HDTVs and all that malarky
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Paul Watson wrote:
the store clerk said "30% better colour" which made me laugh, how on gods green, red and blue earth do you measure colour in percentages
1300 is 30% better than 1000. the color he's referring to is the color of your money.
image processing toolkits | batch image processing | blogging
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So we are moving into a new place and I need to buy a TV and DVD player. I've had a look around the local shops and the best bets are the Sony Bravia S and V series 32" HDTVs (720, not 1080.) A touch more expensive than some of the equivalent Samsung and Toshiba TVs but side by side the Sony was looking better in the store and Sony has that fit and finish the others don't. I buy Apple so you know silly things like that make me happy :) Right now it is a toss up between the Sony 32v at €1299 or the Sony 32s at €999. The v series has better colour apparently* but I can't find much more about the differences. One review I read though did say the v series handled standard-def sources better than the s series. Didn't see much confirmation of this but it is important as 99% of my sources are standard-def. I'm only buying HD now so that in a year or two I don't regret buying the standard-def TV. Right? The other thing is a DVD player and a standard Sony seems fine but with this fancy upscaling HDMI output dongle doo dab whatsamacallit. That worried me at first, sounds like a great source of artifacts but everything I am reading online says it is fine and better than taking standard output from a DVD into an HDTV. Obviously the marketing hype that it turns DVD into HDDVD is daft as a rubber chicken crossing a road but at least it doesn't seem to hurt. One last question; Can I plug a normal analog aerial into these things? For the first week I won't have the satellite box setup so it will be plain old analog terrestrial free-to-air TV. Any other advice before I go buy this thing tomorrow? (Couple things: 32" is as big as I need. Rear projector and Plasma sound nice but I want to keep this simple and LCD seems to do that. I'm not going to buy online or hunt for 1% off deals or ship it in from Japan or anything; Local, store bought, back of my car is fine thanks. The Sony's have two HDMI inputs and I doubt I'll be using both for a long while.) * the store clerk said "30% better colour" which made me laugh, how on gods green, red and blue earth do you measure colour in percentages
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside wher
The Vizio line has been getting great reviews. If you have COSTCO (www.costco.com) where you are, you can get a GREAT price on the Visio line.
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One last question please Elaine. I want to plug my MacBook Pro into the HDTV and the chap said a DVI to HDMI connector is needed. Since you said HDMI is DVI with a bit extra I assume it will be fine? Anything to look out for or will the Sony DVI to HDMI cable at €60 he wants to sell me be fine?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Hi Paul, You don't want to be buying cables from a AV retail store. They slap a huge markup on cables, knowing that consumers consider cables to be a commodity item. Most customer are totally focused on the price of the TV, and don't pay close attention to the price of the cable that is casually added to the deal at the end. For example, at Tiger Direct (in the US) you can get an HDMI-to-DVI-D cable for US$20[^]. I expect there are similar prices available in Ireland. Cheers, Doug
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Hi Paul, You don't want to be buying cables from a AV retail store. They slap a huge markup on cables, knowing that consumers consider cables to be a commodity item. Most customer are totally focused on the price of the TV, and don't pay close attention to the price of the cable that is casually added to the deal at the end. For example, at Tiger Direct (in the US) you can get an HDMI-to-DVI-D cable for US$20[^]. I expect there are similar prices available in Ireland. Cheers, Doug
Thanks Doug. The Sony guy threw in a €40 HDMI cable as "part of the deal."
