You should do well with that Charles, especially if you go CRT.
Avoid the Toshi’s though unless you buy an old one, they arent made by Toshiba anymore (the CRT ones) they are orions or goldstars or some thai shit.
Derailing my own thread -
CRT HDTVs still have the best picture quality bar none, right?
all things considered, yes. but they only get so big, and they really only rn at 1080i, which can lead to overscan issues on some sets and games.
Go look at a Sony SXRD set. There are no visible pixels.
The 55% by 2008 number isn’t sourced at all; it’s just some exec at an industry conference. So I’m taking it with a grain of salt.
Either way that’s beside the point. My thinking is that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray aren’t necessary at all. Most consumers are not going to be interested in either format probably until 2008 at the earliest.
How much are Blu-Ray movies selling for? The fact that you don’t get any extras with them is godawful. Also, if they’re all single-layer does this somewhat serve as confirmation of the rumors that Sony has had trouble getting dual-layer Blu Ray to work?
I’m not sure how you can judge “Not necessary at all” by looking at “most consumers”. Just like DVDs weren’t necessary at first except for early adopters, there are plenty of people out there with hi-def screens who want better quality in their movies. There’s a real, noticeable difference between HD and SD. (Completely ignoring 1980p, which I’ve not seen on a telivision except in those ongoing Best Buy loops.) Even on average consumer level HD telivisions it’s noticeable. I’m hoping as the fall nears that these kinks are worked out and prices start to drop, because as it is now I’m not real keen on buying any new DVDs when I know HD is around the corner and I’d much rather have an HD format.
It’s a tired argument. HDTVs are mainstream, and we’ve been seeing OTA & cable HD signals with significantly better than DVD quality in many cases. That, to me, signals the appropriate time for a HD media format, and technology wise there’s nothing stopgap about 1080p and uncompressed audio.
The whole format war is a mess, and bluray launched a bit incompletely…low bitrate mpeg2 on single layer discs, and without a player that’s doing true 1080p. But we’ll have better players, dual layer discs, and other codec options all within a few months, and hopefully the war will effectively end some time next year.
These are both true, and the main downsides (size/1080i only) They arent huge downsides though, you’ll get better pq for your dollar with a crt afaik. They seem to top out at 34-36 inches though. And they are heavy as fuck.
Overscan isnt an issue since you can just fix it in the scaryass-break-your-TV-service-menus (no risk if you can read and write, but scary all the same)
This is the TV I have my eye on. I don’t really care so much about 1080i, it’s just a bonus as far as I’m concerned. 720p is all I really want.
Why specifically are you looking at the SlimFit instead of a flat panel of one type or another? If the reason is anything other than price, I suggest you shop around a bit more, as everything I’ve read seems to indicate that the “cost” of the slim tube is a degradation of picture quality between the SlimFit and normal CRTs. (Also, despite being slimmer the thing is still plenty heavy if that matters.)
Also, you should figure out the conversion for SD telivision on a 30" screen. Because of the different native aspect ratio, I think that’s roughly equivalent to a 23" TV for SD television. If that’s big enough for you, great, but you’ll probably still be stuck with SD programs for a while in many cases. HD programming is great, but unless you’re content with only network/premium channels and the few major cable channels (TNT… Discovery) that have a HD feed, you’ll still be watching SD as well.
moore - yup on all of that. I have a 32" sony 4x3 HDTV, it’s great except for a couple things.
-
- wish I had gone widescreen, I just don’t watch SD anymore, and when I do, I don’t care what it looks like so 4x3 size means nothing. I game in widescreen and I want that bigger.
-
- heavy as FUCK. I’m never moving, ever.
GREAT picture tho and I got a great price on it three years back,
rjcc: I have a sony as well, but mines widescreen :p. AND I moved unexpectedly like 3 weeks after buying it… ugh… The wide is great for games/HD, and for SD I dont mind stretching it, the widezoom setting works fine for most things (only stretches edges).
Charles, I looked at slimfits as well before I bought the sony:
-FYI-
-
That TV is 1080i (no CRT is 720p, all 720p signals get converted to 1080i)
-
Slimfits are huge ANYWAYS, same footprint as normal giant CRT, just the tube tapers in earlier, so from across the room it looks more like an LCD or plasma.
-
the slim tubes cause geometry problems (likely the bottom left and right edges of your screen will warp, ie, your CNN ticker will bend up 1/4th of an inch and then back down)
the geometry issues are a crapshoot, they are supposed to be great TVs if you luck out and get one that doesnt have (or later develop) geometry troubles.
I just grabbed the sony after comparing them in store. The sony looked better to me pq-wise and seemed worth the extra $50 to avoid any worries on geometry.
I’ve had cheapo pc monitors in the past where geometry issues drove me INSANE, and that was just like, a fedex powership junk pc, I cant imagine standing it on hdtv or gaming…
The slimfits are cheap and still available, but that’s about all they have going for them. Geometry problems as mentioned, the picture quality isn’t going to be particularly good compared to other HDTVs, small in screen size, large in footprint, and heavy to boot.
If you simply must have a CRT HDTV, then the xbr960 is by far the set to get if you can still find it (discontinued earlier in the year).
Otherwise, just go for another display technology. HDTVs really shine in larger screen sizes where you can start to perceive most of the detail.
Good to know. I’ll keep all this in mind.
Problem with large screens is that it’s too expensive. And I’m not partial to LCD/plasma tech for reasons of refresh and picture burn. Hate projection TVs.
sony has pushed back their blu-ray player AGAIN.
the reports last week of a delay were bogus cuz they had pushed it back back in april, but now it’s all the way out till october, and still no reason why.
Try an LCD with a videogame system plugged in. Especially on the higher end brands, I would say most of the refresh issues, and certainly all of the burn issues, are about gone. I have both an LCD (Sharp) and a CRT (Samsung) HDTV, and both are pretty fantastic in their particular niches. The only reason I got the latter was for gaming, and it works great. But when I behave myself and get to use video games on the LCD, it is out of this world. Sure, there’s about a 1000$ difference and only a few inches in size difference between them, but the resolution is unbelievable. Oblivion looks ridiculous.
Sony and Panasonic and probably phillips all have great widescreen CRT HDTV’s in your range. Mine was $850usd including tax, and this was in March. It’s a 32 inch widescreen, so it isnt huge, but my apartment isn’t huge and the wife thinks large televisions are disgusting, so it’s the biggest I could buy.
I dont have the SXRD or XBR or whatever the ‘superfine’ sony crts are, I just have a regular sony HDTV and it’s been fantastic (and I’m not a big sony fan, hardware wise, but it’s a great TV)
Jesus, they’re using fucking MPEG2? What is this, 1995?
Probably because they know they have to go with dual layer non-MPEG2 so as to not get their ass thoroughly beaten by HD-DVD. And it’s going to take more months to get it right.
At least, that’s the straightforward conclusion to draw from this thread…
Not good news for the PS3’s volume launch, that’s for sure.
link?