NEW HDTV advice PLASMA or LCD

[samijubal]

...
So my two major points are these: (1) Digital a/v is an improvement in many respects. But I still don't think they're worth the price, and they still have problems to solve. (2) If you think high-quality digital a/v is in every way better than high-quality analog a/v, then by all means spend your $$ and enjoy yourselves. Digital has improved, but I still see and hear that a lot is missing in digital gear I plainly see and hear artifacts that my analog eyes and ears don't like.

I'm curious what your source video is?

As you probably know, the pros avoid your issues with 10, 12 or 14 bit acquisition.

Consumer camcorders, DVD and broadcast transmission are usually 8bit.

Where are you getting full analog source? Even a BetacamSP camcorder outputs through a 9 bit TBC.

I'd like to know what this high quality analog source is too. I have a c-band satellite, the best analog source I know of, no way does it compare to a widescreen anamorphic DVD. C-band looks good, but it has faults just like all analog sources I've ever seen. A new anamorphic DVD played on a Panasonic plasma is near HD quality and something no SD CRT compares to. Like I stated before, I have a high end CRT, no way does watching a widescreen anamorphic DVD look anywhere near as good on it as the plasma.

You're putting down equipment you don't even own. Nice try, buy you don't know how TVs that you don't own perform. SD sucks compared to HD, that's all there is to it. If you owned a decent HDTV, you'd know that. If you think any analog source or TV in any way compares to an OTA HD broadcast, you're crazy. HD is amazing quality that nothing analog can touch.

You're CRT TVs that you think are so great suffer from convergence and geometry problems that flat panels don't have. I don't see you mention that anywhere.

[sanlyn]

. . .
3 PC's built specifically for analog-to-digital conversion (all of which use analog-based capture cards because the later digital versions made everything look like crap

Which capture cards ? ...

I use Ati All-In-Wonder 7500 Radeon and 9600 XT cards. However, I don't use Ati's capture software. I use VirtualDub and occasionally VirtualVCR for capture directly to uncompressed AVI. The video source is VHS tape. From any of 4 VCR's I go thru a Toshiba RD-XS34 (used as a line-level TBC and 3D-DNR noise filter, not as a recorder), then S-Video out to a PA-1 proc amp (followed by an outboard full-frame TBC if the VHS is copy-protected), then to the PC. All filtering is done in VirtualDub or Avisynth. All further cleanup, MPEG rendering and authoring goes thru TMPGenc software.

I once tried Hauppague cards but couldn't tolerate the audio sync problems, dropped frames, and other limitations, not to mention the unnecessary cost of H's higher-end products. I never copy directly to MPEG on a PC -- even the slightest noise in the source looks worse played on digital TV's, so I go to AVI and clean up as much as I can (the reason being that ultimately I will, when HDTV hits prime-time level and my CRT's start to brown out, probably get a 32" LCD). For day to day tv recording, I go straight from an SD digital cable box to an NTSC DVD recorder. If the results look decent on my cousin's 42" SONY HDTV setup, I figure i've done well.

I do not use HDTV cable as a source. The HDMI and component output circuits on the Scientific Atlanta HD cable boxes are atrocious, with massive color blocks I just don't want to see much less pay for.

[sanlyn]

edDV: Today I have only 3 full analog sources -- rooftop antenna (yes, very limited program choices, but rarely any artifacts from still-analog stations. Yes, they will soon disappear); VHS tape, and vinyl LP's.

The tapes are being cleaned up and converted to SD DVD. The LP's are played thru $7500 worth of stereo gear. That 7500 is a bit inaccurate; the preamp is a 1994 ADCOM, the power amp is a 400w Dynaco, and on down the line, some bought at absurd closeout prices and others (always) on sale. I'd say I paid half-price altogether, and only $200 for the Dynaco kit. I have 2 copies of many of the LP's, their analog original and their CD remasters. Are the CD's more convenient, programmable in the player, etc., etc? Yes. Do the LP's sound fuller and richer? Yes.

I have a number of SD DVD recordings I made thru my old analog cable box. The recordings have so little noise that I don't bother cleaning them up. The recordings I've made thru my newer digital cable box since 2002 (replaced with a newer, even noisier box in 2006) are replete with artifacts, none of which I ever saw on my older box, none of which I ever saw on a good antenna signal, and none of which I've ever seen even on bad VHS tape.

