Re: OT: Television recommendations

Dennis Little wrote:
| On Sun, June 29, 2008 11:57 am, John wrote:
|> Are there any specific features that we ought to consider?
|>
| I would look for something with a built-in tuner so that you can get local
| over-the-air if you want to and you can pick up premium channels off cable
| that are not encrypted.

Contrast ratio and lumens are important, too, possibly more than
resolution, depending on your eyes, the viewing environment's ambient
lighting, and your distance to the display.  I wouldn't rule out getting
an LCD monitor, either.  The PRO would be that there's no overscan, and
you don't have to do anything sneaky to use its full resolution with a
PC, but the CON would be that there'd be no built-in tuner.  However, if
you already have a tuner source (such as a DVR or your satellite's STB)
then you don't necessarily need one in your display.  In fact, with
satellite as a source, a built-in tuner would only get you ATSC
programming anyway.

|> Should we choose 720p or 1080p?  What's the difference?
| I may be wrong, but as I understand it, there really is not much available
| in 1080 yet;

You are wrong ;)  Every major network show is broadcast in 1080i, and
there's also plenty of 1080p video podcasts available online.

| some are betting that there may never be much available in
| 1080 because of bandwidth limitations. These people surmise that
| broadcasters will choose to have more channels at a lower resolution than
| vice versa.

The other factor is that cable and satellite companies want to be able
to sell you HD packages because it's a huge upsell opportunity for them.
~ When we moved, DirecTV upgraded our dish to an HD-capable one so that
if we decided to upgrade to their HD service, we'd already have the dish
ready.

| The price differential to get 1080 just wasn't worth it to me
| either. If I were more of an A/V buff, I might opt for 1080, but alas I am
| not and am just as satisfied with 720 for now. Can you tell the
| difference? Probably, if you know what you are looking for.

It depends on several factors: eye quality, distance to the display, and
size of the display.  It'd take eagle eyes to be able to see the
difference between a 720p display and a 1080p display of the same size,
viewed at 15 feet.  With correction, I have 20/15 vision, and I watch
1080p and 720p programming on a 24" Dell widescreen monitor at 1920x1200
resolution about 6.5 feet away, and I can sometimes tell the difference
between 720p and 1080p content.

| The audio on the built-in speakers is pretty decent -- again,
| if I were an audiophile, I would have external speakers.

This can go the other way, too; my dad has bad ears, and he can't
understand much of what comes out of his CRT television's built-in
speakers, so he needs to use a TV/radio tuner with headphones to listen
to a simulcast.  Both people with hearing loss and those with
audiophile-grade ears will benefit from the increased audio clarity of a
good set of external speakers.  You also need to consider that the
soundtracks to many shows are made for 5.1 surround setups, and although
they also provide a stereo soundtrack, all the audio that was meant to
go to five discrete channels has to fit into two, which can often
overwhelm stereo speakers and make dialog hard to make out over the
music and effects sounds.

Another thought on speakers: Sometimes, the little speakers that come
with some widescreen LCD TVs can't be detached.  The consequence is that
not all 32" widescreen TVs will fit into the same space, because some of
them have fixed speakers, and some of them have removable speakers.

--
Bob Igo
StormLogic