Video Asylum

Posted by Audiophilander (i) on July 10, 2001 at 10:08:53

My geriatric rearscreen SONY "bought the farm" last week. After a bit of fast research my wife and I decided to purchase an RCA F38310 widescreen HDTV set which will be delivered tomorrow. Note: As part of RCA's promotion a "free" progressive scan DVD player will be shipped after the TV is delivered. Now being an audiophile "type" with more tube than solid state gear I readily admit that I'm a bit out of the loop on these new sets and the advanced technology they employ, so I need all the advice I can get.

I must say, from the outset I was a bit disappointed that virtually all the new widescreen sets seem to use gray bars on the sides for standard 4:3 viewing. I was told it's supposedly to prevent screen "burn-in"), however, once the contrast is brought down and picture is adjusted using Joe Kane's Video Essentials DVD, burn-in shouldn't be an issue. So, is there anything which one can do to replace the annoying gray bars with the more visually appealing black ones?

Next on the bill, I'm curious about "geometry," abstract math not being one of my strong suits! (grin) I understand that some, most or all widescreen direct view sets have display problems in this regard to varying degrees. It's important to note that I didn't see any geometry abnormalities while auditioning this set, but supposedly this problem isn't readily apparant unless viewing certain kinds of material. It makes me wonder about the standard demonstration material in the three stores where we auditioned this set. Would someone please enlighten me as to what I should be looking for, what kind of programing displays it worst, whether such anomalies are correctable (i.e., can be adjusted out) and by what means?

Well, I'm sure that I'll have more questions later and I apologize for any perceived naivete` on my part; after all, widescreen HDTV is a "brave new world!" Anyway, this'll do for now; thanks in advance for the input.

Cheers,
AuPh