[jagabo]

Cable and satellite companies compress the hell out of their digital video resulting in severe macroblocking. Locally we also get tremendous temporal filtering resulting in ghosting, posterization, and motion artifacts on anything but the brightest scenes. Try VirtualDub's temporal smoother at 8 -- that's what our digital cable looks like.

[samijubal]

Yes, mini-dishes and digital cable are not very good sources. If you think that's what HD looks like, think again. HD is nothing short of amazing. VHS, give me a break, VHS is terrible compared to DVD. I have never seen any blocking, blurring, pixellating on my plasma. You're talking about poor quality sources, they have nothing to do with a quality TV.

When you've seen a new anamorphic DVD or an OTA HD broadcast on a Panasonic plasma, then you try to tell me analog sources and SDTVs are better.

While you're waiting 5 years for what's already available today, I'll be enjoying every minute of my plasma and knowing no SDTV compares to it.

[sanlyn]

... I'd like to know what this high quality analog source is too. I have a c-band satellite, the best analog source I know of, no way does it compare to a widescreen anamorphic DVD. ... Like I stated before, I have a high end CRT, no way does watching a widescreen anamorphic DVD look anywhere near as good on it as the plasma.

You're putting down equipment you don't even own. Nice try, buy you don't know how TVs that you don't own perform. SD sucks compared to HD, that's all there is to it. If you owned a decent HDTV, you'd know that. ... HD is amazing quality that nothing analog can touch.

You're CRT TVs that you think are so great suffer from convergence and geometry problems that flat panels don't have. I don't see you mention that anywhere.

I probably didn't mention geometry or converfrgence problems on my CRT's because I haven't noticed any. If your own high-end CRT has visible problemsm in that area, it's not high-end. The HDTV I own is my Sony 32" HDTV CRT. It has more accurate color and far more natural saturation levels than your plasma, which is why I don't own a plasma TV, and it has no backlight or uneven illumination problems, which is why I don 't own an LCD tv. If those LCD/plasma problems don't bother you, then it's a simple case of me having what I want and you having what you want. If you don't see that the "Bridge on the River Kwai" DVD looks like a cartoon on your plasma set, more power to you. To me, it looks plastic. What do I use as my base value? Go to a movie theater and watch the movie. The farther away any technology gets from what the original creator intended, the worse it is, I don't care what you call it, what the tech behind it is, or how much it costs.

I don't contend that SD looks better than HD. We're talking about display technology here, and the way digital is misused and abused. I'd rather see high-grade SD than sloppy HD any day. I'm afraid very, very sloppy HD is what we're getting now, and digital's many promises have yet to materialize.

When they do, come on over to see my new 100% digital setup. We can have a little zinfandel, and you can listen to my LP's and hear what music really sounded like before 75% of its numeric values got rounded off. Then we can go to my uncle's house in Collierviolle, TN, and watch real-film movies in his very big basement. I grew up spending my weekends in one of his movie theaters and used to listen to live music there, without amplifiers. I remember what it all looked like, and how it all sounded. That's what I want, and digital ain't giving it to me...yet.

[Seeker47]

Cable and satellite companies compress the hell out of their digital video resulting in severe macroblocking. Locally we also get tremendous temporal filtering resulting in ghosting, posterization, and motion artifacts on anything but the brightest scenes.

Yes, but where can we find better quality delivery ?? (I'm talking about movies and premium service content, not the limited selection of what you could find just OTA.) For awhile, some here were saying Dish had it all over DirecTV in terms of the compression and other problems . . . but you don't hear them saying it much today. Then there are a privileged few touting the benefits of C-Band, who have room for a huge dish in their backyards. Lately, Verizon's FIOS service claims to have by far the least amount of compression in their HD service. (But I hear their 2-year contracts are pretty onerous.)

[samijubal]

... I'd like to know what this high quality analog source is too. I have a c-band satellite, the best analog source I know of, no way does it compare to a widescreen anamorphic DVD. ... Like I stated before, I have a high end CRT, no way does watching a widescreen anamorphic DVD look anywhere near as good on it as the plasma.

