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Way OT - HD TV...is the technology tricking us?


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My wife just gave me an HD TV for our anniversary and I hooked it up to bask in it's glow this weekend. Switching between the high def and standard signals of a channel I was initially impressed with the sharpness of the picture. However, I swore our standard signals didn't look that bad before so I went to our other TV and compared it's standard signal vs the "analog" (actually Direct TV) signal on the HD TV and the picture on the HD TV was worse than the standard TV. Now, the HD picture was much better than the non HD analog picture. Clearly, the HD TV isn't as forgiving (perhaps purposefully) as the older CRT technology for displaying an analog signal. Anybody know why?
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It's the tube man, picture tubes look better to the eye just like vacuum tubes sound better to the ear! ;)

 

Actually I've got a 36" Sony (that weighs 236 lbs) and I've never seen a flat screen that looks as good as it does, especially considering what they cost.

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Two more things to consider (which may not apply to you):

 

1. Not every show is an HD show.

 

2. You need an HD source. Some people with SD cable think they are watching HD. We were on vacation two weeks ago. Our hotel had an widescreen HD Proscan TV, but SD cable (easy to tell because none of the channels had a .n subchannel number (2.1, 4.1, etc.). The picture was obviously lacking the crispness of HD.

 

We've had HD at home for a few years now. Our LCD HD set show details (like the faces of sporting events spectators) that could not be seen on our CRT analog set).

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A lot depends on the quality your provider is pushing to your home as well. There was a pretty big difference in non-HD on my Toshiba 1080i capable wide screen when we went from Time Warner Cable to Verizon FIOS. The FIOS looked so much better it was instantly noticeable and was close to what TW claimed as high def.

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Thanks guys. I realize a HD signal is way sharper than an analog signal. My question is in regards to an analog signal displayed on an LCD HD TV vs the same analog signal on a traditional CRT TV. In this scenerio, the analog signal looks much better on the CRT TV. Why is that?

 

BTW - I'm not stretching the analog signal, it's being displayed in it's native resolution on the LCD TV. I'd rather see side stripes than fat faces...

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This is the answer. A 20" CRT will not magnify the imperfections the way a 52" flatpanel HDTV will.

 

Yeah... I look at HD this way. You want a picture that big? Here you go. Oh, you want that big picture to look good too? Try HD.

 

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BTW - I'm not stretching the analog signal, it's being displayed in it's native resolution on the LCD TV. I'd rather see side stripes than fat faces...

 

 

where do you get an analog video signal from today, then, how do you route this analog video signal to your LCD tv?

 

A CRT uses another technology to display digital video, for example on a CRT the displayed video is always square pixel, and not rectangular etc.

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More detail....

 

I am a Direct TV subscriber. The digital signal is converted to analog (set top box) and fed via coaxial cable to 2 tvs, 1 is a 31.5" Sanyo LCD HD TV and the other is a 29" Sony CRT.

 

When viewing non-HD content (hence the analog signal), the picture is signifficantly sharper on the CRT. The LCD is set to "auto" pixel mode which displays analog signals in native resolution (black bands on the sides) so the picture size is roughly the same (CRT actually a bit bigger I think).

 

The Sanyo LCD HD is a good TV, as HD signals are displayed with incredible sharpness putting the CRT to shame.

 

Thoughts?

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My big problem with HD is how much HDMI cable costs. WTF $40 for a 3' cable? Monster wants $60 for a 4'.

 

The other thing that makes me laugh is the sales pitch that goes along with them and how many people are probably stupid enough to fall for it.

 

"look at how much nicer the more expensive HDMI cable looks!"

Yeah... everything goes over this cable in digital format so it's just 1s and 0s. Either the cable works or it doesn't there is no difference.

 

 

 

By the way OP to fully appreciate the awesomeness of your HD you got to pick one of these up, I will say it's also nice having one connection that runs the HD signal and all channels of audio as well.

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Some HD TV's are horrible at displaying old definition shows. My Samsung is OK for HD but looks worse than a 20 year old tube TV when showing regular broadcasts or DVD's. From that purchase I learned not to just watch a BlueRay feed when picking a TV. Make sure you watch some low res content and see if the TV has a decent conversion routine.

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My big problem with HD is how much HDMI cable costs. WTF $40 for a 3' cable? Monster wants $60 for a 4'.

 

 

Try $2 for 6'.

 

HDTV's, apples to apples, same size and screen technology, often do a bad job with standard definition. I believe, to hit price points, they end up skimping on the SD tuner. There may well be technical aspects that make it more difficult for an HD display to look sharp in standard mode, but there definitely is a difference, sometimes a huge one.

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