[Clint S.]

I've exhausted my searches on LCD's with dual tuners. I've only been able to find the Olevia 742/747i and Audiovox FPE3707HR that fit the criteria of true HD sets (1080i 1920x1080) with dual tuners for PiP functions. Neither of which are "stellar" TV's.


Now I'm looking at plasma sets. I'd rather plasma because from what I've read so far they generally have a better picture. So can anyone please tell me if there is such a thing as a plasma TV that's 1920x1080 from 37"-47" with true dual tuners for PiP (PaP/PoP/P&P) functions?


If such a thing doesn't exist (dual tuner), then which single tuner sets fitting the other criteria above have the best PiP functions with the best features and usability?

Thanks.

 

[Clint S.]

Edited post.

 

[joemama127]

I think manufacturers figured out that pip may have been a selling point back in the 90's but most people (myself included) either rarely or never used the feature... meaning that it was an added expense that wasn't neccessary and no longer a good selling point. It really sucks for people like yourself who do use it though..


You could look into a dual tuner dvr from your cable/sat company however...iirc Tivo makes one also but I'm not sure if they provide pip.

 

[Clint S.]

Thanks for replying. I can't understand how it's a feature rarely used. It's seems like an awesome feature to be able to watch one program while keeping an eye on another watching for something....without having to watch two separate TV's.


What sucks worse, is the jerks at Cox DISABLED PiP on their boxes! So we can't use their DVR's for any PiP!

Therefore the reason for a dual tuner PiP HDTV. And the last I heard, TiVo doesn't have PiP.

So I'm still open to the single tuner plasma (or LCD) with the best pseudo poor-man's-version PiP functions I mentioned in my OP.

 

[JazzGuyy]

The few sets around (of any size) that support PIP or something similar (like picture with picture) are limited. None of them have dual digital tuners and require that one of the PIP sources be an antenna input feed (from cable or an OTA antenna) and the other anything else.


It might be possible on one of these sets to get PIP with cable by splitting the cable line in, with one split line to the antenna connection and the other to the cable box or else an off the air antenna to the antenna input and cable into a cable box connected by component or HDMI. This would limit you, however, to only to QAM or off-the-air channels for one of your PIP sources.


Pioneer sets do have PIP, but the smallest is 50".

 

[Clint S.]



Quote:
Originally Posted by JazzGuyy /forum/post/15464448


The few sets around (of any size) that support PIP or something similar (like picture with picture) are limited. None of them have dual digital tuners and require that one of the PIP sources be an antenna input feed (from cable or an OTA antenna) and the other anything else.

No there's a few, very few, that have true dual tuner PiP, I mentioned two in my post. I didn't look at the Audiovox very well because of the name, but the Olevia's dual tuners are both (NTSC)ATSC/QAM.

Quote:
It might be possible on one of these sets to get PIP with cable by splitting the cable line in, with one split line to the antenna connection and the other to the cable box or else an off the air antenna to the antenna input and cable into a cable box connected by component or HDMI. This would limit you, however, to only to QAM or off-the-air channels for one of your PIP sources.

I believe that's how PiP is accomplished with all of the other single-tuner sets with the PiP feature. You simply have to hook up something else with a tuner to one of the PiP sources and cable box to the HDMI/component connectors. That works, (and what I may apparently have to end up doing) but it's not nearly as convenient and user-friendly.

Quote:
Pioneer sets do have PIP, but the smallest is 50".

Yeah, saw 'em.

Awesome, but much too large for the room. Maybe I could knock out a wall. LOL.

Thanks.

 

[JazzGuyy]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Clint S. /forum/post/15464651


No there's a few, very few, that have true dual tuner PiP, I mentioned two in my post. I didn't look at the Audiovox very well because of the name, but the Olevia's dual tuners are both (NTSC)ATSC/QAM.



I believe that's how PiP is accomplished with all of the other single-tuner sets with the PiP feature. You simply have to hook up something else with a tuner to one of the PiP sources and cable box to the HDMI/component connectors. That works, (and what I may apparently have to end up doing) but it's not nearly as convenient and user-friendly.



Yeah, saw 'em.

Awesome, but much too large for the room. Maybe I could knock out a wall. LOL.

Thanks.

Those two choices are hardly great though. Audiovox is hardly a brand known for quality and Olevia's financial status is still open to question. I know they have "reorganized" but is the brand still viable?


50" really isn't all that big unless your room is very, very small.

 

[mkoesel]



Quote:
Originally Posted by JazzGuyy /forum/post/15464448


Pioneer sets do have PIP, but the smallest is 50".

Pioneer displays do have PIP, but they don't have dual tuners to my knowledge.


OP, let's break this down - first, you are looking for a 47" or smaller 1080p plasma display. Never mind PIP for a moment. Your only options right now are Panasonic models. No other company has a 1080p model less than 50".