You're putting down equipment you don't even own. Nice try, buy you don't know how TVs that you don't own perform. SD sucks compared to HD, that's all there is to it. If you owned a decent HDTV, you'd know that. ... HD is amazing quality that nothing analog can touch.

You're CRT TVs that you think are so great suffer from convergence and geometry problems that flat panels don't have. I don't see you mention that anywhere.

I probably didn't mention geometry or converfrgence problems on my CRT's because I haven't noticed any.

Haven't noticed are the key words here. Obviously you aren't as picky as you pretend to be. There is no such thing as a consumer CRT without convergence and geometry problems, it's inherent to the format. Put in a test disc and you'll find I'm right.

[samijubal]

... I'd like to know what this high quality analog source is too. I have a c-band satellite, the best analog source I know of, no way does it compare to a widescreen anamorphic DVD. ... Like I stated before, I have a high end CRT, no way does watching a widescreen anamorphic DVD look anywhere near as good on it as the plasma.

You're putting down equipment you don't even own. Nice try, buy you don't know how TVs that you don't own perform. SD sucks compared to HD, that's all there is to it. If you owned a decent HDTV, you'd know that. ... HD is amazing quality that nothing analog can touch.

You're CRT TVs that you think are so great suffer from convergence and geometry problems that flat panels don't have. I don't see you mention that anywhere.

I probably didn't mention geometry or converfrgence problems on my CRT's because I haven't noticed any. If your own high-end CRT has visible problemsm in that area, it's not high-end. The HDTV I own is my Sony 32" HDTV CRT.

The TV that the plasma replaced was a Sony CRT HDTV, it was OK on goemetry, nothing like the plasma, it was poor on convergence, no matter how much tweaking in the SM I did. I went through 3 of them to even get an acceptable one and it was still a compromise. The convergence changed depending on the ire of the signal also. When I'd adjust it at 50 ire and then go to 100 ire, it would be way off. Was it a little more vivid, yes. Was it worth the convergence and geometry problems, no way. The Sony TV had massive overscan, so unless you've been in the SM and adjusted it, you have no idea that's it's cropping off a lot of the picture. Another problem the plasma doesn't have. 32" just isn't big enough. Mine was 34' and it still wasn't big enough. I know exactly what your TV looks like, the plasma is better. All sources look good on the plasma. I gave up on VHS back in 01 and gave up DN when I got the Sony because both were just too poor looking to watch them. Both of those look fine on the plasma. So again, it's worth the slight compromise in vividness of picture to have all sources look good and no convergence and geometry problems, which your TV has wheather you see or admit it or not.

[edDV]

When my CRT starts drifting out of convergence in the corners, it's time to bring up the service menu linearity adjustments. Here green is drifting right.

[samijubal]

When my CRT starts drifting out of convergence in the corners, it's time to bring up the service menu linearity adjustments. Here green is drifting right.

Isn't linearity the space between the lines? To keep everything even. Another problem the Sony had that couldn't be fixed in the SM.

[jagabo]

Nokia has a free monitor test program:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download960.html

It generates lots of different patterns, mostly for testing CRT monitors (convergence, linearity, blooming, etc. but useful for LCD or plasma too.

[sanlyn]

For some reason, many folks in this thread seem to think there's no way I'll ever go to a fully digital HD system. Tell you what: about every 6 months or so, another HD improvement comes along and I think it's progress. Like many videophiles, I'm just waiting for HD to solve a few more problems.

Engineers have spent nearly 200 years tweaking analog, from photo lenses to film to crt's and phono pickups. My general opinion of HD is that it's a tad too early for me to make the same investment I made in analog, which was substantial. Now that I'm retired, I can't buy and install a new system every 18 months. Nor am I willing to discard a 20-year old collection of video or music. When HD gear appears that can do justice to both old and new, I'll be spending plenty for it. But not every time someone invents a new gadget.

As for VHS: when one of my VHS movies appears on DVD, I buy the DVD and throw away the tape or give it to a library. Otherwise, I have VHS material that isn't on DVD and never will be. So I have built 3 PC's to convert that material, and after many hours the VHS looks pretty good. Example: Starting the morning of 9/11/2001, I turned on my tv and saw the first plane crash into the WTC. Having no DVD recorder with a hard drive back then, I started loading tapes into my 3 VCR's and programmed them to record continuously for the next 3 days. It took 4 months and godknows how much filtering to convert those live-broadcast tapes to DVD. No, they don't look HD, but they look better than ground-level VHS. If you can find an HD disc of those 3 days on sale anywhere, let me know.

