Thinking about getting a flat panel TV....advice.....

[Black95GTS]

Digital cables are lossless.

Absolutely incorrect. Do not believe this.

A digital signal is essentially a square wave output. As you increase distance, use materials with detrimental attenuation, decrease the amount of materials used, place these materials in proximity with other electric field (this is a stretch but is possible) you will lose signal strength. The "squares" start to "round off" is the best way I can put it.

If you've ever watched an HD signal with a device that had a long cable, and saw sparkles on the screen, then you'll know what I'm talking about. After long enough distances or poor enough materials, the 1s and 0s will get confused by the hardware in your display.

That 10 dollar "steal" you got might be great if its 1 foot long, but the signal will get worse. I do this for a living with fiber optic control cables in power plants. They are not all equal.

That being said, if I had to pay the full $109 for the monster cable, I would not have gotten it. But for 9 bucks why not? It also has a life time warranty.

HDMI is essentially a cat5 cable with more shielding. There are 8 cables inside in a 4 twisted pair configuration. 3 of the pairs mimic exactly component video (the blue, red, and green cables.) Component video could do HD if you got the hardware. The remaining pair is basically a digital clock (square waves) with some other misc info. The longer, and crappier, you make this cable the more the digital signal gets degraded.

I'm sure nobody actually read this whole thing.

Adam

 

[wytstang]

Here is an extensive and in depth write up on HDMI cables
http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3&message.id=828972#M828972
In short a $10 HDMI cable will look as good as a $100+ HDMI cable. I made the mistake a bought a $100 Monster cable, found the truth and purchased a Monoprice.com $15 HDMI cable and not only was it the same design as the monster there was ZERO difference in the picture and sound. I did a lot ofr research over on avsforum.com those guys/gals eat and sleep and $h!t home theater.

 

[wytstang]

Oh and I have a 32'' Samsung Flat panel 720p
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8423903&type=product&id=1181832388132
Looks freakin awesome after some tunning, I then purchased a Denon HD converter to play older DVD and man it took watching tv to a whole different level.
Here's another in depth post about TV resolution
http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3&thread.id=938503

 

[nmcgrawj]

~$650 for a 50" Panasonic 720p Plasma+ $6 for an HDMI cable+ $114 for HD channels+everything else = me. Ill be back in this thread later to laugh at all the others posting false info in here!

U forget about us in here?

 

[Therian]

"Now eventually if you keep moving further and further back, there may come a point where you can no longer tell if he's up or down... But the good news is, digital signals don't "guess"... If they SEE the signal, they work... If they DON'T, they DON'T.. LOL"

View attachment 357371

 

[nmcgrawj]

So there is no such thing as a "bad" digital signal? It seems some guys are trying to say its like a light switch...either its perfect or nothing is there at all.

Kinda like an antenna on top of a tv....when its a good signal u can see the picture just fine. But there is a lot of inbetween signals before u get to a flat out static picture that u cant see anything

 

[Venom351R]

Before I respond to the quotes I just wanted to say that coming onto the internet or anywhere for that matter and asking whats better to get a better idea of HDTV's will leave you with more questions and more confusion then when you started. There is so much rampent wrong information about HDTV's much of which Ive already read in this thread. With that said.........

What are you talking about? Anything 720p or higher is high def. What you need to consider is the seating distance from the TV. The higher resolution is only needed when you are sitting absurdly close to the TV…otherwise 99.9% of the population cannot notice any detail difference between 720p or 1080i or p for that matter. CNET has some basic setup information here… http://reviews.cnet.com/tv-buying-guide/?tag=dir . Other websites too have distance charts showing what resolution is recommended for different distances..

I agree 100% its been proven that unless you are a 50" or bigger and the correct distance from the TV the human eye cannot detect the differnce between 720P and 1080P. The human eye can only detect so much detail and so many color varaitions. If a TV comes out saying it displays 10 trillion different colors then thats all hype just to sell it since the human eye cant even detect that many colors.

FYI. - No One Broadcast in 1080P - Repeat No One. The Only way to view 1080P is to buy either HD DVD or Blueray and watch 1080P DVDs or use PS3. All those tvs you see at the store are broadcasting in either 720P or 1080i. Only the Blueray or HD DVD players are in 1080P - don't be confused.

So for those of you that think you are getting 1080P out of a regular HD tv channel you are in fantasy land.

The highest resolution being broadcast is 1080i and very few stations broadcast in 1080i.

1080P won't happen for awhile. So I say unless you plan to buy a HD DVD or Blueray Dvd and plan to watch lots of HD DvDs - which are limited - save your money and get the 720P. By the time 1080P is being broadcast over the air the 1080Ps tvs will be dirt cheap. Save your money.

