The Downside to buying your first HD Widescreen TV... (1 Viewer)

[Adam Sanchez]

I can hardly stand to watch any channel besides the 5 or so I have in HD...(HD is so amazing... especially Discovery HD theater)

And it sucks to go through my movie collection now and see the non-anamorphic DVDs I have. Ugh!

 

[John Gido]

What sucks even more is owning your first widescreen HDTV (without built-in HDTV tuner) for over a year and your cable provider NOT yet offering HDTV in your area!

I've been promised HDTV for over 8 months, all of the surrounding towns have HDTV, and I'm still at least 3 months away. :frowning: I keep hearing something about hardware upgrades not being complete.

The only thing that has kept me from going to satellite/dish is having to outright buy the STB from the provider as HDTV is not included in their "4 rooms for free" promotions. Laying out almost $300 for a STB that the cable system provides for a minimal rental fee cannot be justified.

 

[JeremyErwin]

and looking at the phillipsburg entry at antennaweb, I can see that you live in a hdtv free zone. Well, not really. One Violet station.

 

[John S]

It is the reason i am not paying for anything. I get lots of free OTA HD. Standard broadcast and cable NTSC for the most part is such a step down. Makes it hard for sure.

 

[Jordan_E]

But, another problem arises even when you receive a fair amount of HD channels: you want more! I grind my teeth every time I see that "available in high definition" when I tune in to TNT once in a while, or wish I had MONSTERS HD available on Dish. Between my cable and OTA receiver I am pretty much covered locally, but want MORE!

 

[Charlie Campisi]

You need to do some more homework. As long as you are in antenna range you should get the stb. Call directv directly instead of going through a big box store. They can give you credits to bring the price of the box down. You also can get them on ebay for $125 or so. The Hughes HD box I had could also be used without directv enabled to pull in OTA HD with an antenna, so even if you walked away from directv when cable became available, you'd still get utility out of the box. Not having HD because of the cost outlay is not a good reason. HD is here, and for a reasonable price.

 

[Daman]

Adam,
I recently got a plasma hdtv and the reception on even the standard def channels has been pretty good. I would recommend you asking your cable company to improve the signal and see if that helps. Do you use a settop box? If your unit has an option for cable card and your cable company provides it(mine does- comcast), try it out.. I get fantastic SD feed now, better than the STB i was running earlier through component feed.

 

[Jerome Grate]

Sometimes you gotta lower your standards, and go for the best possible picture you can get. For me not enough HD channels are available, even through satellite, therefore you make SD channels look as good as possible. I-scan Pro for 120 bucks used, gives me 480p on all SD channels via satellite broadcast, better with it than without it. Next upscaling player to 1080i all DVD viewing. That got me satisfied until there's more channels available. Dish I think has a slew of channels HD but DirecTV is limited. Unfortunately Dish for me is impossible since there are so many trees and with me in the mountain makes it even tougher. Make the best out of it.

 

[Adam Sanchez]

I already got a Upscaling DVD player. It was the first thing I got to go with my TV so I could see somewhat what it could do. I got it before cable actually.

 

[SteveKNJ]

Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly is an "upscaling" DVD player. I will be ugrading to HDTV sometime over the next year, and one of the things I figured I'd need to replace is my DVD player. I have a 3 or 4 year old Sony, non progressive scan DVD player which I love, but I guess I will have to retire it once I go HDTV. How much do these upscallers cost? The one I get HAS to have the ability to remember where I left off on at least 5 of the DVDs I last watch as I very rarely have the time to watch a DVD in full the first time.

 

[charlieGee]

I'm not sure if this is the place to post this question. I am in very first stage of researching for a home theater. I know nothing of the differences between Plasma, LCD and DLP (is this correct?). I would greatly appreciate a beginners lesson on the differences and which is the best technology. Thanks in advance.

 

[Chris Gerhard]

A DVD player that has a chip that scales the 480i data on the DVD to a higher resolution (usually 720p or 1080i) which many believe, myself included, that some HDTVs will benefit from. A simple explanation is first the data has to be deinterlaced then by using digital processing the resolution is increased. There is of course no addition detail added but for reasons completely beyond my understanding the picture appears sharper. This of course is intended to make DVD look better and whether or not you believe it works on your HDTV is entirely up to you. It doesn't make DVD look like HDTV by any stretch of the imagination but for me offers a subtle improvement. There are expensive and inexpensive upscaling players ranging from about $100 to over $3000.

Chris