I bought my first large-scale (32") CRT the same day the Gulf War began. I turned on my brand-new tv and my brand-new VCR at the same time, started a test recording, switched to CNN, and 5 minutes later the Gulf War began. I recorded for four days. Those VHS tapes were converted to DVD at great trouble and expense, and they are much improved in digital format. I also recorded the Katrina disaster for 5 days on my PC (210 GB of MPEG video on 2 hard drives) and converted those MPEG's to DVD. If you can find continuous 5-day recordings of Katrina coverage on HD disc, let me know and I'll replace my SD DVD's immediately. I also have 3 days' coverage of the 1994 50th anniversary of D-Day from 4 cable stations. No 4-day HD DVD of that coverage? Then SD and 4:3 ratio is my only choice. I'd also like to know if anyone has a week's continuous CSPAN coverage of the 9/11 hearings on HD DVD and how much it would cost.

Two days ago I purchased online an OPPO player for the old stuff. Can't wait for the OPPO to show up. I'm taking it and my SD recordings above to see how they play on my cousin's 42" HD setup. If it goes well, I'll be one step closer to moving ahead. But I ain't throwin' away those recordings and I'm keeping my LP's and my audio-book tapes. Just because something is new, or even better, doesn't mean I have to discard every shred of the last 10,000 years of recorded history and art.

[mrswla]

Example: Starting the morning of 9/11/2001, I turned on my tv and saw the first plane crash into the WTC. Having no DVD recorder with a hard drive back then, I started loading tapes into my 3 VCR's and programmed them to record continuously for the next 3 days. It took 4 months to convert those live-broadcast tapes to DVD. No, they don't look HD, but they look better than ground-level VHS. If you can find an HD disc of those 3 days on sale anywhere, let me know.

I bought my first large-scale (32") CRT the same day the Gulf War began. I turned on my brand-new tv and my brand-new VCR at the same time, started a test recording, switched to CNN, and 5 minutes later the Gulf War began. I recorded for four days. Those VHS tapes were converted to DVD at great trouble and expense, and they are much improved in digital format. I also recorded the Katrina disaster for 5 days on my PC (210 GB of MPEG video on 2 hard drives) and converted those MPEG's to DVD. If you can find continuous 5-day recordings of Katrina coverage on HD disc, let me know and I'll replace my SD DVD's immediately. I also have 3 days' coverage of the 1994 50th anniversary of D-Day from 4 cable stations. No 4-day HD DVD of that coverage? Then SD and 4:3 ratio is my only choice. I'd also like to know if anyone has a week's continuous CSPAN coverage of the 9/11 hearings on HD DVD and how much it would cost.

You don't see those discs because there is no demand for them. Nobody wants to sit around for 216 hours watching the attacks of 9/11. Nobody wants to watch 96 hours of the Gulf War. Nobody wants to watch 120 hours of the Katrina disaster, etc... How many times have you watched each one of these completely? I'm sure there are or there will be HD discs released of these events, but they will be condensed because people don't need all that bombardment of information. One thing is for sure, those HD discs will surely look better than your VHS recordings.

[mrswla]

If you really wanted to have the best analog recordings, you would have never bought VHS to begin with. You would have went with betamax and superbeta when it came out. VHS=Sh*t.

[sanlyn]

If you really wanted to have the best analog recordings, you would have never bought VHS to begin with. You would have went with betamax and superbeta when it came out. VHS=Sh*t.

Mm, that's a little like saying that OS/2, which I once used, was better than Windows. But nobody made software for OS/2. Beta was too expensive. Beta service sucked. I have over 250 VHS movies, only 15 of them ever appeared on Beta, and few stores carried them back then.

