Comments on: HDTV: A Practical Buyer’s Guide

By: willie

willie — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 04:31:06 +0000

great fully satisfied

By: Jeff Barnett

Jeff Barnett — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:37:07 +0000

Jason,
Great example. When calibrating my HDTV I had to get used to a byproduct of the retail store “nuclear mode” you speak of. When the settings were dialed in to be “accurate” some pictures looked downright boring. After much reading and experimenting I realized that there’s very few of these eye-popping neon colors in real life. I have three separate picture modes dialed in, and for sports and gaming I still let the colors pop a little, but movies are set to be accurate. I’ve also noticed that accurate flesh tones actually look a little pale. It makes sense when you stop to think about it: how many people do you notice walking around with rosy red cheeks? How many people on your TV look that way?

By: Jason Yates

Jason Yates — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:55:00 +0000

Good article.

One quick sticking point I’ve come across is the so called “in-store mode” retailers put their TVs in. Retailers will tweak the settings as to have the TVs supposedly look “good” next to all the others in the store. By turning up the contrast, brightness, and having the colors blown, it can trick the untrained or unawares eye into thinking the TV has a good picture.

It is easy to fall for, if you don’t know what you’re looking for. I had a friend; and much like your recommendation, I recommended a Pioneer plasma since he wanted the so-called “best picture”. However after he went to the local Best Buy, I get a report back saying how the Pioneer colors were washed-out compared to this so-so LCD next to it.

I take the trip to the store with him; and next to the Pioneer, I see this LCD with neon looking colors, blinding brightness, and no black level at all. So I just asked him one simple question: which TV picture looks more real to life? He bought the Pioneer.

By: The Midnight Hour - » Absence Explained

The Midnight Hour - » Absence Explained — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:03:58 +0000

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By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:28:32 +0000

On a related note, PCWorld has a good article on calibrating your new HDTV. It’s a great read for anyone that has never really understood calibration.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/148462/how_to_calibrate_your_hdtv.html

By: adam

adam — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:27:58 +0000

good points, you narrowed it down, will be useful

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:26:47 +0000

Jeff’s right about not buying cables at big box stores. That’s how they make all their money, they practically make nothing off of TV’s and computers, it’s all on the accessories.

By: Wayne

Wayne — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:25:42 +0000

I’ve been thinking about buying one lately, thanks for the tips

By: Jeff Barnett

Jeff Barnett — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:17:20 +0000

Jorge,
I had to keep things somewhat brief, and progressive vs interlaced is one of the topics that had to be culled. While your explanation of progressive vs interlaced is correct, 1080i is not a real factor in today’s HDTV market. LCD and Plasma displays have what’s called “native resolution.” There is a physically tangible matrix of pixels on the screen of each LCD/Plasma HDTV. If you count them you’ll either get 1280×720/ 1366×768 (collectively referred to as 720p) or 1920×1080 (1080p). While 720p and 1080p televisions can both display 1080i content, it’s more of a signal conversion issue than the nature of your display. This is especially true for 720p native HDTVs, because they don’t physically have enough rows of pixels to display 1080i content natively. They must convert the signal to the native resolution of the display. Any modern HDTV with a 1920×1080 native resolution is going to be capable of 1080p and not just 1080i, which is why I treat 1080i as a non-issue. Lots of HDTV content from cable and satellite providers is offered in 1080i, but that’s a different issue.

Re: HDMI cables. Don’t buy them at big box electronics stores. Period. Buy them online. I use Monoprice.com which currently sells a 3ft HDMI cable for $6.97 plus reasonable shipping costs. HDMI is a digital cable. The signal either gets there or it doesn’t. The interference issue you may be accustomed to with analog cables is essentially not applicable. Paying $50+ for a fancy HDMI cable at BestBuy does a lot for their retained earnings, but nothing for your picture quality. Also, HDMI is only one way to deliver HD content to your television. VGA, DVI, and component video will also do the trick. The beauty of HDMI is audio and video in one cable.

By: Jorge

Jorge — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:45:08 +0000

Good article BUT I felt it glossed over a wayyyy important aspect: 1080i vs 1080p…

The ‘i’ means interlaced which means your blu ray player (or whatever hd device) sends alternating parts of the image which because they are being shown so fast look like a whole image on your screen…

…Rather than ‘p’ (progressive) which has your device sending the whole image (much more data) to your screen, thus making it look a bit clearer.

Example:
i i i i
i i i

ppppp
ppppp

The alternating ‘i’s fill the “missing” parts of the previous image, whereas the ‘p’s are all together as one image. Does that make sense?

The reason it’s important is that if you’re going with a Vizio (I did, and I’d recommend for affordably solid hd) they mostly have up to 1080i which I still think looks great but isn’t the same as 1080p.

Another thing to consider is that you’ll have to buy hdmi cables to be able to get hd on your tv which ads extra cost.

Love,

Jorge