Widescreen TV for DVD viewing

[Quark]

Hi,

I am looking to purchase a widescreen 30 to 40" TV for the purpose of watching DVD's and occasional use as a regular TV (not HDTV just regular cable).
My question is what type (RPTV, Tube, LCD, Plasma), and what models, will give me the best quality pictures for the most reasonable price. I am shying away from RPTV's because of the expensive calibration required.

Are the flat widescreen tube TV's worth looking at for this? If so what features should I look for to get the most out of DVD and regular TV viewing. (Note I already have a surround system Dennon 3801 with Klipsch Referance series speakers)

[hifimaster]

Just a couple things I'd like to say:

ALL tv's need to be calibrated. Even direct-view tubes. Factory settings are usually far from the best.

IMO, CRT (Rear-projection or direct-view) is the way to go. Plasma, LCD, DLP and other technologies are still new and in their infancy.

James

[Quark]

Just a couple things I'd like to say:

ALL tv's need to be calibrated. Even direct-view tubes. Factory settings are usually far from the best.

IMO, CRT (Rear-projection or direct-view) is the way to go. Plasma, LCD, DLP and other technologies are still new and in their infancy.

James
Thanks for the feedback.

I realize that all TV's need to be calibrated and I plan on doing this no matter what TV I purchase. The expensive calibration I was referring to on RPTV's was calibrating the mirrors which I have been told not to try on your own, you must pay a few hundred$ to have a tech who has the right tools to do this for you. I was also told that the mirrors may need to be periodically recalibrated. I would not be thrilled about having to spend a few hundred every year or so for TV calibration. I have not been up to speed on the latest RPTV's so perhaps this isn't an issue anymore can anyone comment on this?

I have been leaning toward direct view for the reasons you stated I am skeptical of Plasma and LCD's as well.

[Quagmire]

Unless you can't stand the "black bars" and for a screen size no bigger than what you're asking about, I'd go with a regular analog direct view set 4:3 which has the vertical compression mode or "aspect" for watching anamorphic widescreen DVD's at full resolution. I think JVC makes a nice 36" and 32" flatscreen set, which does have this 16:9 viewing mode and can be toggled back and forth at the push of a button. This give you the best of both worlds without relying on funky viewing modes that stretch and distort 4:3 pictures or crop off 16:9 pictures.

If you really can't stand the "black bars", I'm afraid I'm not going to be much help to you. I think that widesceen direct view sets are overpriced and I'm not too sure about their reliabillity either. A large direct view analog set such as I described would also have to be one of the most cost effective ways to go in comparison to all of your other options. But you're the boss and it's your money so you decide what's right for you. ;-)

Q

[Rich]

Quark, I am a newbie here myself but I have been researching the exact same situation. I have pretty much decided to go with the Toshiba 34FH84 or 34FHX84, mainly for viewing DVD's. I decided to go with a HD monitor for three reasons:

1. 16x9 aspect ratio - most of my DVD collection is anamorphic widescreen.
2. 420p upscaled to 1080i will yield a superior picture as compared to an SD set.
3. future proofing - in case I choose to subscribe to an HD service later on.

The Toshiba models I am looking at are 34" direct view crt's. They are narrower than most 34 inch sets because they have the speakers on the bottom. This is a big issue for me because my wife wants to hide the tv in a smallish entertainment console. The Toshiba's also seem to have a good reputation around here.

Hope this helps.

[Quagmire]

Quark,

You know... after I posted my first reply to you, I went to the CC web site and found a couple of widescreen direct view sets that might meet your needs. There is an analog JVC 30" widescreen set (AV30W475) at a sale price (web only) of $540 -- regular price is $600. If Hi Def is not a concern, this could be a tremendous value for a set that will be primarily used for DVD widescreen movie watching.

I know you said you didn't need HDTV capability but CC also has a Samsung 30" widesreen direct view HDTV (TX-P3064W) for $800 which has the DVI input. An advantage there would be that Samsung also makes a DVD player (DVD-HD841) with this output which is supposedly able to upconvert standard DVD to HDTV picture quality. I don't have any first hand experience with this, and on a 30" set I'm not sure how much difference you'd be able to see but if, as you say, widescreen DVD movie watching is the primary purpose for this set, it may be worth your time to check this combination out.

