HDTV: How many here own one or an HD monitor
 

I personally own an HDTV LCD from Samsung (whoops, should've gone with a CRT...).

Anyone else?

heath

46" Sony RP here - it's cool. but, it's to big! anyone in the new england area that wants to buy it...i'll give a really good deal.

murph

55" widescreen Mitsubishi 55805 (year 2000 model)...

Love this thing to death...makes my Xbox feel like war...LOL!!!

I have a Samsung 15 inch Wide screen LCD and I also have an Ikegami 20 inch Broadcast HD monitor($20K)

I'm looking for an HD set for the house. Hopefully a 65 inch. The bigger the better!

In this case, Size does count!

DBK

I don't know if it's CRT or projection, but I saw an 80 inch HDTV. Wow.

heath

My TV is my computer these days. The HDV looks nice on my 20" LCD monitor, or for movie nights, I dim the lights and use a DLP projector on a 8 foot wide pull down screen. There are no true HD video signals anywhere in my system. I have no need for HD signaling, and no need for a 'TV set' any more.
-Les

I have a 17" Sony 16:9 LCD screen (1280x768). Have never watched any true HD content on it however. But it works great for editing native 16:9 from my PDX-10. I feed 1394 from Final Cut Pro to a Sony DVD recorder which sends a 480p component video signal to the screen. Looks great. Also works very well for watching anamorphic DVD's of commercial films.

This experience has convinced me to get a big LCD TV, but the prices are just too high right now. Several articles I've read in business magazines (most recently following CES) are predicting 42" LCD panels in the $1,000 to $2,000 range during the next couple years. Evidently new manufacturing techniques have been developed and new factories are coming online. More than one analyst has predicted that LCD's will overtake plasma screens as the low cost widescreen monitor of choice.

Should be fascinating to watch as the "revolution" slowly gains speed and people start replacing their 4:3 TV's. Not exactly holding my breath yet though...

I use my HDTV LCD (15 in.) as a computer screen, with, unfortunately, vertical "letterboxing." Ugh...

hwm

Heath, someone recently pointed out to me that this is called "pillarboxing" :-) What sort of computer are you using? My Mac recognized my 17" Sony right out of the box and works fine at 1280x768 resolution. For a PC you may need to install a driver or something. Of course you would need to pillarbox 4:3 video footage...

<<<-- Originally posted by Boyd Ostroff : Heath, someone recently pointed out to me that this is called "pillarboxing" :-) What sort of computer are you using? My Mac recognized my 17" Sony right out of the box and works fine at 1280x768 resolution. For a PC you may need to install a driver or something. Of course you would need to pillarbox 4:3 video footage... -->>>

Your mac is reading its monitor information through DDC, a technology originally developed by VESA as part of Microsoft's Plug & Play initiative for Windows 95. Microsoft is responsible for that, not Apple. I haven't loaded a driver for a monitor in many, many years.

I have an RCA F38310. It is a 38" CRT with built in HD OTA and DirectTV tuners. I scaled a mountain behind my house to erect an antenna tower and ran 600 ft of wire to get the signal back to my house. I guess you could say I'm an HDTV fanatic. I cannot watch SD anymore. I have no desire or motivation to edit in SD ever again... even if its just home movies. I can never use SD again. I've tasted the tainted fruit of HD and there is no going back.

I have a Samsung 47" RP. i hope to shoot my own videos on an HD-10 and watch them at home.
Football looks damn good in high def.

RCA 38" Widescreen CRT model from 2001. Beautiful picture. Built in HD tuner/de-coder. No DVI inputs, but componant ins look very good. Can't wait to get a consumer HD cam to see on it.

We have a new RCA Scenium. DLP Projection so there's no burn-in; there is, however, an annoying high-pitched fan noise.

HDTV Monitor
 

I have the Gateway 42" HD Plasma and the JVC HD Camera. I plan on getting a second plasma (50" - 60") when 1080P becomes available.

By the way, has anyone been able to successfully watch the Terminator 2 HD version on an HD set? Since it's in 1080P and not 1080i, I'm having trouble getting the TV to convert the signal from the output on the computer. The T2 HD DVD looks fantastic on the computer LCD screen.

The less expensive 42" Plasma screens are "ED" instead of "HD" (852x480). They still look impressive, but when I've seen them in the store next to a real HD screen the difference is very noticeable due to the larger pixels. Do you have the "HD ready" Gateway 42" (1024x1024)? If so, what do you think of it?

110" NEC CRT Projector. Old technology but shows a great picture. I run 1280X720p via HTPC.

110" NEC CRT Projector. Old technology but shows a great picture. I run 1280X720 via HTPC.