I agree 100% as well. No stations are broadcasting in 1080P its all an upscaled imiage which is no better then a native 720P signal to begin with. If you have a big enough TV and you are watching Blu Ray or HDDVD then you will have 1080P. Why do you think they dont even offer 1080P until you get to the bigger size TV anyway?

 

[Black95GTS]

So there is no such thing as a "bad" digital signal? It seems some guys are trying to say its like a light switch...either its perfect or nothing is there at all.

Kinda like an antenna on top of a tv....when its a good signal u can see the picture just fine. But there is a lot of inbetween signals before u get to a flat out static picture that u cant see anything

Digital information can degrade. There is an in between. The electronics in your equipment still have to decode the incoming data. If the data has been attenuated to the point where thats not possible, then the display will suffer.

To use an extreme that proves the point... when I design a fiber optic control system for wind turbine management, my company prefers me to use a cheaper multi-mode cable. But after a certain length, I have to switch to a more expensive single mode cable. Same number of conductors in the cable, just a higher quality.

If only multi mode was used, the signal would degrade to the point where false instructions were being relayed back and forth to the turbine farm. If the whole "signal or no signal" myth were true, then I'd use the cheap stuff everywhere!

I checked out that blue jean cable site... its fantastic. Read the FAQs there, they explain it way better then I do.

Adam

 

[slvrbullit302]

I have the following TV in my bedroom, http://www.polaroid.com/global/deta...4302031790&bmUID=1192067960056&bmLocale=en_US.

I got it last year with my income taxes. Good clear picture, no problems out of it yet. it is 1080i/720p. This is the second Polaroid I have purchased and both are still going strong.

 

[wytstang]

So there is no such thing as a "bad" digital signal? It seems some guys are trying to say its like a light switch...either its perfect or nothing is there at all.

That is correct for the length of cable used in homes. Were not talking about 100+feet here, it's 6 feet for most and even thats too long in some cases. With the length of cable used from the HD box to your TV a $100 cable with not look any better then a $20 cable. The 1's and 0's will make it lol.

Kinda like an antenna on top of a tv....when its a good signal u can see the picture just fine. But there is a lot of inbetween signals before u get to a flat out static picture that u cant see anything

Kinda, when using the other connections (composite, component, S-Video) the quality of the cables becomes a factor (especially the longer they get). If you read the link I posted the guy uses a great analogy to give you an idea of what happens with the other signals.
What monoprice.com does is sells very high quality cables with out the "big" name. No different then cloth manufacturers going over seas and spending $10 to make a shirt and selling them here for $60+ because it says Tommy,Ralph, ect ect.

 

[BlueOvalStangGT]

Its all markup. I get cables 5% over cost from BestBuy which means $80 cable for ~$5-6.

 

[nmcgrawj]

I have the following TV in my bedroom, http://www.polaroid.com/global/deta...4302031790&bmUID=1192067960056&bmLocale=en_US.

I got it last year with my income taxes. Good clear picture, no problems out of it yet. it is 1080i/720p. This is the second Polaroid I have purchased and both are still going strong.

That link isnt working for me....what model is it?

 

[gcomfx.com]

That link isnt working for me....what model is it?

x2.... All the Polaroid flat screens I've seen at the stores look like Poo compared to the rest. But perhaps they don't have them hooked up correctly.

 

[millhouse]

x2.... All the Polaroid flat screens I've seen at the stores look like Poo compared to the rest. But perhaps they don't have them hooked up correctly.

That's most likely because the box stores have all of their TV's setup on Vivid mode (aka retna burning). If your serious about picking up a TV, I would set the sets that are in your price range to cineman or movie mode, as those typically are closest to the proper color range and will have the closest color decoding.

Also, I would strongly suggest picking up a setup guide such as Digital Video Essentials (DVE) to adjust your TV for the best possible picture. It really does help out and takes some of the guesswork out of consumer tv calibration.

Lastly, if you can fork it over....I've heard a professional TV calibration does wonders for picture quality. They say that once you've seen a pro-calibrated setup you can really tell the difference. This is something far beyond what the consumer can do...and they come in with uber expensive calibration equipment, coloromemeters etc.

 

[Synned]

Its all markup. I get cables 5% over cost from BestBuy which means $80 cable for ~$5-6.

I msis those days man... speaker cabling and dynex cabling markup was insane!!!
What position?

 

[rj95svt]

I noticed in a best buys sales paper that they are selling a 42" 1080p lcd flat panel for less than 1,000 dollars yesterday. I will not comment on the quality of the tv because it was off brand that I have heard of but never seen in person. It was a Westinghouse I believe. I'm not sure if it's any good but I figured I'd let you know about it.