Where would you find a good Beta machine to play those tapes today? You can't even find a decent VHS or S-VHS. I venture to say that with some work (and sometimes a whole lotta work!) you can make VHS into a DVD that looks viewable. Tape is tape, with limited permanence regardless of format, and even Beta is damaged every time it's played. I spent a lotta money on my VCR's and even more having them rebuilt. Who would rebuild a Beta machine today, other than Absolute Beta? (they charge plenty, and I hear their repairs ain't that great). For that matter, who would rebuild a consumer S-VHS? I'm not saying VHS was better, I'm saying it was possible. As far as "better" goes, I could have spent $25,000 on broadcast equipment, which would have been even better than Beta. I could be using a Mac instead of Windows, but the software limitations with Mac make a Mac unfeasible. In any case, I haven't made a tape recording for nearly 4 years, the exception being the 911 hearings.

[samijubal]

Well, all I can say is if you think your Sony TV is so great, don't go over to the AVS forums and find out all the problems it has that all CRT TVs have.

For me it was well worth it to lose a little vividness to get rid of the convergence, geometry and overscan problems just to name a few. There were more than that. Even after 2 months of tweaking in the SM, the convergence wasn't anything that could be fixed and annoyed the hell out of me.

If you don't see all the problems inherent to CRTs, then you can't possibly be as picky about picture quality as you make out to be.

[sanlyn]

samijubal, I'm not in total disagreement. The Sony CRT does things I don't like. So does the Toshiba SD. I'm saying they're tolerable for me, you're saying they're not for you. I agree, the problems are there. For many people, though, analog probs are tolerable; our brains can ignore them -- for the time being, anyway. I just can't stand digital garbage; I keep looking for the digital info that's been filtered out by LCD/plasma displays, and the fact that they just can't stop looking plastic.

BTW, can you believe this? The damn OPPO player showed up TODAY! 2-day shipping, I didn't even pay for it (shipping from Amazon was free, and no NY state tax! That's what I call a digital deal!). I just watched a few minutes of the "Passage to India" DVD on the Toshiba and the Oppo's upscaling on the SONY HDTV. It looks fabulous on both monitors. Now, that 's exactly what I was looking for. Going to try it on my cousin's 42" LCD tonight. I can't put a 42" in our living room, the wife will implode and the cabinet won't hold it. So I'm one step closer to that 32" all-digital job.

If Sony or Panasonic can just tweak that color with the next edition of their LCD's, I might be able to rejoin this forum. Sorry, the wife won't help foot the bill for plasma, and we can't find a plasma that fits the wall unit. Get a new cabinet, you say? Uh, true, wives are totally insane when it comes to that, but no way she'll let me ditch her Early American goodies. Besides, if I save the $$$ on furniture I can get a better LCD with a better DAC. Sometimes you just have to compromise, with wives. Better than living alone.

The Oppo looks better on the Toshiba 27". Think I'll move the Toshiba into the bedroom and use the living room for the LCD. C'mon, samijubal, send those cards and letters to Sony and Panny and tell 'em to get on the stick with those colors!

[SingSing]

The company sold "This old house : Newton project" a new TV, has this to say. They pick LCD TV for the TV room that has light coming thru windows and door way. The spokeman claims the LCD TV coated panel will not get a refleced image from the windows and doors. Thus implied Plasma TV is better suited for TV room that you can really darken it.

A friend just bought two large new LCD TVs(Sony XBR and Sharp Aquos), and both of them view pretty well in the living room, and a sunny bed room in day time.

[samijubal]

It's true, I don't think plasma would look good in a bright room. I watch in a 100% dark room and for my surroundings it is excellent. I tried a Sharp LCD. I returned it the next day. It definitely wasn't right for me.

A 32" widescreen in a living room is pretty small. That will be a little smaller than a 27" 4x3 in height. My 42" TV is only about 4 1/2 " bigger in height than a 27" 4x3 TV. You gain a lot on the sides with 16x9, but it takes a large screen to have a decent size in height. I've got my 42" plasma in a bedroom where it rocks.

My living room is even worse, it will only hold a 27" 4x3 TV in the giant entertainment center, so I just don't watch TV out there. I watch in the bedroom where there is plenty of room for a big TV.

I don't really care what they do with LCDs. You'll have to contact them yourself on that one. I don't have any interest in them and knew better than to buy one for viewing in a dark room. Also, the LCD made my remote extender think it was getting a signal all the time it was on, so I couldn't use it to start and stop DVD recording in the living room. For a bright room they would be the way to go, not for a dark room though.

