorphic (or any of its pseudonyms). Then I realized that it was presented at 1.66:1, which is narrower than 16:9(1.78:1). Is it common for films presented at less than 1.78:1 to be non-anamorphic? They could just as easily add black bars to the sides as to the top and bottom. I really don't want to support anyone half-assing a ``collector's edition''.

As a tangent, did you know that Kubrick was constantly going back and reediting and framing his films, even way after their release? I believe that A Clockwork Orange was theatrically presented at 1.66:1, but he often redid it when someone wanted to cut a film for TV. Weird perfectionist. According to Steve Martin, in 1979, Kubrick was talking to him about starring in what would eventually become Eyes Wide Shut and he was still screening prints of 2001, A Space Odyssey -- over ten years after its release.

Hi.

Actually, to automatically detect 16:9 anamorphic sources (on the displaying part, not on the DVD player), you should only need to check the voltage on one of the SCART pins. There is one pin (I don't remember which one though), that is set to 6V by the player (if it (and the DVD) follows the specs). For non-anamorphic and 4:3 sources, this is set to either 0V or 12V (I don't remember specifics about this either) . I could try and find out about this again though.
My (rather cheap, 4:3 and non-HDTV) Telefunken TV set is fully capable to automatically switch between 4:3/non-anamorphic 16:9 and anamorphic 16:9. I am not sure wether it differentiates between 4:3 and non-anamorphic 16:9 though, it wouldn't show them any different anyway.

cu,
sven

That would be nice, if the connection to the television included that pin. I don't know of any US televisions which do...

Hi Tony.

Check this page: http://shostatsky.narod.ru/permon/tv-vga/scardpin.html or http://kevlar.20m.com/scart.html

They seem to be quite good (even though the filename of the first one is misspelled).
They state that pin 8 is dedicated for this differentiation

0-2V: TV mode

5-8V: Video mode, wide screen

9.5V-12V: Video mode

There doesn't seem to be a true differentiation between 16:9 and 16:9 anamorphic though. To differentiate those, the TV set seems to actually look at the video signal.

My DVD player puts pin 8 to 12V(actually 11V) for 4:3 and 16:9 non-anamorphic videos and to 6V (actually 7V) for anamorphic 16:9, which works perfectly for my TV set. Other DVD players might set pin 8 to 6V for non-anamorphic wide screen sources as well though, there is certainly some gap in the definition of the interface.

cu,
sven

Yup, just as I thought. A European connection standard, not available over here.

Yup, just as I thought. A European connection standard, not available over here.

Yeah, SCART is European only. You can get a set in North American (imported), but then you also need all the compatible gear to go with it. We've got all sorts of goodies like this at work, but that's not the team I'm involved with, so I don't use them. I do have a voltage-switching PAL/NTSC UK Sony set that I play with though. Haven't tried the scart connector because I don't have any scart sources.

A large number of sets in Europe support an anamorphic mode (4:3 sets). This is not the case for North America.

However, if you've got a 4:3 set in NA, you *can* go into the service menu and then start playing with the screen yourself. Then you have to set your DVD player to 16:9 so it doesn't scale the image down vertically. I did it as a test on my 32" JVC D-Series, but it's obviously way too much of a pain the ass to do on a regular basis. Not to mention that if you forget exactly how your service menu was set up, there's no way to restore it. :)

Bruno

I heard S-video connectors had a pin Sonys can use to detect anamorphic. I have no idea what gets passed on a Component input though.

Calvin

As far as I know, neither an S-video connector nor a set of component connections has a pin that will allow you to detect whether the signal is anamorphic or not.

S-video connectors are simply chrominance and luminance separated into two pairs of pins (ground and signal for each).

Component is simply Luminance (Y) Chrominance Red (Pr) and Chrominance Blue (Pb), with Chrominance green derived as a subtraction operation from the Pr and Pb channels.

Supposedly, the new Panasonic HDTV monitors (36- & 32HX41) can also automatically go into anamorphic mode. I've seen one at the Circuit City, but, again, they're all idiots over there and the only video source they have for it is 1080i (which is also what they have going to the NTSC monitors, downconverted and squished) and they refuse to hook anything else up to it. Plus, it's all ``What's anamorphic?'' and ``Try channel 14''. I mean, I could understand that at the Best Buy, but all these guys do is sell televisions. And it's the X-mas season, for God's sake! Learn about your products! Okay. Enough rant. Anyway, I'm waiting for the guys at the reasonably upscale A/V place to get one out on the floor. I really want to stay off the Sonys. Plus, it's about $500 cheaper and I can fit the 36"-er in my space, which I can't do with the Sony. And I still didn't like that weird artifact on the Sonys. I'll have to wait to see if the Panasonic does any better....