The majority of my DVD movie watching is on a Front Projector system with 100" diagonal screen size and the remainder of my TV viewing is done on a 36" 4:3 direct view, so these widescreen sets don't have much appeal for me personally, but after some thought, I can see how they could be appealling to you. Sorry, I just spoke up too quickly before.

Q

[ericl]

Hi Quark,

I know you don't care about HDTV, and want widescreen, but I thought I would chime in with my new purchase to give you an idea of what's out there. Walmart has a few Sanyo direct view HDTVs at great prices. I just bought a 32" 4:3 tv for $700. They also have a widescreen 30" for the same price. I was considering the widescreen, but what got was this: When you watch widescreen content on the 4:3 tv, the widescreen picture is about 29 inches, not much smaller than the 30. But when you watch regular 4:3 cable tv on the widescreen tv, your screen will shrink to 26" or 27".

This TV also has an hdmi input, a built in OTA (off the air) hdtv receiver, and a great picture. I am in love with it. I don't have hd cable yet(will soon) but I hooked an antenna up to it yesterday to see what I could get. I screwed up and bought a uhf antenna when all the hd stations in my area are vhf, but I do get CBS. I watched some crap CBS shows I would never usually watch just because the picture was so glorious. I can't wait til Sunday though, because CBS broadcasts my Raiders!

http://www.sanyo.com/entertainment/televisions/digital/index.cfm?productID=905

-Eric

[Quark]

Quark,

You know... after I posted my first reply to you, I went to the CC web site and found a couple of widescreen direct view sets that might meet your needs. There is an analog JVC 30" widescreen set (AV30W475) at a sale price (web only) of $540 -- regular price is $600. If Hi Def is not a concern, this could be a tremendous value for a set that will be primarily used for DVD widescreen movie watching.

I know you said you didn't need HDTV capability but CC also has a Samsung 30" widesreen direct view HDTV (TX-P3064W) for $800 which has the DVI input. An advantage there would be that Samsung also makes a DVD player (DVD-HD841) with this output which is supposedly able to upconvert standard DVD to HDTV picture quality. I don't have any first hand experience with this, and on a 30" set I'm not sure how much difference you'd be able to see but if, as you say, widescreen DVD movie watching is the primary purpose for this set, it may be worth your time to check this combination out.

The majority of my DVD movie watching is on a Front Projector system with 100" diagonal screen size and the remainder of my TV viewing is done on a 36" 4:3 direct view, so these widescreen sets don't have much appeal for me personally, but after some thought, I can see how they could be appealling to you. Sorry, I just spoke up too quickly before.

Q

Wow great feedback thank you!

Sounds like you got quite a theater 100" screen :eek:

I was looking at that Samsung 30" set at CC, but didn't know about the DVI thing I will have to check that out. Anyone have good/bad experiences with Samsung TV's?
Now you got me torn between wanting a widescreen, or getting a 4:3 with vertical compression mode (I didn't know such a thing existed).
Although I would have to get a 4:3 that is just as wide as a 30" widescreen to get the same DVD picture size. I will check out the JVC model you suggested.

[Quark]

Hi Quark,

I know you don't care about HDTV, and want widescreen, but I thought I would chime in with my new purchase to give you an idea of what's out there. Walmart has a few Sanyo direct view HDTVs at great prices. I just bought a 32" 4:3 tv for $700. They also have a widescreen 30" for the same price. I was considering the widescreen, but what got was this: When you watch widescreen content on the 4:3 tv, the widescreen picture is about 29 inches, not much smaller than the 30. But when you watch regular 4:3 cable tv on the widescreen tv, your screen will shrink to 26" or 27".

This TV also has an hdmi input, a built in OTA (off the air) hdtv receiver, and a great picture. I am in love with it. I don't have hd cable yet(will soon) but I hooked an antenna up to it yesterday to see what I could get. I screwed up and bought a uhf antenna when all the hd stations in my area are vhf, but I do get CBS. I watched some crap CBS shows I would never usually watch just because the picture was so glorious. I can't wait til Sunday though, because CBS broadcasts my Raiders!

http://www.sanyo.com/entertainment/televisions/digital/index.cfm?productID=905

-Eric

I would be interested in HDTV if I have local broadcasts I can pick up. I just don't want to pay more money then I am already paying for cable :).
I will check out the Sanyo, this sounds like a good way to go for 700$. Excuse my ignorance but what is HDMI input, and what is OTA HDTV reciever? I assume the OTA reciever is for picking up antenna HD signals. Are HD antenna's expensive?