I just got a Sanyo PLV-Z2 projector and I'm totally blown away by it. It projects a beautiful 100" (or bigger) 720p native 16:9 HD image. I really didn't realize how big the difference between HD and SD was until I saw this image, and how any SD just falls apart when you blow it up to small movie screen sizes. Based on my experiences with it so far I would definately recommend getting one of these over a large screen HDTV. (I used to have a 32" Monivision which was very troublesome).
I don't know where else can you get this large an HD Image for just under $2000.

In response to Boyd..
 

..I have the HD ready Gateway 42". I subscribe to Adelphia cable's HDTV service which looks incredible! (Although they only offer 5 channels in HD.)

Paul Mogg,

What happened to the other HDTV you had. Monivision, was it?

heath

Hi Heath,
I may have just had bad luck with the Monivision, but mine kept breaking down. It would run for a week or so, then the picture would just dissapear. It also had a problem with green vertical stripes on the screen when you viewed anything through the component inputs, and also some visible fish-eye effects at the edge of the screen, which seem to be inherent in the design. If you can live with this though, and yours works, it has an excellent picture. I got a full refund, and I have to say that A/V science, who I bought it through, were very good about it, as were Monivision, who gave me three replacement sets before I gave up on it. Now that I'm spoiled by this massive screen that the Sanyo PLV-Z2 gives you, It would be hard to go back to a smaller one, except for editing, it really shows up the inadequacies of SD for large screen projection, which I knew about before, but I could ignore to some extent while working on a small screen.

Too bad about Monivision...Glad you like the new HDTV!

heath

What are our CRT and rear projection options for true 720ps?

>I don't know if it's CRT or projection, but I saw an 80 inch HDTV.

That's a projection. The biggest consumer CRT I know
is the Sony Wega 40" . It's also the best looking picture in my book even though it's 16:9 picture is only 37" in diameter.
If you really want the best picture for about $2000, get the WEGA XBR 40.

BTW, when you have to sit 8-13 feet away for rear projection convergence, the TV no longer appears as big as the specs.

I agree with Paul Mogg. It is all about resolution, which is most noticeable on a large screen. I have an Infocus model 7200 front projector. I am projecting onto an 8-foot wide screen. The projector has the “TI Mustang HD2 DLP projection system” (1280 x 780; 16:9 chip). The picture I see from my HD10 is very comparable to any cable feed HD input I receive. I also think colors are quite natural. But the bottom line is the resolution, which is all about a large screen experience. What I am experiencing is far better on that large screen, than any previous analog or DV input. But this again is totally due to a large screen experience with HD support.

Betsy,
Many of the three CRT projectors are HD capable. Prior to getting the above mentioned projector, I had a GE three crt projector that did indeed resolve HD input from my HD10 camera. However, it was over ten years old and needed at least a couple of new CRT’s. In addition, the maintenance required to keep these three gun unit’s converged and focused is considerable. The newer DLP and LCD single lens sets have come a long way’s in just the last year or so. Although many people claim that CRT projectors are still the ultimate, and they may well be, there performance is highly subject to extreme adjustment requirements.

I have a Mitsubishi 65" rear projection CRT HDTV for about 3 months now. HD pictures on it, 16:9 widescreen DV on DVD, and DVD movies look great. I subscribe to DirecTV with HDNet and HBO HD but there isn't a lot of current content. There are a lot of local channels that broadcast over the air digital and occasional HD, but I haven't tried to put a large directional antenna in my attic yet to complement the DTV.

I looked hard at the 72" Grand Wega, but it was about $5K over my budget...beautiful picture, though. One of my neighbors and colleagues recently acquired the new Sony projector after patiently watching his backorder count down over the last three months. He had nothing to test it with so brought it over to my house so he could see how it looked in HD. We projected onto one of my den walls and it looked really good at about 100" diagonal. It has 3 different brightness/cinema modes and you could really tell a difference in each one. It actually looked pretty good with SD content. I was seriously thinking about getting this or the PLZ-2 but they weren't practical. My wife watches too much TV and she wasn't thrilled about projection. That and the cost of lamps killed them. I have been really satisfied with the Mitsu...PQ is very, very good, and I haven't had it professionally tuned...yet.

<<<-- Originally posted by Thomas Ferlauto : I have an RCA F38310. It is a 38" CRT with built in HD OTA and DirectTV tuners. . -->>>

hee hee... me too... the one people love to hate but hate to love... ;)

dang roll off problem...