So, here is the list:


TH-42PZ80U

TH-42PZ85U

TH-42PZ800U

TH-C42FD18

TH-42PF11UK


TH-46PZ80U

TH-46PZ85U

TH-46PZ800U

TH-46PZ850U

TH-C46FD18


Of those, I am pretty sure only the 800U, 850U, and 11UK have PIP. None have dual tuners.


If I recall correctly (and you should check the manuals) the 800U and 850U require one of the PIP sources to be the built in tuner. This means, for example, you cannot dual tune two digital cable or two digital satellite feeds since both of those will require external boxes.


That leaves just the 11UK, which only comes in 42" (no 46" yet unfortunately). This display has no internal tuners at all. But it does have some very, very sophisticated PIP functions including overlays and PAP, POP, PIP, etc.

 

[batpig]

it seems like these days most PIP is handled by your cable/sat box. I have Cox Cable in San Diego and I can do dual-tuner PIP with my Scientific Atlanta Cable box.


Almost no TV's have dual tuners built in for this and other reasons discussed above.


As mkoesel suggests, your best option may be a Panasonic Pro set + two external tuners. The UK's have awesome PIP functionality.


Otherwise, you could try getting a consumer set and using an external DVR/cable box + the internal tuner. Split the cable signal, use the TV's internal tuner to tune one channel, and the external box for the other.

 

[Clint S.]



Quote:
Originally Posted by JazzGuyy /forum/post/15465174


Those two choices are hardly great though. Audiovox is hardly a brand known for quality and Olevia's financial status is still open to question. I know they have "reorganized" but is the brand still viable?

Exactly, that's why I said "Neither of which are 'stellar' TV's." Olevia/Syntax "assured" me they would be around, but they're going to say that regardless.

Quote:
50" really isn't all that big unless your room is very, very small.

It is.

The 42" I just got my mother for her master bedroom is "massive". You have to get at least 10' away from a 42"+ set for it to look decent. What's stupid is I've found numerous 22-32" sets with dual tuners! Then practically none from 37-47", then there's some larger than 50" that have it! I don't get the gap there.

 

[mkoesel]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Clint S. /forum/post/15472380


You have to get at least 10' away from a 42"+ set for it to look decent.

Hmm, that's a pretty strong statement. I think if you did a poll on this forum, you'd find that over 90% of people will disagree with that.

 

[Clint S.]



Quote:
Originally Posted by mkoesel /forum/post/15466047


Pioneer displays do have PIP, but they don't have dual tuners to my knowledge.

I believe some of them do, it may not be the latest models though since manufacturers love to go backwards with losing features. I didn't ponder on it or look deeper due to the size.

Quote:
OP, let's break this down - first, you are looking for a 47" or smaller 1080p plasma display. Never mind PIP for a moment. Your only options right now are Panasonic models. No other company has a 1080p model less than 50".

Thank you, that's the kind of info I needed to know.

Quote:
So, here is the list:


TH-42PZ80U

TH-42PZ85U

TH-42PZ800U

TH-C42FD18

TH-42PF11UK


Of those, I am pretty sure only the 800U, 850U, and 11UK have PIP. None have dual tuners.

According to them, there's no such thing as the TH-42PZ800U! Search their site and "No results found"! WTF? I search for it at a search engine, and one of their pages shows up, but it's blank! The only way you can see it is using a G cached link http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:...=us&lr=lang_en , and you can't get any manual for it nor can you even click the "Specs", also blank (in both browsers!). So who knows what its specs are!

Quote:
If I recall correctly (and you should check the manuals) the 800U and 850U require one of the PIP sources to be the built in tuner. This means, for example, you cannot dual tune two digital cable or two digital satellite feeds since both of those will require external boxes.

According the manuals the 80U and 85U don't have any kind of PiP. I finally found a manual for the 800U (42") and it also doesn't have any kind of PiP.

I can only find mention of a TH-42PZ850U here at this forum and in various blogs, apparently it doesn't exist.

 

[Clint S.]



Quote:
Originally Posted by mkoesel /forum/post/15472422


Hmm, that's a pretty strong statement. I think if you did a poll on this forum, you'd find that over 90% of people will disagree with that.

I should have said LCD. I haven't seen a plasma yet, but of all the LCD's I've seen, my statement is true, for me at least. I can see all kinds of "artifacting" that resembles some kind of jpg compression. It looks like what you see in a jpg image that's been compressed a little too much. Also each pixel seems to be "crawling" like billions of maggots or ants moving around. I have to get far away from the TV in order for it to start to look decent. I would "guess" this is not the case with plasma. If that's true, then I guess I'd be open to some 50" plasma sets that otherwise fit my criteria.

 

[JazzGuyy]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Clint S. /forum/post/15472703


According to them, there's no such thing as the TH-42PZ800U!