Thanks again for the help.

[Quagmire]

"Now you got me torn between wanting a widescreen, or getting a 4:3 with vertical compression mode (I didn't know such a thing existed).
Although I would have to get a 4:3 that is just as wide as a 30" widescreen to get the same DVD picture size. I will check out the JVC model you suggested."

Yes, on sets that have an "aspect" button on the remote, it will toggle back and forth between the 4:3 mode and the 16:9 mode. This allows you to set the aspect ratio of your DVD player to 16:9 just as if you had a widescreen television, then when you watch an anamorphic widescreen movie it will display full resolution in the letterboxed area of the tv screen. If the movie is either "full screen" or an non-anamorphic widescreen, you simply toggle the set back to 4:3 and these movies display correctly and full resolution too. You don't have to bother changing the setting on the DVD player back and forth, just leave it set on 16:9 all of the time and then toggle the aspect ratio of the tv set to match the movie. Of course the set should be set to 4:3 for you cable tv viewing.

If you don't understand what I mean when I say that these movies will display "full resolution", or why they wouldn't on a set without this feature, I can explain it to you. But I'll leave it up to you to ask if you want to know.

Actually, on a 36" (4:3) set, the widescreen picture will be slightly larger than the display on a 30" widescreen set -- if you do the math the widescreen picture within the 4:3 screen should measure about 16" x 29" while the display of the widescreen set should measure about 15" x 27". A standard (4:3) 32" set would have a widescreen picture size roughly the same as the 30" widescreen set. Of course, one of the main advantages to the standard (4:3) tv's is that when you are watching regular tv cable programing, you will have a much larger picture than with a widescreen set. Just some things for you to mull over.

By the way, I think JVC makes a good analog set (that's what I own) and I know that some of their better models offer this vertical compression mode. Even if they don't advertise this feature, you can go into the store and check out the remote. If there is an "Aspect" button on the remote, it should have this feature and you should be able to toggle it back and forth to see what I'm talking about. By the way... I don't work for CC or anything, they just happen to carry these JVC sets but I think Sears does too. Good hunting!

Q

[Rich]

Quagmire, isn't it true though that a dvd played on an analog set will not be able to take advantage of the 480p output of a progressive scan player? And thus even though you can change the aspect mode of the analog set you still won't get as nice a PQ as you would with an HD set? Instead of 480 lines of resolution you will only be getting 230 or so, correct? Or am I all wet?

[Quagmire]

Rich,

Yes, you're right. You won't be able to take advantage of the progressive output of a DVD player, but I don't know how much it will matter on a set this size. If he was looking for something in a 47" to 65" screen then I would definitely recommend that he go with an HD or HD ready set and use a progressive scan DVD player too. But a 30" widescreen tv will have a smaller screen height than a 27" (4:3) set.

As far as the lines of resolution, no that isn't correct. If he is able to set his DVD player output to 16:9 then he will be outputing 480i to the analog set which just means that the signal is interlaced rather than progressive. But without this vertical compression mode, with his player set to "Pan & Scan", the player will actually have to remove lines of resolution from the visible picture in order to create the black bars above and below and this IS visible, even on a set this small; mostly in the form of "jaggies", moir, and an overall dulling of the picture. As the term "vertical compression" might suggest, the resolution is not lost, it is squeezed into a tighter space. If you want to see what I'm talking about, just set your DVD player to 16:9 output on a standard 4:3 set and then play an anamorphic widescreen DVD. Everything will appear to be stretched too tall and thin. The compression mode takes that entire image and compresses it into the letterboxed space without removing any of the image.

Q

[Rich]

Thanks Quagmire. That helps. So what is the real difference between 480p and 480i? In other words, what do I lose by buying a larger (albeit cheaper) analog 4x3 set versus a 34" widescreen digital set.

[Quagmire]

"Thanks Quagmire. That helps. So what is the real difference between 480p and 480i? In other words, what do I lose by buying a larger (albeit cheaper) analog 4x3 set versus a 34" widescreen digital set."