<<<-- Originally posted by Leo Divinagracia :

dang roll off problem... -->>>

I've fixed that problem. By "roll off", I assume you mean the barrel roll effect or the pinchushion effect where the image distorts near the edge of the screen. I thought I had to live with it, but it is caused by the internal scaler converting a 480i or 480p picture to 1080i for display. That internal scaler is crap. If you feed this beast a 1080i signal it will look great with no barrel roll! But with only a component input, DVD players that output 1080i are rare. Nevertheless, I found the Momitsu V-880, and it outputs 1080i on component and the PQ is great.

Once I get my HD-Tivo outputting 1080i, Everything on this set will be 1080i and will look awesome.

<<<-- Originally posted by Thomas Ferlauto : <<<-- Originally posted by Leo Divinagracia :

dang roll off problem... -->>>

I've fixed that problem. By "roll off", I assume you mean the barrel roll effect or the pinchushion effect where the image distorts near the edge of the screen. I thought I had to live with it, but it is caused by the internal scaler converting a 480i or 480p picture to 1080i for display. That internal scaler is crap. If you feed this beast a 1080i signal it will look great with no barrel roll! But with only a component input, DVD players that output 1080i are rare. Nevertheless, I found the Momitsu V-880, and it outputs 1080i on component and the PQ is great.

Once I get my HD-Tivo outputting 1080i, Everything on this set will be 1080i and will look awesome. -->>>

unfortunately, i got the thing about 4 years ago and i got a p-scan dvd player which was just horrible...

until 2 week later and i hooked up an old antenna that was kinda dying but i saw SHAVING PRIVATE RYAN on ABC on memorial day weekend and was just blown away...

I took a survey today at my office of the 43 people that work there. Ages ranged from 25 to 64 with 39 being the median age. None are in the video business. Salaries range from $30k to $100K per year with the median being $41k. None indicated that they owned a htdv plasma monitor. Also, all but one indicated that they would not purchase one unless prices dropped to below $1,000. One more question I asked was are you satisfied with the image quality on your home tv. 40 replied yes.

I hate to see all the hype on hdtv plasma products and how we are being pushed into accepting them when in fact in my small survey no one at my place of work is willing to lay out the kind of cash the market now commands. Over 90% indicated they are happy with what they currently have.

Regards,

Mark

I recently purchased at 42" Mitsubishi RP. Looks great in my small living room. Watching live sports at 1080i on Comcast is amazing.

Mark,

Very interesting and revealing. doesn't bode well for VOOM and the HD ilk.

heath

<<<-- Originally posted by Mark Williams :

I hate to see all the hype on hdtv plasma products and how we are being pushed into accepting them when in fact in my small survey no one at my place of work is willing to lay out the kind of cash the market now commands. Over 90% indicated they are happy with what they currently have.

Regards,

Mark -->>>

I doubt the accuracy of this informal survey when applied to the population as a whole. I have no facts to back it up, but I believe in "following the money." If corporations are putting money into something, they probably have done the studies to justify the investments to their shareholders. There is a big push into HDTV. Look at the Good Guy's mailers. They devote pages to selling HDTV monitors. GG, BB, CC are not in the business of losing money. They know there is money in HDTV -- I believe them.

Thomas,

You are probably right. My crude survey only represents a very small if not insignificant part of the whole. However, it says what it says for my sample group. No one in the group is really interested in HDTV at the current prices. Get it below $1,000 and everything may change.

Regards,

Mark

Plasma is generally crap, especially the low end stuff from Gateway. My friends are way too excited about saving space for $4000-10000. For that money, you can build a new room.

I really think the current new crop of HD projectors are a MUCH better deal than any HD plasma or LCD or CRT. Where else can you get a gorgeous 12ft diameter HD image on your wall for under $2,000. Check out the Sanyo PLV-Z2, I got one a couple of months ago and still can't believe the picture.

Paul

<<<-- Originally posted by Mark Williams : Thomas,

You are probably right. My crude survey only represents a very small if not insignificant part of the whole. However, it says what it says for my sample group. No one in the group is really interested in HDTV at the current prices. Get it below $1,000 and everything may change.

Regards,

Mark -->>>

If I asked everyone at my old station, they'd say, GO HD! You have to ask the general population, because the mindsets of people at work are often times the same. (I read something about that.)

heath

As as a no/low budget user, I use my PC monitor(s). A second 19' monitor works very well for 130$ and is also useful in almost all my applications.

I've had a Toshiba 34" CRT for the last couple of years and am very happy with it. May switch from directv to voom this month since the monthly fee is nearly the same and I'm a confirmed HDTV junkie.

Just purchased a GR-HD1 off ebay for $1800 and the output is gorgeous.

About half the people in my office have HDTV rear projection sets. The sony LCD RP's are the local favorite, very sharp picture, shallow depth and unintrusive save for the fact that it's a 60" screen.

VIVA LA HDTV!!!!