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
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I just bought the 32v2500 from the local Sony shop. It was €1000 inc. (I was offered the S at €880) The V definately looked better than the S when side by side in the shop. Yes you can plug an analog aerial straight into the tv set. It also has a digital decoder built into it so you can get any free to air digital channels that your country of residence is offering. No extra freeview box or whatnot needed :) Its an awesome tv and I think worth the little extra over other brands. Go for the V and try to get the price down to €1000 or €1050 region
Good prices that. I went with the V today and paid €1250. They weren't offering any deal on it sadly but I am happy all the same.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
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So we are moving into a new place and I need to buy a TV and DVD player. I've had a look around the local shops and the best bets are the Sony Bravia S and V series 32" HDTVs (720, not 1080.) A touch more expensive than some of the equivalent Samsung and Toshiba TVs but side by side the Sony was looking better in the store and Sony has that fit and finish the others don't. I buy Apple so you know silly things like that make me happy :) Right now it is a toss up between the Sony 32v at €1299 or the Sony 32s at €999. The v series has better colour apparently* but I can't find much more about the differences. One review I read though did say the v series handled standard-def sources better than the s series. Didn't see much confirmation of this but it is important as 99% of my sources are standard-def. I'm only buying HD now so that in a year or two I don't regret buying the standard-def TV. Right? The other thing is a DVD player and a standard Sony seems fine but with this fancy upscaling HDMI output dongle doo dab whatsamacallit. That worried me at first, sounds like a great source of artifacts but everything I am reading online says it is fine and better than taking standard output from a DVD into an HDTV. Obviously the marketing hype that it turns DVD into HDDVD is daft as a rubber chicken crossing a road but at least it doesn't seem to hurt. One last question; Can I plug a normal analog aerial into these things? For the first week I won't have the satellite box setup so it will be plain old analog terrestrial free-to-air TV. Any other advice before I go buy this thing tomorrow? (Couple things: 32" is as big as I need. Rear projector and Plasma sound nice but I want to keep this simple and LCD seems to do that. I'm not going to buy online or hunt for 1% off deals or ship it in from Japan or anything; Local, store bought, back of my car is fine thanks. The Sony's have two HDMI inputs and I doubt I'll be using both for a long while.) * the store clerk said "30% better colour" which made me laugh, how on gods green, red and blue earth do you measure colour in percentages
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside wher
Paul Watson wrote:
The other thing is a DVD player and a standard Sony seems fine but with this fancy upscaling HDMI output dongle doo dab whatsamacallit. That worried me at first, sounds like a great source of artifacts but everything I am reading online says it is fine and better than taking standard output from a DVD into an HDTV. Obviously the marketing hype that it turns DVD into HDDVD is daft as a rubber chicken crossing a road but at least it doesn't seem to hurt. One last question; Can I plug a normal analog aerial into these things? For the first week I won't have the satellite box setup so it will be plain old analog terrestrial free-to-air TV.
First of all, to upscale DVDs, you need to use the upscaling player's HDMI out, it cannot be done over component--this is a requirement for all legitimate upscaling players. Second, assuming the TV has Ant. In, then yes, you can get normal over-the-air broadcasting (even the cheapest HDTVs have this feature, I wouldn't worry about missing out in the Bravia). Third, if you haven't gotten addicted to HD yet and have money to burn, you might want to consider a nice HD gaming console like XB360 or PS3; both will (in XB360's case..can) play HD format movies and both can upscale DVDs (XB360's DVD playback is horrible, though). Again, just a thought.
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Paul Watson wrote:
The other thing is a DVD player and a standard Sony seems fine but with this fancy upscaling HDMI output dongle doo dab whatsamacallit. That worried me at first, sounds like a great source of artifacts but everything I am reading online says it is fine and better than taking standard output from a DVD into an HDTV. Obviously the marketing hype that it turns DVD into HDDVD is daft as a rubber chicken crossing a road but at least it doesn't seem to hurt. One last question; Can I plug a normal analog aerial into these things? For the first week I won't have the satellite box setup so it will be plain old analog terrestrial free-to-air TV.
First of all, to upscale DVDs, you need to use the upscaling player's HDMI out, it cannot be done over component--this is a requirement for all legitimate upscaling players. Second, assuming the TV has Ant. In, then yes, you can get normal over-the-air broadcasting (even the cheapest HDTVs have this feature, I wouldn't worry about missing out in the Bravia). Third, if you haven't gotten addicted to HD yet and have money to burn, you might want to consider a nice HD gaming console like XB360 or PS3; both will (in XB360's case..can) play HD format movies and both can upscale DVDs (XB360's DVD playback is horrible, though). Again, just a thought.
brazzle wrote:
you need to use the upscaling player's HDMI ou
Thanks, I've bought an HDMI cable just for that. DVD player has the upscaled HDMI output.
brazzle wrote:
Third, if you haven't gotten addicted to HD yet and have money to burn, you might want to consider a nice HD gaming console like XB360 or PS3; both will (in XB360's case..can) play HD format movies and both can upscale DVDs (XB360's DVD playback is horrible, though). Again, just a thought.
I'll avoid getting addicted to HD for as long as I can and then cave in and get an XBox 360 (not that keen on the PS3 to be honest.) I assume only the latest Xbox 360s have the HD capabilities?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
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brazzle wrote:
you need to use the upscaling player's HDMI ou
Thanks, I've bought an HDMI cable just for that. DVD player has the upscaled HDMI output.
brazzle wrote:
Third, if you haven't gotten addicted to HD yet and have money to burn, you might want to consider a nice HD gaming console like XB360 or PS3; both will (in XB360's case..can) play HD format movies and both can upscale DVDs (XB360's DVD playback is horrible, though). Again, just a thought.
I'll avoid getting addicted to HD for as long as I can and then cave in and get an XBox 360 (not that keen on the PS3 to be honest.) I assume only the latest Xbox 360s have the HD capabilities?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Paul Watson wrote:
I'll avoid getting addicted to HD for as long as I can and then cave in and get an XBox 360 (not that keen on the PS3 to be honest.) I assume only the latest Xbox 360s have the HD capabilities?
