Re: OT: Why should I buy an HDTV? IMO the "Bad" outweighs the "Good"
- From: TheKorn <TheKorn@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 17:29:04 GMT
Brian Saunders <bsaunders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:1180628714.326711.61590@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
I enjoy dealing with the sales people (when I can actually find them)
because I'm not going to be an easy sale unless they want to meet me
on my level.
....would that be above or below the level where they normally are? :)))
I told some college age kid working at a Circuit City
last week that I was looking for a GOOD television because the last TV
I bought was 27 years ago, the volume and color knobs were dangling
off the still-working RCA I have and I had to take the VHF knob off
now and put it onto the UHF tuner stub to change to anything higher
than channel 13. His eyes kind of widened and bugged out. My wife told
him I wasn't kidding either.
Haha, reminds me of the TV my parents had when I was growing up. Man we
beat the hell out of that thing. Similar situation as you, except in our
case the UHF knob bit the dust so we had to make the VHF knob do double
duty. Then it was a pair of long nose pliers that were stationed
permanently next to the TV. Eventually the tv said "f*ck it, I'm outta
here!" :)
Funny story, I bought a TV my freshman year in college. Back at that
time remotes were optional, and for some insane reason they wanted an
extra $50 for it. I already had a universal remote to control all my
stereo gear, so I told them to shove it and bought the one without the
remote. Opened it up, fixed it so that it'd work with a remote, and have
been happily remote controlling that TV to this day!
Three questions for you TV pro's:
How come JVC, Sony, Sharp and other top ten brands are about $400
higher than the same looking stuff like RCA and Magnavox on a 32
incher? (I realize there's always other "Chinese crap" brands out
there but if I haven't heard of them, they're not going to get much of
a look from me.) Is it really worth that much difference?
Well, to some extent the picture that you see on the screen is only as
good as the electronics that are driving it. Now whether it makes $400
worth of difference is a matter of personal taste.
For example, my parents own a 50" Vizio plasma screen. It's an OK
screen, but I wouldn't call it stellar. From the factory, it looks like
electrified dogsh*t. Seriously, it looks *HORRENDOUS* from the factory.
Every last control is jacked to the moon; grass looks like astroturf,
blue sky looks like the ocean, in general a big mess.
But the real craziness is that my parents LIKED it that way. The gold
standard as far as I'm concerned is if you take some video of outside,
then play it back on the TV, THE PICTURE SHOULD LOOK LIKE OUTSIDE! And
what you get from most TVs with their factory adjustments is more akin to
technicolor fireworks rather than an accurate picture.
....the point is that eventually I convinced my parents to let me adjust
their tv. (OK, they called it "tuning", but I wasn't going to fight that
battle.) A few adjustments here and there, and the picture looked
*drasticly* better. Grass looked like... grass! Blue sky looked
like... sky! And all of a sudden, you could see things like the pores
on actor's faces in high def...
.... but there was a problem. (I kept this to myself; my parents were
much happier with their TV and I was happy when I visited to not have
retinal burn, so I called it a win.) I wasn't able to adjust the picture
to what I would call optimal; there are still defects in the picture that
can be directly attributed to the electronics driving the screen (and the
range of adjustment that they provide).
So that's what can *sometimes* be attributed to the price difference.
Some of it is simply brand name markup, but some of it isn't. (Probably
30% to electronics, 70% brand if you had to push me on a number.)
One area that a lot of TV makers skimp on is something called the scaler.
Basically this circuit takes standard definition content and scales it up
to the native resolution of your screen. (Or if you have content that's
higher than the native resolution of your screen, it scales it DOWN to
fit.) This one component (usually combined with the deinterlacer, but
not always) can really make-or-break standard defintion picture quality.
When watching high def signals it doesn't tend to matter as much (since
youre screen usually is roughly the same resolution as the signal), but
it definitely matters when watching standard definition stuff.
....but at some point, it doesn't matter. Most TVs (once you adjust them
away from their astroturf and ocean default settings) will provide at the
very least a reasonable picture. Whether you want to spend the $400 to
go from reasonable to damn fine is kind of up to you.
How long do you think it's going to be before we get another whole
new format for television? I can hold out a while.
Considering this one has been in the works for coming up to two decades,
I'd figure at least another two decades before it gets chucked. :)
--
Have a home video that's trapped on your camera? Want to share it on the
web or on DVD?
http://www.webwidevideo.com/
09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0
45-5F-E1-04-22-CA-29-C4-93-3F-95-05-2B-79-2A-B2
.
- References:
- OT: Why should I buy an HDTV? IMO the "Bad" outweighs the "Good"
- From: skbrothers
- Re: OT: Why should I buy an HDTV? IMO the "Bad" outweighs the "Good"
- From: Dukester
- Re: OT: Why should I buy an HDTV? IMO the "Bad" outweighs the "Good"
- From: Brian Saunders
- OT: Why should I buy an HDTV? IMO the "Bad" outweighs the "Good"
- Prev by Date: Re: OT: Anybody taking preorders for the iPhone??? I WANT ONE!!
- Next by Date: Re: Looking for a Junkyard in Ohio
- Previous by thread: Re: OT: Why should I buy an HDTV? IMO the "Bad" outweighs the "Good"
- Next by thread: Re: OT: Why should I buy an HDTV? IMO the "Bad" outweighs the "Good"
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
