redcolours

whats the best out there for $2000 and under?

im eyeing this one:

http://www.audioholics.com/productre...LVM-42w2p1.php

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/art...rticle_id=1642

i was going to get an HDTV plasma, but this 1080p LCD just falls right into my price limit.

know of any other 1080p native HDTVs?

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johnnymk

Personally, I would never get a 42" wide screen TV. The minimum size I would get would be 51". I may be wrong, but a 42" wide screen is probably equal to a 32" normal TV.

When spending over 2 grand for a TV, I would desire the big screen feel and would sacrifice a bit of clarity to get it.

However, if it's for a small room, it may be the way to go.

InfiniteNothing

It depends on how you do the math. If you go by area, a 42" wide screen is equivalent to a 40" normal TV (Both have 754 square inches of TV)

but if you take the advice of AV experts, you really want the same width. In which case you'd have to buy a 46" normal TV (both are 36.6" wide).

Here's the basic calculator you'll need:
http://www.myhometheater.homestead.c...alculator.html

kimchicowboy

westinghouse probably has the best bang for the buck LCDs. i remember Best Buy was selling a 36" 1080p for a dang good deal a few months back. and from what i knew, no other companies made 1080p sets for a 36"-er.

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redcolours

precisely.

anything bigger than a 42" widescreen is too big for my tiny crib. when i was writing this thread i wrote a long shpiel about it, but decided to delete that part.

basically, i already had a 32" widescreen HDTV before, and that died. i was gonna get another 32" screen, but the WOW factor wasnt there when i was looking around for a replacement. I looked around for bigger sets, and i could have easily gone to something around 52" and up, but its just too big for my apartment. i settled on anywhere between 42" to 46". the sweet spot seeme to be on the 42" size, whether its plasma, DLP or LCD.

I thought about DLP, but i like the thinness of an LCD or a plasma. I was thinking of going LCD originally, but i was surprised by how much more affordable plasma HD screens are now (and typically how much better the picture is IMHO). So i shifted to plasma shopping.

until i came across the 1080p LCD westinghouse. sh*t, if i can get ahead of the curve a bit and get a 1080p LCD HDTV for pretty much the same price as a regular HDTV, i might as well go for it.

i already have my size requirement, my next goal WAS clarity. Either its an HDTV plasma (it just looks so much better, again just my humble opinion), or this 1080p LCD (which apparently has garnered high scores in visual testings).

Plus the LCD seems a much better fit for pairing with an HTPC (my ultimate goal in buying an HDTV). The max progressive scan i can do with true picture quality goodness out of any HDTV sets is 1366x768, and even then theres the issue of overscan. I can take it down to a native 1280x720 (the native resolution of a 720p-capable HDTV), so no overscan occurs. 1080i is really nothing but 540p, which essentially is lower quality than 720p. again, in my humble observation (i can actually see the flicker of interlaced scanning, which is horrible for my eyes).

So imagine a TRUE progressive scan resolution at 1920x1080. imagine how much better the picture quality is with the higher resolution. Cram all those pixels in a "smallish" screen, and you have better PQ altogether. Go bigger on an LCD and you end up making the pixels bigger. Im not sure how much bigger an LCD can get before bad pixelation starts to occur. Again, smaller screens will display such resolutions better.

in theory its all nice, but again, the different reviews of the westinghouse 1080p LCD seems to prove this theory correct.

This isnt as big of a problem if you use plasma, or DLP, since pixels arent as big of a deal as with LCDs. Thats one reason that you can easily go bigger with plasmas and DLPs.

anyways, this was the LONG shpiel that i omitted. But for the sake of clarification, im throwing it back in here.

InfiniteNothing

Well, I vote for LCD. It will make building a htpc easier and you'll love the resolution when watching 1080i or p. PS 1080i =! 540P since 1080i has 1920 horizontal pixels while 540 has 960. 1080i is nearly as good as 1080p provided you have a good deinterlacing TV or HTPC. Also, LCDs dont flicker.

redcolours

wikipedia has this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Resolution_chart.png
(from their main article)


This table illustrates total horizontal and vertical detail via box size. It does not accurately reflect the screen shape (aspect ratio) of these formats, which is always stretched or squeezed to 4:3 or 16:9. The table assumes an average vertical detail loss of .75x due to interlace. The actual loss is variable due to content, motion, opinion on acceptable levels of flicker, and possible success of deinterlacing. 1920 × 1080i is not included because all common use of 1080i is filtered to 1440 or less.

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but yep, another reason i prefer LCDs = no flicker! great for my eyes.

but its the ALTERNATING horizontal even and odd scan lines that i detect in any interlaced resolution that makes it a horrible viewing experience for me. I wouldnt mind if i dont notice it, but i actually do for some reason or another, believe it or not.

I didnt know this til i sat down and watched my friend's LCD for a couple of nights. ABC-HD, ESPN-D, FOX-HD, and DiscoveryHD looked great, but TNT-HD looked a bit degraded. SO did NBC-HD, and CBS-HD. I didnt know what was going on, i thought it was just the way the shows were recorded in HD, or her LCD is just messed up. I found out later on that ABC (who owns ESPN also) broadcasts in 720p. So does Fox and Discovery-HD. The rest of the other networks are in 1080i. Thats why CSI didnt look as good to me as Grey's Anatomy. Or shows that are recorded live like The tonight Show with Jay Leno, isnt as crisp-looking as SportsCenter in HD.

at any rate, i know that buying a 1080p LCD will not make those shows any better, theyre still going to be broadcast in either 1080i or 720p. Again, this is for an HTPC, and mainly for upscaling of DVD movies in progressive scanning. Its still too expensive for me to get a Bluray or HD-DVD player, that will come later. By then i'll be ready with a 1080p capable screen. who knows? ill probably just need a new optical disc recorder/player in the HTPC that can read BD or HD-DVD, and i wont even need a separate player.

InfiniteNothing

Mmmm, yeah, it's Wiki. It's oversimplified. It is correct for most users like your friend and his medium resolution LCD. Medium resolution TVs always degrade 1080i. But for high resolution panels, when you include deinterlace and 1920 vertical lines, 1080i kicks ass.

redcolours

how can a 720p/1080i capable HDTV LCD screen be "medium resolution"? can you elaborate further so i dont get ovesimplified information? links would be good also.

InfiniteNothing

Yeah, I don't know what the official terms are. I was calling a 720p resolution set "medium resolution" because it was less than a 1080p resolution by a factor of 2.

A 720p resolution TV isn't capable of showing pure 1080i because a 720p set only has 1280 horizontal pixels whereas a 1080i signal has 1920 horizontal pixels. Therefore to maintain compatibility, a 720p set will degrade a 1080i signal to 540p (worst case senario 33% loss) and then resample that picture to 720p.

http://www.afterdawn.com/glossary/terms/1080i.cfm

A 1080P set can display a true 1080i signal because it has the proper resolution. Infact, it can do one better by deinterlacing (making an educated guess at what the 1080p signal might be).

arkybarky

Is there anything to adjust the viewing screen "short and fat-ness" on an LCD??? 42" HDTV ready [doesn't have HDTV subscription]

InfiniteNothing

Yes, use the aspect ratio button on your remote.