TV Buying Soon (1 Viewer)

[Dave Moritz]

I thought I would get the Mitsubishi 1080p set but instead I but down half the money yesterday on a Samsung 1080p 50" DLP set. We shall see if my decision was a good one later on down the road. The Samsung has a great picture but the ony thing I did not like is that I will still end up with bars on many of my movies on a 16 x 9 tv. The salesman hooked up a dvd player and poped in the Increadables and no noticable bars. Then I asked him to put a non animated movie and he put in Master and Commander and it had super bars. I was told that the film was shot in a very wide format so this movie would look this way on any set.

Does anyone here know if I made a huge mistake with this tv? Should I have gotten the Mitsubishi instead? The Samsung did have the brighter picture and alittle less picture noise than the Mitsubishi. I am hoping that when I pay off the other half and get the set home the picture performance does not let me down.

 

[Adam Sanchez]

Hey all,

This might not be the right place to ask this, but since it is related to my TV, I thought I would write it here. Just one thing, I swear.

When I get my new TV, I am going to soon also get a new DVD player. My current one is a Non-Progressive. When I get the TV I will be able to use the Component plugs on the player for the first time (S Video was my only option before) but other than that improving the picture, and of course the fact that it will be on a brand new LCD display, I imagine it wont look too much different.

I want to get a Progressive Scan DVD player. Will that improve the picture much? Will that give me the 480i and 480p and 720p? The Tv will of course be an HDTV Monitor (even though I wont be getting a ASTC tuner built-in) So Just wanna get a DVD player that will ideally let me use 720p.

I have a feeling someone is gonna say I need some HDMI player. $100 Cable.... yikes. Let's see if I am right...

Thanks guys!

 

[Tim Jin]

Dave- Congratulations on your new Sammy. Sammy makes great DLP sets. They are one of the most popular ones. I wouldn't worry about its performance, especially at 1080p.

I found this post about black bars on another forum. It pretty much sums everything up:


"Ok, you bought a widescreen TV, right? That's great. The OLD TVs have an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (4x3). Your brand new widescreen TV has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 (16x9). Ok. HD broadcasts are shown in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and they will fill your screen on your widescreen TV. If it's displayed on your old 4x3 set, it'll have black bars on the top and bottom. Why? Because the 1.78:1 aspect ratio of the program is WIDER than your 1.33:1 TV. So therefore, the image is shrunk to fit the width of your TV, thus leaving black bars. Ok, you're getting it now.

So, what about movies? Well, most movies are either filmed in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, or a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Yeah, the DVD may say 16x9 on it, but what that means is that it's "ENHANCED" for 16x9 TVs. It doesn't mean it's gonna fill your screen. 1.85:1 movies may fill your screen, depending on the amount of overscan. 2.35:1 movies won't fill your screen. Why? Because it's WIDER!! Therefore it has to be shrunk down to fit the width of the screen perfectly. Black bars at the top and bottom are normal to preserve the original aspect ratio of the movie. Widescreen aspect ratios range from 1.66:1 all the way up to 2.76:1 (Ben Hur). The wider the movie, the bigger the black bars. Widescreen TVs are mainly meant for HDTV viewing. But they sure make watching movies a lot better too because the black bars are either gone for the 1.85:1 movies, or a lot smaller for the 2.35:1 movies. >> Credit goes to JRC .


Adam- are you sure that you don't have a Progressive Scan player already because if you can use component cables, it is most likely a progressive player. Double check.

480p is progressive. 480i is nonprogressive. 720p and 1080i is High Def.

DVD's will look better on a 480p (progressive) player over nonprogressive (480i). If you want to get a upconvert player that will scale DVD's to 1080i, it will look much better.

That said, upconvert players is not a high def player. It will just convert the standard DVD's to close to 1080i as possible. Depending on the movies, some titles will look better and some titles will not.

You can find these players for sub $150-$200.

No need to buy a $100 HDMI cable. All HDMI cables are pretty much the same. Think about it. You are going to digital to digital. Unless the cable is defective, all HDMI cables are the same. Look on the net or on Ebay and you will find these cables for a lot less.

 

[Adam Sanchez]

Tim,

Thanks for the reply/ I heard of Upconverting players. So it kind of "Fakes" upping a DVD to High Def? What does it do to acheive that? This is probably going to sound really dumb, but is there a current REAL way to watch High Defenition DVDs? Or is that what Blue Ray and all that is gonna be for?

If you say component means is 480p I guess my player could be... it's just I got it over 3 years ago for about $150 and it's a 5 disc Sony. I don't recall Progressive being so cheap back then. Of course I knew nothing about it so I could be wrong. Suppose I could look up the model number?

 

[Adam Sanchez]

My Model DVD player is DVP-NC600. From what I can tell here:

news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/1163 it is *Not* progressive Scan.

 

[Tim Jin]

You are lucky that I check this forum and my email as often as I can .

HD DVD and Blu Ray are the next generation formats.

Actually, there are two different formats that will produce high def materials on a disc.

Some studios are going with HD and some are going with Blu.

DVD9 (current DVD's) can hold up to about 9 gigs of data.

HD and Blue can hold up to 30 gigs or more. I forget the specs.

The two different formats won't be able to play in each players because they use two different "lasers" . So, if you have a Blu Ray player, you won't be able to watch a HD DVD and vice versa. So, there is no reason to go out and buy a HD or Blu player just yet because you will see combo players that will do both.

So, in the meantime, upconvert 1080i players are the middle ground until we get High Def materials on disc.

This time next year, HD/Blu players will be out, and hopefully be mainstream for the holiday season. It might be the killer amp to get or might not.

