Video Asylum

Posted by Lasermeister (A) on May 23, 2002 at 18:45:38

In Reply to: Help! Any inmates with knowledge of widescreen HD direct views? posted by Harmonia on May 22, 2002 at 14:21:23:

I am kind of looking around at some of these TVs, and I am extremely disappointed with the performance I've seen with regular NTSC material. I looked at a 34" Sony widescreen last week, and while the performance was quite impressive with DVD (not even progressive scan), I was very disappointed with the performance on a regular broadcast signal. The set was tuned to the local PBS channel, which shows a live shot of an eagle sitting in its nest between programs. The set's internal line doubler could not even handle this simple task; indeed the picture was far inferior to my 11 year old 30" Toshiba TV showing this scene off cable or broadcast.

I have also heard very bad things about the 38" Loewe's internal line doubler. A friend I know from the internet has one, and while the performance with DVDs is outstanding, the picture from his Pioneer HLD-X9 laserdisc player, considered one of the best ever made, is so poor it almost makes him sick. There was some mention of this issue in the latest The Perfect Vision magazine, I think maybe at the end of the letters section.

If you are just hellbent on getting one of these digital sets, however, don't be afraid to get a 4:3 set with a shrinkable scan raster, particularly if you are going to mostly watch 4:3 signals. You will get less screen burn in and avoid those damned vertical letterbox bars--unless you can tolerate the slight but noticeable distortion using the zoom mode watching 4:3 material on a 16:9. However, I would recommend at least a 36" set if you went the 4:3 route; otherwise the picture is going to be too small when you watch 16:9 material.

Todd