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I'm thinking about getting a new direct-view HD-ready TV. My understanding is there are some good 34" ones available (Panasonic, Toshiba, and Sampo). My impression is that the one or two (more?)38-inchers are not yet as good. Is this true? If so, how long do think it will be before 38" TVs are as good as the 34s. Also, given that I'm connected to cable and watch occasional DVDs, am I better off with 4:3 so that the 4:3 picture being fed me over cable doesn't distort on 16:9? Or am I better off with a little distortion for the advantage of DVDs on a 16:9 (as well as 16:9 generally ,albeit distorted)? Thank you very much. I will appreciate any input on this.
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provide different viewing modes for different sources. My Loewe Planus (www.loewetv.com) has 5 different viewing modes: 16:9, 4:3, panorama, cinema, and zoom. For cable tv, I usually use the cinema mode, with no distortion and a little of the top and bottom cropped off, and if I'm watching a show that has info on the bottom or top, I switch to either panorama or 4:3. For widescreen DVD's, I use either cinema or zoom modes. So really, there's not much reason NOT to go with a widescreen TV, as DVD's really are killer on a widescreen!
Thank you. The salesman told me that one couldn't watch with gray bars more than 20% of the time, however. Apparently because the screened will get "burned" (I guess like a computer monitor without a screen saver. He's basically saying, then, that filling the 16:9 screen with 4:3, as one needs to do 80% of the time, means tolerating some distortion. Does this make sense to you? Thanks again.
TV's, but I've heard that regular tube tv's are not as prone, if really at all, to the burn-in problem. I've also heard that gray bars nullify that effect. But then again, you're stuck with annoying gray bars. Asking the manufacturer is probably the best answer. With my Loewe, when I'm watching cable, in the cinema mode the image takes up all of the screen, cropping a bit of the image off the top and bottom, and leaving it undistorted. Going into panorama and 4:3 leaves smaller and then bigger borders on the left and right, but I only use this occassionally whilst watching TV that has info on the cinema's cropped areas. These viewing modes are great for a widescreen, check out Mitsubishi also, I was impressed with their image (but I don't know about their viewing modes). Good luck!
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