I'd just heard so much false crap about plasma that I didn't look into them until there was no other option. The TV doesn't get hot like they say, maybe half as hot as the Sony did at best, it doesn't suck massive power like they say, just over half the power the Sony drew when I tested them both. It is rated at 385 watts where the Sony was 240. So, I guess under the right circumstances, a bright screen at full contrast in torch mode, it would suck more power and get hotter. But in real life in a dark room, there's no way I would ever have my TV settings where it gets hot or sucks all that power. In a bright room it's possible though.

[SingSing]

I have the same expereince : SIZE MATTER.

If you have a large screen TV and several other non-large screen TVs. The ONLY one get used is the large screen TV. We give away our 27" and 12" TV after they did not get turned on for a long time.

People who already have a front or back projection TV, seldom have a need to buy into LCD or Plasma TV, even the resolution is much much better. One effect is TV ststaion now shoot a lot of shows with HDTV camera and lens. So the shows now look much better on large screen SDTV !

[sanlyn]

My experience over the past day with my brand-new Oppo DV-980H player has (by accident) revealed an extremely informative website concerning the way DVD players interface with various SD and HD monitors. I highly recommend that anyone with an interest in how all this digital crap works, and the problems encountered, should take a look at these three links. Warning: this is informative, but it gets into some really thick tech.

The first link is a DVD player test compilation and is a bit outdated (it appears to go up to 2005 or so). But it gives some startling insights about player and monitor performance. The main thing you learn here is that despite the plus and minus side of any SD or HD monitor, many visual problems belong to the player, not the monitor. To quote from the 3rd link below: "The biggest problem is that most people don't know that it's the DVD player. People assume their DVD player "just works" and thus when they see a deinterlacing glitch or other problem, they are most likely to assume it's just the DVD transfer (the movie disc)."

This is the link to the compilation of DVD player tests. Lots of material here:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi?function=search&articles=all

These two links are very informative about (1) the various elements, processing chips, decoders, etc., found in DVD players, and (2) the CUE (chroma bug) found in most DVD players. I suggest you go to the chroma bug site first:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_8_2/dvd-benchmark-special-report-chroma-bug-4-2001.html
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_7_4/dvd-benchmark-part-5-progressive-10-2000.html

If you really want to get into the thick of player/monitor match problems, try this:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_7_3/dvd-benchmark-part-1-video-9-2000.html

Unfortunately the test site hasn't been updated to include the Oppo DV-980H, but it does include its predessor Oppo DV-970H and the more matured DV-981HD, plus many, many more. And I do mean "MANY". Read on, and learn.

[samijubal]

Why buy an Oppo when I saw an HD-DVD player yesterday for $80 with free shipping and 5 free DVDs? Supposedly the Toshibas are better at upconversion.

[Seeker47]

A 32" widescreen in a living room is pretty small. That will be a little smaller than a 27" 4x3 in height. My 42" TV is only about 4 1/2 " bigger in height than a 27" 4x3 TV. You gain a lot on the sides with 16x9, but it takes a large screen to have a decent size in height. I've got my 42" plasma in a bedroom where it rocks.

I think you're right in regard to the relative sizes. If I replaced the 27" CRT in the LR, I'm not even confident that a 42" w/s whatever would cut it. It would probably take something larger to give the same room coverage and a comparable viewing impression, in terms of picture size. It was a bit difficult to accommodate the 32" LCD in the bedroom, but now I'm glad that I did: the 26" alternative would not have been as satisfactory. The odd thing is that I see some 37" LCD models that to me don't appear to be any larger than the 32" I bought.

People who already have a front or back projection TV, seldom have a need to buy into LCD or Plasma TV, even the resolution is much much better.

Yes, but press reports indicate that the back projection sets are going away. A couple of the major mfr.s have already announced they won't be making them anymore, and others may be poised to follow suit.

Why buy an Oppo when I saw an HD-DVD player yesterday for $80 with free shipping and 5 free DVDs? Supposedly the Toshibas are better at upconversion.

I think you might find that the Oppo has some nice features you won't get elsewhere. And they just pulled the plug on HD-DVD.

