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In Reply to: HDTV, Flat Panel, Wide Screen, Plasma, - need some help posted by chris on April 02, 2002 at 18:18:00:
Just to share my thoughts and reactions for what they are worth.First, true HDTV on a plasma screen is killer. I'm not talking about line-doubled DVD playback; I'm talking about true HDTV, which is availble from over the air broadcasts (PBS) and from DirecTV (it's an extra service; regular DirecTV is digital, but not HDTV). So, take a look at that in the store to see what real HDTV is. I think you'll decide it's quite spectacular. I know that was my and my wife's reaction.
Second, understand that HDTV broadcasting is not mandated by the Federal Communications Commission. What is mandated is digital broadcasting. Every broadcaster has a 6 Mhz piece of spectrum (which is what's required to broadcast an analog TV signal). Broadcasting an HDTV signal requires the full 6 Mhz. However, broadcasting a "standard" definition signal requires much less. So, using digital, it is possible for a broadcaster to broadcast multiple programs on a single 6 Mhz channel. The cost to broadcasters of converting to digital is quite substantial; so my guess is that they're going to look for ways to increase revenue. Multiple programs is one way to do it.
Third, understand that, right now, there are huge incompatibility problems with digital broadcasting. The modulation format chosen for digital broadcasting does not work well with cable TV; digital cable uses a different modulation system. So your digital broadcast decoder will not receive digital cable signals. Also, cable TV is not now required to retransmit local digital broadcasts, if they are retransmitting the local analog broadcast. Finally, DirecTV offers HDTV (mostly HBO, I believe) but requires both a different set-top box than the regular DirecTV box and a different dish, because you must "look at" two satellites.
My own preference from both a decorating and a viewing perspective is that plasma screens are the only way to go and that HDTV really needs at least a 42" diagonal screen to be worthwhile. CRT televisions that are that size (Sony makes a 40" 4:3) are very deep and take up a lot of room space. RPTVs are not as large; but I don't care for their image quality. One of my business partners felt the same way; and he bought a plasma TV. Also, I think 16:9 aspect ratio is the way to go for any new purchase; since it is more nearly congruent with the movie screen format.
My wife and I couldn't justify to ourselves the expenditure required for a plasma screen, given that we have a working 27" and just don't watch that much TV. And we felt that the alternatives, while cheaper, were inferior long-term solutions. The way we look at it, we're making a 10-year purchase; so you have to try to anticipate the future as best you can.
When the 12-year old 27" TV finally fails, the price of the plasmas will probably be down; some of the compatibility issues among digital formats may be sorted out; and we'll undoubtedly buy a plasma TV.
Follow Ups:
the problem is the 42" plasma displays currently available are NOT CAPABLE OF HIGH DEFINITION. (the 1024x1024 Sony is a technical exception...see link below)you must be capable of displaying AT LEAST 720p horizontal lines in a progressive scan (or 1080 lines interlaced: 540p skipped lines followed by the other 540p lines = 1080i), and the current crop of 42" plasmas only do 480 horizontal lines.
here's the deal: a 42" plasma has 852 pixels in 480 horizontal rows, for a total of 408960 pixels, which is not nearly enough.
however, the 50" plasmas have 1366 pixels in 768 horizontal rows,
for a total of 1049088 pixels. that means they have no problem doing 720 progressive "scans" of video information, in fact, the input is "rescaled" to 768 scans, so as to fill the entire screen.High Defintion CRTs are capable of much higher resolution, as are front and rear projection technologies. They can do the equivalent of over 2 million pixels, so you would think you'd get a much sharper picture, and of course if you project that on a 42" or 50" screen, you will. If you project that light on a huge screen, say 8 or 10 feet across you get something a bit less, but still very close to film.
but don't sit too close, and if your input is regular television programing, NTSC, it's gonna be ugly--downright nasty. That's why "line doublers and quadruplers and processors and scalers" are so often included or recommended as add-ons for large screen projection.
Very expensive.
plasma is something unique:
the quality of light and colors that the super-heated gas plasma emits is ....
oh man, you just have to see these things:
"Let's pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through.
Why, it's turning into a sort of mist now, I declare!"--"Through the Looking-Glass" by Lewis Carroll
I should have said 43".The article you linked to, btw, is about 8 months old, an eternity in this business.
Yep, it does true HD but it doesn't do black and it seems to suffer from subtle image artifacts in dark scenes. Everytime I've seen this set at Tweeter it can't get past dark grey. I gotta believe were gonna see the Panny black level and the Pioneer resolution from one of these manufacturers soon for under $10k. Maybe well under.If I were Chris that's what I'd wait on.
joe
whew! where did that come from?well, i had my 15 minutes...
now my "state-of-the-art" plasma is old news...
the horror...
i guess i'll put a hole in the boat to let the water out
thanks for the heads-up Bruce
Not at all.You make a good point that everyone needs to watch out for -- there's a myriad of different formats 1080i, 720p, etc. etc. and it's hard to keep 'em all straight. So a buyer swimming around in all this has got to look out for the sharks and make sure he doesn't get bitten when he plunks down the rather large stack of bills that buying one of these things requires.
IIRC, the unit that my wife and I saw was the Pioneer jobbie that I linked to. I know it wasn't interlaced (I can tell the difference) and I don't think it was as big as 50 inches. (Her reaction immediately upon our walking into the store: "Oooh, that's nice and so thin, just like a picture!" (The had the display wall-mounted.) Our local PBS outlet was showing an HDTV broadcast about rennaisance painting -- quite the program to show off the virtues of HDTV.
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