The newest Elites are easily HD-Ready with their new HDMI out, however, all older models are also good to go over component or VGA (VGA is necessary for upscaling). Component is capable of resolutions up to 1080P, but from what I understand its more like a faux-1080P and that it is best suited for up to 1080i. If you choose to wait, I would continue to wait until the new XB360's planned 65nm CPUs and GPUs are implemented and are [most likely] accompanied by a price drop (you won't regret it). EDIT: Oh, and wait to buy an HD-DVD drive... Blu-Ray is doing extremely well and there are rumors of MS releasing a Blu-Ray addon later this year. cheers, b
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One last question please Elaine. I want to plug my MacBook Pro into the HDTV and the chap said a DVI to HDMI connector is needed. Since you said HDMI is DVI with a bit extra I assume it will be fine? Anything to look out for or will the Sony DVI to HDMI cable at €60 he wants to sell me be fine?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
The Bravia I have has a pc connection.
This statement was never false.
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So we are moving into a new place and I need to buy a TV and DVD player. I've had a look around the local shops and the best bets are the Sony Bravia S and V series 32" HDTVs (720, not 1080.) A touch more expensive than some of the equivalent Samsung and Toshiba TVs but side by side the Sony was looking better in the store and Sony has that fit and finish the others don't. I buy Apple so you know silly things like that make me happy :) Right now it is a toss up between the Sony 32v at €1299 or the Sony 32s at €999. The v series has better colour apparently* but I can't find much more about the differences. One review I read though did say the v series handled standard-def sources better than the s series. Didn't see much confirmation of this but it is important as 99% of my sources are standard-def. I'm only buying HD now so that in a year or two I don't regret buying the standard-def TV. Right? The other thing is a DVD player and a standard Sony seems fine but with this fancy upscaling HDMI output dongle doo dab whatsamacallit. That worried me at first, sounds like a great source of artifacts but everything I am reading online says it is fine and better than taking standard output from a DVD into an HDTV. Obviously the marketing hype that it turns DVD into HDDVD is daft as a rubber chicken crossing a road but at least it doesn't seem to hurt. One last question; Can I plug a normal analog aerial into these things? For the first week I won't have the satellite box setup so it will be plain old analog terrestrial free-to-air TV. Any other advice before I go buy this thing tomorrow? (Couple things: 32" is as big as I need. Rear projector and Plasma sound nice but I want to keep this simple and LCD seems to do that. I'm not going to buy online or hunt for 1% off deals or ship it in from Japan or anything; Local, store bought, back of my car is fine thanks. The Sony's have two HDMI inputs and I doubt I'll be using both for a long while.) * the store clerk said "30% better colour" which made me laugh, how on gods green, red and blue earth do you measure colour in percentages
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside wher
Paul Watson wrote:
Can I plug a normal analog aerial into these things?
The ones I have been looking at don't have that, which is why I don't own one yet. I don't pay for TV, so if I can't get it off the air, it's not a TV. I am primarily looking for a big monitor so I can work a little more comfortably at home, but it needs to be able to support TV too. Check it specifically, most don't have that. Go to the store and look at the thing - plug in an antenna and see if it works. 30% better color probably refers to the contrast ratio, which is not going to give you 'better color' in the technical sense, but it will look better. LCDs are the best in my opinion. DLP has various problems with bulbs and other stuff, and plasma is apparently prone to burn-in. SED is the ultimate answer I think, but a little pricey...
"Quality Software since 1983!"