[sanlyn]

samijubal, of the player tests I've seen, Oppo is better at upconverted standard DVD's than any other player in my price range (I believe the hometheatrehifi link above pointed that out with some earlier Oppo's). I don't own any HD-DVD's and don't expect to, it would be too much like sinking $$$ into Beta. The Oppo line also has a bonus: their audio is better than anything in my budget. As far as $$$ goes, Oppo seemed like the best compromise. I have to say, with the Oppo SD-DVD's look fabulous on both the SD and HD monitors. No, they don't look like first-rate Blueray, but who can afford it at this point. Any hi-def player I might buy today would be obsolete before it leaves the showroom.

Also, I'm saving up for a newer HDTV to replace that 4-year-old 32" Sony tv. In any case, HD-DVD players won't be coming off the line any more and parts will eventually disappear. I suspect Oppo will make better SD-DVD upscalers in the future. They have a sterling reputation for servicing their older units.

Now that Sony "owns" Blueray, I've seen remarks in blogs that don't really trust Sony well enough at this point, and Blueray still needs some work.

An updated HDTV is what I'll need before I can go to hi-def DVD's. Today my 32" Sony looks good, but I find some points about its color display that are annoying and that don't appear on my SD Toshiba (Sony = cool, Toshiba = warmer). I'll be going to newer gear, but I'm keeping that Toshiba somewhere around here, if for no other reason than it does such a beautiful job on those 1940's Technicolor movies. I've seen "Meet Me in St. Louis" in hidef and it looked "digital", not at all film-like. Maybe it was just the disc transfer, but the SD looks more like the 1944 original. Anyway, most of my 1930's and 40's movies (I have around 300) have only so much detail to begin with.

[samijubal]

Virtually every post I've seen by Oppo and Toshiba HD-DVD owners all say the same thing, The toshiba is better at upconversion. So again, I don't know why anyone would pay twice as much for an Oppo with no discs. Even if you aren't going to use the player for HD discs, it's still a lot better deal.

[SingSing]

A 32" widescreen in a living room is pretty small. That will be a little smaller than a 27" 4x3 in height. My 42" TV is only about 4 1/2 " bigger in height than a 27" 4x3 TV. You gain a lot on the sides with 16x9, but it takes a large screen to have a decent size in height. I've got my 42" plasma in a bedroom where it rocks.

Most people consider 50" and less is not big enough, because you need that size and up to cover your pheripheral vision, like a theater.

People who already have a front or back projection TV, seldom have a need to buy into LCD or Plasma TV, even the resolution is much much better.

Yes, but press reports indicate that the back projection sets are going away. A couple of the major mfr.s have already announced they won't be making them anymore, and others may be poised to follow suit.

I was refering to people who already own a CRT based back projection TV.

The new back projection TVs are alive and well. They are mostly DLP or LCD with a light source. You need to keep up with technologies.

[samijubal]

Sony is not going to make RPTVs anymore. I haven't heard of any other companies stopping production, but they might. RPTVs are notorious for high breakdowns while name brand flat panel breakdowns are low.

[samijubal]

A 32" widescreen in a living room is pretty small. That will be a little smaller than a 27" 4x3 in height. My 42" TV is only about 4 1/2 " bigger in height than a 27" 4x3 TV. You gain a lot on the sides with 16x9, but it takes a large screen to have a decent size in height. I've got my 42" plasma in a bedroom where it rocks.

Most people consider 50" and less is not big enough, because you need that size and up to cover your pheripheral vision, like a theater.

I looked at the 50" when I bought the 42", but the picture quality just wasn't anywhere near as good on the 50" as the 42".
For me, picture quality is more important than size.

[budz]

The number one denominator when customers return their lcd/plasma tv's is they want to go bigger according to most retail stores. Which is why when someone asks for my opinion on a 46 inch or 52 inch lcd. I recommend the 52 inch lcd tv preferably the Sony 52W3000 lcd tv if the viewing area is at least 9 feet.

All manufacturers of televisions have their quality control problems. Sharp with their banding problems, Samsung w/their torn page problems & some clouding. Then you have the Sony models that have motion blur, clouding & flashlight issues on the XBR series as well as some in the "W", "V" & "S" models as well. The one lcd model that hasn't had many issues are the Panasonic TC-LX70 & TC-L700 this one has the 120mhz motion flow. Look out for the 2008 Panasonic 37 inch lcd set w/120mhz motion flow. Sony's new 2008 line will have motion flow on the "W" series as well as the already XBR models. Anyway that's just my 2 cents about lcd tv's.