New RPTV (1 Viewer)

[Mike Thompson]

I've enjoyed lurking and learning about most of this. Its time to buy a new RPTV, and it seems a good 4:3 with squeeze is going to be the best. My wife watches a lot of network TV, we never will use this tv for games. I'm just a little unsure as to the various formats, I see a lot of talk about the 480-540 upconverting and so forth. Which of these formats (480p, 720, 1080 etc.) is necessary to have, in other words what am I looking for along these lines? It seems most of the talk here is about 16:9, but won't a good 4:3 do everything that will and then some? Also we have a lot of letterboxed LDs, are there any TVs that will do a good job line doubling my lasers, since the signal is only either composite or SVHS? Looking for a size around 60", under $4K. Any help greatly appreciated.
Mike

 

[Mike Thompson]

Anybody have any suggestions?

 

[Steve Schaffer]

Mike,
For your purposes, a 4/3 HD-ready model with squeeze capability sounds about right.

The set's internal line doublers will convert 480i to 480p in the case of Sonys, or 540p in the case of Toshiba and Hitachi. 1080i will be displayed natively at 1080i. Nobody I know of makes a 4/3 set that will display 720p natively. They will all accept it but will convert it to 480p or 1080i. The 720p thing is academic as most all HD receivers convert it to 1080i anyway and feed it to the set as such.

The newest Toshibas will display 480p as 480p but will still convert 480i (your lasers) to 540p. This applies to their 4/3 sets with model numbers ending in 72.

Sony, Toshiba, and Hitachi all make good 61" 4/3 HD-ready models in the under 3k price range. Sony will do a true anamorphic squeeze for dvd, Hitachi won't, don't know about Tosh. All 3 will do it for 1080i HD. Sony will display 480p natively, and converts 480i to 480p. Toshibas with model numbers ending in 71 will upconvert both 480p and 480i to 540p, those ending in 72 will display 480p natively.

 

[Mike Thompson]

Thanks, Steve. Is conversion from 480 to 540 a bad thing? What sources output in 540, 720, and 1080? If any of those are only games, I don't need to worry about them. Sorry for the questions, just a little unclear as to why there are so many formats.
Mike