Help me buy an HDTV

January 23, 2006 1:01 PM

Help me pick which HDTV to buy.

I recently purchased an XBox 360 and I have a rather large collection of DVDs. I would really enjoy watching these in High Definition. I have no preference from plasma, lcd, crt, etc as the space is not limiting.

Ideal size would be anywhere from 30" and up. Price is the big hurdle in this (of course) and would love to try to stay below $3,000. These are of course 'ideal' restrictions, if you have something outside of them and want to recommend it anyway - don't hesitate.

Thanks.

posted by Ateo Fiel to technology (23 comments total)

Syntax LT37HVS, near $1000 from time to time and 90% of the quality of Pioners and Panasonics at 50% of the price. Fry's generally have them setup to look like crap, though, for whatever reason. Very happy with mine.
posted by kcm at 1:15 PM on January 23, 2006

You should easily be able to do this, it really depends on what's important for you. If I was you, which I was about 10 months ago, I'd look in the 46" range. That's the pricepoint where things started to get a lot more expensive the larger you go. I preferred the brightness and clarity of my Toshiba 46" DLP. Each set has its drawbacks, the DLP has a color wheel which I can only see if I dart my eyes back and forth with a light source coming from behind the TV. Some people are more sensitive to it, you'll have to just try it out and see.

There are now 1080p sets out that are better, but nothing can really take advantage of them now. It'll possibly be a long time before broadcast TV begins to air at that resolution, and who knows when HD-DVD/BluRay comes out (please god sooner rather than later). The 1080p will set you back.

If you're not a huge theater nut, I'd go for the larger, better quality 1080i rather than a much smaller (and perhaps a technology somewhat in its infancy) 1080p. The difference is noticeable but not standard definition to high definition noticeable. The only thing you can do is go to the stores and judge for yourself where your priorities are.

Just keep in mind with 1080p, you're paying a high early adopter fee and probably won't see benefits for some time.
posted by geoff. at 1:18 PM on January 23, 2006

Every TV that has made me say "wow" when I saw it was a Panasonic plamsa, so I got a cheap one (37" EDTV) last year. I think you can get 42" HD Panasonic TVs (that do 720p max) for about $2500 now. Ultrabright ED plasmas are probably in the $1600-1900 range, and they still look terrific.
posted by mathowie at 1:29 PM on January 23, 2006

Sorry I should have said I have the Toshiba 44NHM84 which will have a price point just below $2000.
posted by geoff. at 1:40 PM on January 23, 2006

I agree with geoff. I was looking in the under $2000 range and found that I liked the Samsung DLPs and the Toshiba DLPs. I picked up my Toshiba 52" for about $1600 or so. DLP definitely gets you more bang for the buck, so to speak.
posted by bDiddy at 1:43 PM on January 23, 2006

My advice, when buying a TV, is to always check out Costco

Samsung
56" 1080p DLP HDTV
DVD-R120 Mail-in Rebate Available
Resolution: 1920 x 1080p
Contrast Ratio: Up to 10000:1
$2,899.99
Item # 975535
Shipping & Handling: $199.99

(and no, I don't work for them)
posted by doctor_negative at 2:45 PM on January 23, 2006

Whatever you buy, according to this article on CNN Money the other day, you might want to wait until April when the Japanese fiscal year ends. They "time new-model year releases with the new fiscal year and offer discounts of up to 20 percent to clear out old sets."
posted by jasondigitized at 3:06 PM on January 23, 2006

Get the $1000 LT37HVS. Search fatwallet.com/c/18 for info on the frequent sales available at major retail chains.

I have the LT26HVX (got it on Black Friday) and it's fantastic. I'm very picky about things like picture quality, especially when I've paid a bunch of money, and I haven't been disappointed. A great deal for your money (and the HVS models include ATSC tuners for free off-the-air HD reception).

I don't believe it's worth it to get a non-flat TV these days. Getting a flat TV that weighs less than 100 pounds means you can easily bring it back to the store if you're not satisfied.
posted by rxrfrx at 3:27 PM on January 23, 2006

And to be more specific, upscaled regular TV looks quite good on the Syntax. I used several CRT HDTVs in the past couple years - which are supposed to have better SD picture quality - and was disappointed with the smudginess of regular TV. My Syntax LCD (essentially a 720p native resolution), displays SD shows that look as good as on a regular old TV.
posted by rxrfrx at 3:30 PM on January 23, 2006

We bought a Vizio 50" plasma TV ($2200 or so). For watching DVDs and playing the X-Box 360, the graphics are absolutely amazing. I cannot overstate how incredible it looks. I can't play it on a regular TV, it's like going from color to black and white. HOWEVER, in my experience, the HDTV is quite the opposite. We have HDTV from DirecTV, and it doesn't look very good on the plasma, in some cases even worse than a normal TV.

