Led vs LCD TVs and 720 pixels vs 1080.

[Ron]

Exactly! He even snipped the article earlier so it would be taken out of context to fit his "argument".

Yep.

[Nate Nagel]

hey, all I know is what I see. I am not trying to justify any purchase to myself because I am happy with both of my TV/monitors (one a Viewsonic 720p and the other a Samsung 1080p) but the difference between the two is quite noticeable and if I could only keep one and had to choose one or the other it would take no time at all to pick the Samsung.

nate

[Ron]

,

So would I. Samsung makes arguably the best LCD on the market.

Also, I would say the difference that you are noticing is the fact that the Samsung has a better overall picture, and it's not necessarily the difference in resolution that you are seeing unless you are sitting right on top of them.

Go to a Walmart and look at a Sanyo 1080p and compare it to any other TV in the store regardless of whether not it's a 720 or 1080.

Sanyo's have a washed out picture and are horrible looking.

The same could be said about Westinghouse. Horrible picture.

[Higgs Boson]

That is what "Michael" at Costco actually SAID. In my earlier post, I misquoted him with words about "refresh", etc. My bad, and I still think he was giving me the straight dope, borne out by many posts on the subject of 1080i vs 1080p.

[Higgs Boson]

I have FIOS from Verizon (tfui!). I'm pretty sure their box is HD, which is supposed to be why my non-HD TV cuts off 1/5 of the picture on each side. I went through the whole hierarchy up to the CEO's office, but the final verdict was that box and TV don't agree. I asked for an older box, but they said they had no more.

Somewhat alarmed about your grisly paragraph about using "stretch" mode -- presumably on new HD TV? Costco associate said there was a setting for making picture fit. I HOPE it doesn't do THAT!!! Any experience out there? TIA

HB

[Ron]

If you have an HD box, then there is no problem if most of the channels you watch are in HD. If you have a regular digital cable, yes the "stretch" setting will fill the screen, but like I said, the picture will be distorted. Zoom fills the screen but crops the picture.

[David Nebenzahl]

On 11/19/2010 3:25 AM Robert Green spake thus:

NOOOOOO. Tell me they don't do that. Please.

(Reminds me of a bit of nonsense we used to joke about at the computer company I used to work for: we claimed our products used "maximum byte separation".)

[Rick Brandt]

I have a 720p Samsung Plaasma with HD from Charter cable. Up until a few weeks ago we were using component video cables (it's what the cable company supplied). With those cables non-HD content was stretched to fill the entire screen.

I recently swithched to an HDMI cable and now the non-HD content is displayed as 4:3 with bars on the side.

This particular TV does not have a setup choice for non-HD display while an LCD we have in the other room does let us choose between several modes.

I actually prefer the stretched display. Also, non-HD content looked better through the analog component cables than it does through HDMI.

Another thing to consider if a good portion of what you watch will be non-HD is that some sets give a better picture for non-HD than others do. In other words you could have two sets that are pretty similar in picture quality when displaying HD yet one could do a much better job with non-HD than the other. Might be a good idea to sample/compare both when deciding.

[Ron]

That doesn't make any sense. Sounds to me like a setting on the box was wrong. I'm using component cables and 4:3 broadcasts are in 4:3. And the same if I use an HDMI cable.

I have no idea what that means. Are you talking about stretch/zoom modes? If so, I've never seen an HDTV that didn't have those modes.

So you like watching a distorted picture where everything looks short and wide?

[Ed Pawlowski]

"Higgs Boson" wrote

Not to worry. You'll have a setting that will make it look good. Some have auto features that will change the picture to 4;3. Others change it somehow that it still looks good, fills the screen, and does not have that ugly stretch. It may crop the top and bottom, but barely noticeable.

I hardly watch anything that is not in HD any more. I changed to cable to DirecTv because my crappy cable company did not offer HD in five of my favorite channels.

[Ron]

Barely noticeable?????

Yeah, cutting off the top of someone's head is "barely noticeable". If you are watching ESPN and there is NO crawler at the bottom of the screen, it's "barely noticeable".

AFA, stretch mode, I don't care what kind of TV you have, it is stretching and distorting the picture, period

I guess a "good look" to you is short and narrow. I'd rather watch a show in it's original format, but hey, that's just me, and a few thousand other people that are purest.

[Ron]

*Short and wide.

[Ed Pawlowski]

"Ron" wrote

I'd guess that you have a crappy setup. My old set was not very good, but my new ones are no problem at all. I don't see that big stretch in auto mode.

[Ron]

Yeah, a Panasonic VIERA Plasma that is only 9 months old is a "crappy setup".....lol

You obviously don't care about a distorted picture, and it looks fine to you. The "stretch modes" haven't changed that much over the past few yrs. Stretched, is stretched, and not natural, period.

Wanna argue the point, lets take it to alt.tv.tech.hdtv and see what they have to say.

[Ed Pawlowski]

"Ron" wrote

Can't argue what you can't see. Come over to my house and look, they we can discuss. Until then you are just blowing hot air.

[Ron]

Make and model number of your TV?

[Rick Brandt]

I assume it is just that the D->A conversion that happens within the cable box differs from the D>A conversion for the component input of the set.

Yes, that is what I am talking about and this set does not have them. It has a single setting for choosing 4:3 versus 16:10 and from what I can tell that setting does not affect signals coming in on the HDMI port.

It's not that noticeable after a moment or two. The human brain compensates for stuff like that. Also the percentage of stretch is not that much and many newer sets use processing where a higher stretch is used on the left and right thirds with less stretching in the middle third where the viewer's attention is normally focused.

Lastly, my plasma has anti-burn-in technology that appears to work as it is five years old and I see no signs of burn-in yet. Despite that the owners manual still recommends limiting letterbox viewing to less than 25% to avoid bars on the sides and/or top/bottom from burning in.

[Ed Pawlowski]

"Ron" wrote

Samsung 32" I'll have to look for the model # later. It is hooked to a DirecTV DVR as that may also be a factor.

[krw]

That must make panning of landscape scenes pretty ugly, not to mention making a mess of any diagonal lines. No thanks.

Like NiCd "memory, Plasma "burn-in" is a thing of the distant past.

[salty]

Yes, they make musical instrument cables with directional arrows printed on them!