I think I'll answer the second part of your question first because there really are two seperate issues. What you lose when buying any 4:3 set which DOES NOT have the "vertical compression a.k.a. 16:9 viewing mode" is the ability to view anamorphic widescreen DVD's in full resolution. When your DVD player is set to output to a 4:3 display, it treats anamorphic widescreen DVD's differently than it does "Full Screen" or "Letterboxed" widescreen movies; the player actually removes about every fourth horizontal line of the visible image from an anamorphic ws picture in order to create the letterboxed effect (black bars) and so present the film in its original theatrical format. It has to do this because the anamorphic ws movie is optimized to be viewed on a widescreen display but we don't all own one yet, so this makes it possible to view these ws movies on a standard 4:3 display. This result in certain aritifacts that I mentioned in my previous post which are visible even on a relatively small display. If you don't know what I mean by "Jaggies" or "Moir" I'll be glad to explain that at your request, but suffice it to say that these problems disappear when the DVD player is set to output to a 16:9 display and you have either a widescreen display or a 4:3 display with the 16:9 viewing mode. Now on to the first part of your question...

Analog tv's really display their picture as two seperate images, think of it as all of the odd lines making up one image and all of the even lines making up the other image. Only one of these images is on the screen at a time, but they are switched back an forth so rapidly that our brain is fooled into thinking that we are seeing both of the images simultaneously, and it is quite effective. These two images are said to be "interlaced" together which is what the "i" represents in the 480i designation. Digital tv's are able to accept/produce "progressively scaned" images which means that all lines of the visible image are produced on the screen at the same time. It shouldn't come as any surprise that this results in a better picture, but... the degree to which the progressively scanned image is VISIBLY superior to the interlaced one is proportional to the size of the display. The larger the display, the more noticable the differences become. I have no doubt that the progressively scanned image will be better on a digital tv as compared to the interlaced image of an analog set, but on a 30" widescreen tv I'm not so sure that those differences will be that noticable. In fact, I'd venture to say that most would be surprised at the quality of the 480i image on a 4:3 set WITH the vertical compression mode or an analog widescreen set such as the JVC model I pointed out to Quark (not all widescreen tv's are digital). But as the saying goes... "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Quark will have to check it out for himself and decide whether or not he sees that much difference in picture quality, and if those differences warrant spending the extra cash to aquire them. For myself, if HDTV capability wasn't a consideration, as in Quark's case, I'd go for one of these analog displays. Then the primary question would be to decide between a widescreen set or a standard set with the compression mode. To me, I'd make that decision based on how much cable tv I watched compared to DVD movies. All in all, I think the 4:3 sets offer you the most flexibility in being able to watch whatever you want with minimal compromises. I hope this answers some questions for you.

Q

[ericl]

Hey Quark,

HDMI is the newest digital video/audio connection. It carries digital video and audio, and is compatible with dvi, the other digital video connection. Supposedly it is the "connection of the futere" because it is digital, wide bandwidth capable of carryint hi def video and and hi res multi channel audio. So, that should make the tv compatible with future hi def dvd players, cable boxes, etc.

"OTA" is what you said, off the air reception. YOu probably get a few HD stations over the air. check here:
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx
see what digital stations you can get and whether they are uhf or vhf. you can also poke around on this site for a vast wealth of hd info, even search on your state and city/county/region for what programming you get:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=6

hd antennas are pretty much the same price as regular antennas. radio shack has an indoor, vhf/uhf antenna for $40. they also have outdoor antennas too.

good luck.
eric

[Quark]

Ericl,

I purchased the SANYO 32" TV that you recommended. I can't believe my eyes the picture is amazing especially the HD stations like PBS ect... The thing that surprised me was that I was able to pick up digital channels and HD channels through regular cable without an antenna.

Thank you for your advice at 695$ (with a built in HD tuner) this TV is a steal!
I am hooked on HDTV now.

Thanks
Quark



Hey Quark,

HDMI is the newest digital video/audio connection. It carries digital video and audio, and is compatible with dvi, the other digital video connection. Supposedly it is the "connection of the futere" because it is digital, wide bandwidth capable of carryint hi def video and and hi res multi channel audio. So, that should make the tv compatible with future hi def dvd players, cable boxes, etc.

"OTA" is what you said, off the air reception. YOu probably get a few HD stations over the air. check here:
http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx
see what digital stations you can get and whether they are uhf or vhf. you can also poke around on this site for a vast wealth of hd info, even search on your state and city/county/region for what programming you get:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=6

hd antennas are pretty much the same price as regular antennas. radio shack has an indoor, vhf/uhf antenna for $40. they also have outdoor antennas too.

good luck.
eric