My brother got a 32" LCD HDTV, and it's the opposite. It's good, but not great, for the 360 and DVDs, but it is outstanding for watching an HDTV signal.

So, it sounds like you're going to focus on watching DVDs and playing the X-Box, in which case, I would recommend you go with a nice big plasma, which you can easily get for under $3000. All the 50" ones I saw were in the $2k-$3k range. Just be advised that if you also want to watch an HD TV signal on it, you might be underwhelmed. But man, Call of Duty 2 sure looks purty on it.
posted by TunnelArmr at 3:56 PM on January 23, 2006

Also, we got our Vizio at Costco. They have a variety of DLP, LCD, and Plasmas in your price range, so it's a good place to look. Keep in mind that when you're looking at them in the store, odds are that the settings are all cranked up to make them superbright and distorted.
posted by TunnelArmr at 3:59 PM on January 23, 2006

TunnelArmr, that seems strange that the HDTV isn't great. I have the cheap SANYO CRT from walmart and over the air HDTV looks pretty amazing on it. I wouldn't question your TV so much as the source. Can you hook even rabbit ears up to the TV to pick up over the air and compare? Maybe the DirecTV HDTV isn't as high quality as it could be.
posted by 6550 at 4:09 PM on January 23, 2006

cnet.com has lots of reviews, as does consumer reports. In both cases, panasonic was (IMO) the best choice for 42" plasma screens. TH-42PX50U for HD, TH-42PD50U for ED.

I'll probably get their EDTV because I don't believe you can tell the difference between 480 lines and 768 lines from 10 feet away, and I'm mostly watching DVDs and not HDTV; with the $1500 saved by going EDTV I bet that 3 years from now I can get a better HDTV than I'd pay $3000 for today.
posted by jewzilla at 4:11 PM on January 23, 2006

Just make sure that if you decide to go with a dlp, you are aware that you will be buying a $200 - $400 bulb every 1 1/2 years or so.
posted by meta87 at 5:43 PM on January 23, 2006

Note that current DVDs are all at standard resolution (720x480), so an HDTV won't really make them look any better.
posted by todbot at 5:54 PM on January 23, 2006

HDTV will definately make them current DVDs look better if the player can output a progressive scan signal. Regular TV is 480i, a progressive output is 480p and looks significantly better.
posted by 6550 at 5:59 PM on January 23, 2006

By my estimation there won't be an HDTV worth buying for 3-5 years. Canon and Toshiba will be coming out with their SED sets in 2007, which by all reports will obsolete all current display technologies; give it another few years for prices to fall to under $1000 for the size you want, as that is the maximum reasonable price for a television, and there you go.
posted by kindall at 8:33 PM on January 23, 2006

DVDs aren't in High-Res yet. In some cases, if you get a cheaply coded DVD (which many of them are) they can look worse on a High Definition TV than on a standard set, just because you can see them in such high-detail.

With that said, I got a totally Ghetto (if there is such a thing) Magnavox/offbrand 42" inch plasma HDTV from Best Buy during some crazy sale post-thanksgiving for $1400. It is hanging on the wall and it amazes everyone who walks into the room and watches anything on it. I'm not exactly a videophile/nerd about such things, but I DO pay attention and can be pretty anal about things working right.

You can get this TV or a Maxent (apparently the ones at Costco are FAR superior? Even have Panasonic innards...) for about 2 grand. Poke around at avsforum.com and you'll get some really good information.
posted by glenwood at 8:40 PM on January 23, 2006

Display size is a function of viewing distance. How far back will you be sitting from the screen?

Plasmas are direct-view, phosphor-based technologies; as such the new models from the major manufacturers will outperform any other category from an imaging standpoint. Sadly though, plasma is not the best choice for gamers. Image retention is still not fully resolved, despite claims to the contrary. You are running the risk of burning the screen. Does the XBOX 360 have a built-in screen-saver function built-in?

However if you're careful with it, I agree that the Panasonic is a good choice. My own preference is for the Hitachi ALIS models. These models have a 1024 x 1024 pixel count, vs the 1024 x 768 count on the Panny. Additionally the Hitachi processor displays 68 billion colours vs 8 billion on the Panny. I'd compare the two side by side with the same feed before buying. A good investment for testing displays is Digital Video Essentials, from Joe Kane of the Imaging Science Foundation, or the AVIA disc. These DVDs allows a true objective comparison of a display's capability, as well as optimization of whichever model you finally choose.

On the screen-burn front, the Hitachi screen protection is pretty effective. None of my Hitachis have suffered any screen burn yet.

This technology has advanced more than any other category in the latest product cycle, and they have come down 50% in cost over the last 4 months. Do not buy a cheap off-brand product. You'll get poor contrast and really increase the risk of image-retention. People who buy those models are unsophisticated when it comes to imaging analysis. With a rated half-brightness of 60,000 hours a plasma display is a 35-30 year investment. Don't buy an off-brand to save a few hundred bucks.