You can also have seperate horizontal and vertical syncs along with RG and B (instead of SOG (sync on Green)). Some Sony RPTV have this on input #5 (such as one of their 53" 4:3 sets... But then not on their 57" widescreen...)

Bruno

Right, that's an RGBHV input, the same thing as the plug on a VGA monitor. My TV has both RGBHV and YPrPb inputs. I have plugged my PC into the television and ran it at 1920x1080. Kind of fun.

A braincell just sparked. 1080i? Is that 1080 lines vertical?

Glenn (I too am in the market for a tv with a high geek factor)

1080i is one of the modes for HDTV. It's 1080 interlaced lines at 60hz (30 frames per second).

The number of horizontal pizels in a 1080i image is 1920. Hence, 1920x1080.

When I speak of a "high geek factor" my real desire is for a flat panel device that will display 1920x1080 (1080i) I'm not looking for a huge screen.

So, are there any flat panel devices that run with a true resolution of 1920x1080? I don't think I've seen any lcd's tv's that display more than 480x640.

The only FP plasma device I've personally seen was the Philips
42" 16:9 FlatTV Plasma-Display EDTV Monitor - 42FD9932. Not a HDTV capable display. That kind of takes it out of play. It would be acceptable if I wasn't holding out for HD.

Glenn

Pioneer's plasma displays are HD. All signals are converted to 780p, according to their docs.

Yeh... I've seen those. But hasn't any company come up with a flat panel that does the 1080i hd signal. In any size display.

Pioneer's new Elite Plasma screen is about the best plasma screen you can get, but it still looks like SH*T compared to a high quality CRT or projector (as well as any quality LCD). For the money, I would never, ever, buy one of these things. All plasmas I've seen are saddled with colour fidelity that can't even resolve what's encoded in the DVD's MPEG2 stream. Too many artifacts make it look like it's being driven by a 16bit display device. Ugh. But again, the Pioneer is much better at this than any other display of its type. It actually does pretty solid blacks for instance.

Once you see it running an HDTV signal, you won't be very happy with watching a DVD on it. :)

Bruno

I got a new TV this weekend. I'm a sucker. Got the Panasonic 36HX41 36" HDTV monitor. The screen's nice (convergence is not too bad) and it supports automatically compressing anamorphic inputs. Not to mention that Sony's 36"-er wouldn't fit in my space. The wife's not too happy, but, then, she was starting to get fed up with the old 14" TV we were using as a temporary replacement anyway. I also got an extended warranty, so I expect to have 5 years of perfect service, followed by an immediate catastrophic failure. Wish me luck!

got a new TV this weekend.

Funny thing... so did I. Nothing exotic or large or fancy, though -- just a replacement for my old 19" Toshiba that was so worn out that if I tried to watch X-Files, most of the time all I could see would be random small blobs of white on a black background. Of course, the permanent cyan spot in the exact center of the screen was entertaining -- it seemed to be right on somebody's nose most of the time.

What I got was a garden-variety 27" Akai model CFT2790, less than $400. It has a completely flat screen, and the performance compared to what I was used to is simply amazing. I don't have any kind of cable hookup, just an outdoor antenna, and two of the six channels I can receive that used to be completely unwatchable are now just fine. The only way I can tell which channel the set is on is to hit the display button on the remote -- I can't tell by picture quality any more.

With inputs for S-video, two composite inputs, 75-OHM RF, and DVD, plus auxilliary inputs for camcorder, and both composite and monitor outputs, it's living in a whole new world compared to my old set which had a single RF input.

Anybody have any experience with the Akai CFT2790? I did extensive, highly scientific research before I bought it: I paced off the distance in my house from my viewing position to the set location, then went to the store and paced off the same distance and bought the size and model that looked best to me.

tanstaafl.

Well Apple just announced a 1920x1200 23" Cinema display.

Drool.

The news snippet I saw it in mentioned that it was US$1000 more than the 22" model, bit didn't mention the price of the 22"... I suppose it's a question of "If you have to ask..."

/Michael

$3500 from the online Apple store. ($2500 for the now remarkably outdated 22" model.)

Academic price is $3199. Find yourself a college student to buy it for you