Personally, if you are going to get a progressive player now, I would get a upconvert player. All upconvert player can do progressive too and you are finding more and more upconvert players.

Just get your TV now and don't fret on a player until you have too.

The TV is your main goal.

 

[Adam Sanchez]

I have nothing to say. Just a picture:

 

[Dave Moritz]

Am hoping that someone here can help me regarding my previous post. I currently have a Samsung HLR5078W 50" 1080p DLP HDTV on layway. I have the sales priced of $3405 after tax locked in. But if this set has issues and will not actually display 1080p from an outside source like Sony Blu-ray. Then whats the point of getting this paticular tv? My currenty tv is unwatchable about 50% of the time so I would love to not have to wait until Dec to have a tv. This is what I need to know and hopefully some people here have this set and know if the following problems exsist?

1. Does this set accept outside 1080p? Whe blu-ray is available will it accept its 1080p input?

2. Does this set have lip sync problems?

3. Is there any major problems with this model that would make me want to cancel the sale? I can allway choose another brand and model anytime before I pay off the tv.

 

[Adam Sanchez]

That's my TV incase you missed it. I just wanted to thank everyone for all the input. I was able to get it Monday. I love love LOVE it. My first reaction when I took it out of the box was "Damn it's big!" To think I had thought about a 37 inch... would of been waaay too much for my room.

One small thing. On DVDs, I can see a little of the edges of things, like in Nemo... almost like the jagged edges of the lines. Is that just something I'm going to have to live with on an LCD TV? I'm hoping a 480p player or an upconverting would noticably help?

The TV does have alot of options I dont even know if I should use, like the Noise reduction.

It's excellent though... could not be happier. Thank you again.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I dont own that paticular set Adam but IMHO the affect you are talking about could be from the square pixels that make up the LCD picture. That is something that DLP does not seem to suffer from and that is one of the reasons why I stayed away. But I agree the picture is still very nice and it was alot better than the Hitachi LCD I saw at CC about a week ago. I would read up on that bad boy and also get video essentials to help tweek the picture that might minimize the effect that you see and give you the best picture the set is capible of. And it could not hurt to look into a upconverting dvd player with a good quality hdmi cable. Denon makes a really nice upconverting dvd player and monster makes some good hdmi cables.

Enjoy your HDTV :b I have to wait to pay off my tv on layaway. My current 12 yr old tv is a 31" CRT Toshiba that has no progressive inputs and only has composit and s video. The TV is unusable at least 50% of the time and the other times its alittle fuzzy has lines in the top 1/3 of the tv so I cant wait to get a new tv, kinda jelous for now

Enjoy your new TV Adam

 

[Tim Jin]

Denon makes great DVD players. I think, almost all of their players has HDMI/DVI.

Read this Thread on a great articles on cables. You will also see my post on how I made my own component cables using the same exact specs that the pro use.

There is no reason to spend $300 on a Monster HDMI cable, when a cheap HDMI cable will do the same.

Trust me. There is little or no difference from a branded HDMI vs. nonbranded HDMI. They are all the same.

I know many people in the studio industry that don't bother with branded cables. We even use lamp cord cables that you buy in bulk from Home Depot to make our speakers cables.

Unless you have perfect hearing and perfect eye sight, there is no real reason to buy Monster's. Unless you are building a very high end home theater and paying someone to do the work, there is no reason to spend $300 on a HDMI cable, when a $20 cable will do the same.

Adam, enjoy your new LCD!!!

 

[Adam Sanchez]

Could anyone help me with this:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...60#post2804760

I'm starting to get paranoid, thinking there is something wrong with my TV. :-/

 

[Adam Sanchez]

By the way what's A GOOD setup/calibration disc for specifically a LCD TV? Will the Avia disc I always hear about work? What's it's exact name, so I can look it up?

And is this http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...DVD_DVDPlayers fine an upscaling DVD player? Hoping the player will help my apparant noise problem. Gonna try to get it tomorrow.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Well I am hoping that I did not make a big mistake a few days ago. I went back to UE and took a few dvd movies plus a DTS demonstration dvd to reivaluate the RPTV's. I had previously placed a downpayment on a 5078 Samsung 1080p 50" DLP HDTV. After looking at it again and the more I watched different clips in it the detail was not as good as I thought. I didnt ask the salesman what video mode it was in however. The detail especially around text and during dark sences did not look as good as I have seen front projection dlp units look. A Sony front projector for around the same price had a much better picture on a 120" screen than the 1080p Samsung did.

I ended up after the salesmans help in conecting a dvd player from tv to tv. I ended up switching my purchase to a Sony 3 chip 50" LCD 720p/1080i HDTV for about 1k less that the Samsung 50" 1080p DLP HDTV. Instead of paying the Samsung off around the begining of Dec. I should have the Sony paid for by the end of Oct. I was not happy with not being able to input 1080p via hdmi and the lip sync problem sealed it. Again I am hoping that I did not make a mistake by getting the Sony over the Samsung. I guess I will see when hd movies and the players are available and I see them running demonstrations with HD movies at my local retailer. My current tv is dead and the thought of not being able to relax after work and watch movies and tv shows really sucks. Heck I was allmost ready to just buy a 34" Sony HDTV CRT tv that I could have just drove off with that night :b .

Did I make a big mistake? Should I have toughed it out and was the Samsung a better tv and the video setting wrong giving me a bad picture on the tv on display?

Its not that the Sony LCD look crappy and I settled for just anything. I am just wondering should I have got the Sony over the Samsung. Have gotten burned out on shopping for a tv