The other downside of plasma is that if something goes wrong with the panel itself, it's junk. This risk also applies to LCD TFT panels, however there are no concerns about screen-burn with LCD TFT displays. The best of the lot is the SONY XBR, however it's 50% more than the next best LCD panel, which is the Samsung. Be aware that the SONY panels themselves are actually manufactured in Samsung's joint venture Korean plant, the "s" series SONY is not as good as the Sammy, but you pay more for the SONY brand. Contrast levels and response times on LCD TFTs are not as good as the better plasmas however, analog signals on them bite.

As for DLPs, which seem to have won the technology war in rear-projection microdisplays, do not buy a Samsung DLP. There are some serious and irresolvable a/v sync issues as well as some condensation/screen problems that can crop up. Most other DLPs seem like good choices, the new TI chipset can produce pretty remarkable images from digital sources. My current pick in this category is the Toshiba 46HM85

As for LCD rear-projection fixed-pixel models, the higher-end Hitachi 25 Element Dual-Stage Cineform models can produce black-levels approaching the DLPs, I really like the form-factor and black-bezel of the 50VG825. It comes darn close to the SONY LCOS, but the SONY is 66% more expensive, quite typical for them.

Both these categories will require you to replace the lamp after 6000-8000 hours, generally3-4 years of use. The price of the lamps will come down, they have dropped 50% in price in the last year, and are around$300 CDN at this writing.Expect the price to be half that by the time you'd need to replace yours. Premature bulb-failure can be an issue, I get a call about this every 60 days, or so. On the up side, when you replace the bulb in an LCD or DLP rear projector your picture is again as bright as the day that you bought it. A failure in one of these models is less likely to be the complete disaster that it would be in a plasma or LCD panel. Before you purchase one of these insist on seeing it with analog sources first. They look great on 480P and better sources, but can be pretty crappy on RF analog.

Feel free to email me as you narrow down the decision.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 2:43 AM on January 24, 2006

DVDs aren't in High-Res yet. In some cases, if you get a cheaply coded DVD (which many of them are) they can look worse on a High Definition TV than on a standard set, just because you can see them in such high-detail.

I want to point out here that if you plan on watching DVDs on your HDTV, you need to get a good upscaling player like the Oppo. I've watched about 25 DVDs with the Oppo/Olevia combination, and all of them look better in 480i->720p upscaling than the "native 720p" HDTV on my digital cable does (due to the shoddy compression on the cable, I think).
posted by rxrfrx at 6:11 AM on January 24, 2006

The oppo recommended above uses DVI, which has been supplanted by HDMI. The latest generation displays all employ HDMI inputs, DVI is now effectively obsolete. HDMI is backwards compatible with DVI, but why mess with adapters?

Don't bother replacing your DVD player if you have a progessive-scan player with a good quality, well-insulated set of component video cables . Better to wait for the TRUE hi-def players to come to market and the format be settled.

I own a Samsung DVDHD850, as well as an LG LDA531 and have noticed no improvement in imaging quality when using the so-called upconversion on these models. After extensive testing and blind comparisons using a number of different high-end diplays, (including the 1080P models from Toshiba, Samsung, and SONY) it seems likely that any improvement in PQ is a result of the digital interface, at least as far I and most other users can tell.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 7:29 AM on January 24, 2006

PareidoliaticBoy:

1. You don't need to "mess with adapters" because the Oppo comes with either a DVI->DVI or DVI->HDMI cable, your choice (and I think some people were getting units that came with both, I'm not sure if that's still going on).

2. At this point, I don't think it's worth waiting for the HD DVD format to be settled, especially since just when that happens, 1080p will probably start to take off. If you wanna watch some nice-looking DVDs, watch 'em. $200 isn't much for a really nice-looking picture. Personally, I think the digital out makes a big difference over component, especially in regards to the appearance of moire effects and bleeding from small, bright points that I've seen over component. Also, the usefulness of a good upscaling player will vary depending on how good your TV's built-in upscaling is.
posted by rxrfrx at 7:40 AM on January 24, 2006

Agreed, rxrfrx. As I said, it appears that the real difference is the use of the digital interface, whether it be DVI/HDMI. IF the OPPO provides an adaptor, that will solve the problem of purchasing an expensive adaptor for what is essentially an obsolete machine, but if I felt it necessary to invest in an interim DVD player, to be used for perhaps a couple of years, I'd just get one that uses HDMI. Video is advancing so rapidly that buying an older model of almost anything doesn't make much sense.

However, most users have a really difficult time discerning any difference when the "upscaling" is used on these machines. No one I've tested so far ( maybe 30 subjects) can, in blind tests, really tell when the "upscaling" is engaged when using a properly-calibrated HD display.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 3:02 PM on January 24, 2006