http://www.smoothjazzy.com/ - see the "Programming" section for freeware tools and articles. -
So we are moving into a new place and I need to buy a TV and DVD player. I've had a look around the local shops and the best bets are the Sony Bravia S and V series 32" HDTVs (720, not 1080.) A touch more expensive than some of the equivalent Samsung and Toshiba TVs but side by side the Sony was looking better in the store and Sony has that fit and finish the others don't. I buy Apple so you know silly things like that make me happy :) Right now it is a toss up between the Sony 32v at €1299 or the Sony 32s at €999. The v series has better colour apparently* but I can't find much more about the differences. One review I read though did say the v series handled standard-def sources better than the s series. Didn't see much confirmation of this but it is important as 99% of my sources are standard-def. I'm only buying HD now so that in a year or two I don't regret buying the standard-def TV. Right? The other thing is a DVD player and a standard Sony seems fine but with this fancy upscaling HDMI output dongle doo dab whatsamacallit. That worried me at first, sounds like a great source of artifacts but everything I am reading online says it is fine and better than taking standard output from a DVD into an HDTV. Obviously the marketing hype that it turns DVD into HDDVD is daft as a rubber chicken crossing a road but at least it doesn't seem to hurt. One last question; Can I plug a normal analog aerial into these things? For the first week I won't have the satellite box setup so it will be plain old analog terrestrial free-to-air TV. Any other advice before I go buy this thing tomorrow? (Couple things: 32" is as big as I need. Rear projector and Plasma sound nice but I want to keep this simple and LCD seems to do that. I'm not going to buy online or hunt for 1% off deals or ship it in from Japan or anything; Local, store bought, back of my car is fine thanks. The Sony's have two HDMI inputs and I doubt I'll be using both for a long while.) * the store clerk said "30% better colour" which made me laugh, how on gods green, red and blue earth do you measure colour in percentages
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside wher
I have two Polaroid LCD TVs (37" and 32"). Two reasons I bought them -- picture quality was excellent and they have a ton of inputs, including VGA. SD signals upscale well. I've noticed very few artifacts -- mostly on animated shows. I haven't noticed much if any tearing when playing games or watching sports. My standard DVD player doesn't upscale movies, and the picture looks fine. As of this past Thursday, my PS3 does upscale both older games and DVDs. Both look much better running at 1080i (the top resolution for the TVs). No more artifacts in animated movies, heh. PS1 games look somewhat blocky (to be expected), but most of the PS2 games look better. The PS3 games I have all run in 720p except for Marvel Ultimate Alliance (1080i). I haven't tried any Blu-Ray discs yet (don't have any), but I expect with the recent update those will properly downscale to 1080i without issue. One thing to note: when watching SD signals, use a component or HDMI cable. Composite cables and coaxle cables don't look all that great on HDTVs. I run component from my DVD player and HDMI from my PS3. The TV in the bedroom uses coaxle cable. There's a huge difference in picture quality. Flynn
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brazzle wrote:
you need to use the upscaling player's HDMI ou
Thanks, I've bought an HDMI cable just for that. DVD player has the upscaled HDMI output.
brazzle wrote:
Third, if you haven't gotten addicted to HD yet and have money to burn, you might want to consider a nice HD gaming console like XB360 or PS3; both will (in XB360's case..can) play HD format movies and both can upscale DVDs (XB360's DVD playback is horrible, though). Again, just a thought.
I'll avoid getting addicted to HD for as long as I can and then cave in and get an XBox 360 (not that keen on the PS3 to be honest.) I assume only the latest Xbox 360s have the HD capabilities?
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
HD on the Xbox 360 is available through an add-on drive ($199.99 US). As noted, the only way to get true HD from it is to get the Xbox 360 Elite (in limited quantity at this time), but I've read rumors there are plans to update at least the Premium SKU to HDTV as well. The PS3 has a slight advantage in that the HD playback is built-in through the Blu-Ray drive. Rumors are that a price drop is planned for next year and could possibly happen Q4 this year. My guess is the 60gb SKU will drop to the price of the current 20gb SKU ($499.99 US) and that the proposed 80gb SKU would be introduced at the current price of the 60gb SKU ($599.99 US). Of course, this is only speculation, and that by the time any proposed 80gb SKU is introduced, it could easily increase to 100gb or more. On the Xbox 360 side, I haven't heard any rumors of a converged unit (HD-DVD built in). Most of the rumors surrounding the 360 have been about reducing the die of the CPU. Surprisingly, I haven't made the leap to HD yet (other than a few trailers downloaded from the Playstation Network). My TVs are capable of HD, and my PS3 games are all in HD. But I haven't bought any HD movies. I've been thinking about getting Planet Earth from Netflix on Blu-Ray to check it out before I purchase any discs. Flynn
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Paul Watson wrote:
Can I plug a normal analog aerial into these things?
The ones I have been looking at don't have that, which is why I don't own one yet. I don't pay for TV, so if I can't get it off the air, it's not a TV. I am primarily looking for a big monitor so I can work a little more comfortably at home, but it needs to be able to support TV too. Check it specifically, most don't have that. Go to the store and look at the thing - plug in an antenna and see if it works. 30% better color probably refers to the contrast ratio, which is not going to give you 'better color' in the technical sense, but it will look better. LCDs are the best in my opinion. DLP has various problems with bulbs and other stuff, and plasma is apparently prone to burn-in. SED is the ultimate answer I think, but a little pricey...
"Quality Software since 1983!"
http://www.smoothjazzy.com/ - see the "Programming" section for freeware tools and articles.Jasmine2501 wrote:
Check it specifically, most don't have that. Go to the store and look at the thing - plug in an antenna and see if it works.
Thanks Jasmine. I got the V and the antenna fits in nicely.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
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Jasmine2501 wrote:
Check it specifically, most don't have that. Go to the store and look at the thing - plug in an antenna and see if it works.
Thanks Jasmine. I got the V and the antenna fits in nicely.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Yeah I clearly need to go back there and ask someone else.
"Quality Software since 1983!"
http://www.smoothjazzy.com/ - see the "Programming" section for freeware tools and articles.