Panasonic has discontinued their sub-50" TVs in the 800 and 850 series. There used to be both 42" and 46" in these series. There are still some around at dealers but none of them have PIP that I am aware of.

 

[mkoesel]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Clint S. /forum/post/15472739


I should have said LCD. I haven't seen a plasma yet, but of all the LCD's I've seen, my statement is true, for me at least.

I suspected, however I did not want to bias my post with that assumption. That said, it's likely that there are LCD's out there that would perform better, but perhaps not in your desired price bracket.

Quote:
I would "guess" this is not the case with plasma. If that's true, then I guess I'd be open to some 50" plasma sets that otherwise fit my criteria.

There is still some dot crawl on my plasma, but I don't notice it unless I am really close. Also, a proper calibration would probably help this, as well as a cleaner source, or at least a clean-up of the source such as through a good outboard vido processor.

 

[Clint S.]

I'm looking at the Pio PDP-5020FD plasma right now, but even the manual mentions nothing about two tuner PiP. It does "sound" like it might, MIGHT, but doesn't say so. Does anyone know for sure whether or not it has dual tuners? I could have sworn I saw that it did, but I can't find the info right now. The 111FD is bit out of my range. Both have the same PiP area in the manuals (they do not use the term "PiP" but use "P-in-P" and "Picture-in-picture" so I couldn't find the info when searching for just "pip").

 

[mkoesel]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Clint S. /forum/post/15472703


According to them, there's no such thing as the TH-42PZ800U!

As someone else mentioned, it appears Panasonic has discontinued some of the 2008 models now, probably because 2009 models are about to be announced and should start shipping early spring.

Quote:
So who knows what its specs are!

Well, the specs were identical to the larger models of the same number, such as the 50PZ800U and 50PZ850U. However, I checked the manuals and indeed it does appears that they do not have PIP any more. I think that the prior models, the 7XX series, did have PIP still and this is probably what I was remembering. It looks like Panasonic has completely dropped PIP from all consumer models now though.

Quote:
I can only find mention of a TH-42PZ850U here at this forum and in various blogs, apparently it doesn't exist.

Yeah, there was never a 42" in the 850 series sold in the US. There is a 46" though, and it is still available and can still be seen on panasonic.com. But like I said above, it doesn't have PIP anyway, so its not going to work for you. Your only option, then, is the TH-42PF11UK, if you truly want a 1080p plasma display that is smaller than 50" and can do PIP. If you go to 50" and above there might be more options. Pioneer appears to be one. I am not up on the specs of all the other brands, especially the Korean brands (Samsung and LG) and their associated third-tier counterparts (Vizio, etc.).

 

[JazzGuyy]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Clint S. /forum/post/15473071


I'm looking at the Pio PDP-5020FD plasma right now, but even the manual mentions nothing about two tuner PiP. It does "sound" like it might, MIGHT, but doesn't say so. Does anyone know for sure whether or not it has dual tuners? I could have sworn I saw that it did, but I can't find the info right now. The 111FD is bit out of my range. Both have the same PiP area in the manuals (they do not use the term "PiP" but use "P-in-P" and "Picture-in-picture" so I couldn't find the info when searching for just "pip").

These sets don't have dual tuners. One PIP source must be through the antenna connection and utilize the TV's HD or QAM tuner and the other source can be anything else. You could thus connect an external antenna or a split signal from the cable for off-the-air or unscrambled cable HD and a cable box connected via component or HDMI and it should work. I haven't tried it on my Pioneer but the feature is there.

 

[mkoesel]



Quote:
Originally Posted by JazzGuyy /forum/post/15473429


You could thus connect an external antenna or a split signal from the cable for off-the-air or unscrambled cable HD and a cable box connected via component or HDMI and it should work. I haven't tried it on my Pioneer but the feature is there.

The only problem with that is that you can't watch two encrypted cable channels at once though.

I suppose, though, that this might not matter to the OP since he was originally asking for dual tuner TVs and those would not allow him to tune encrypted digital cable either (unless he meant cable-card compatible, but that feature is probably even less common than PIP these days).


However, for another option, I am nearly sure that the Signature series Pioneer models actually allow PIP for any of the inputs, since they don't have internal tuners. Again, though, you'd need two cable boxes. And of course the signature series models are pretty pricey.

 

[Clint S.]



Quote:
Originally Posted by JazzGuyy /forum/post/15473429


These sets don't have dual tuners. One PIP source must be through the antenna connection and utilize the TV's HD or QAM tuner and the other source can be anything else. You could thus connect an external antenna or a split signal from the cable for off-the-air or unscrambled cable HD and a cable box connected via component or HDMI and it should work. I haven't tried it on my Pioneer but the feature is there.

If they don't have dual tuners then I'd like know why Pioneer claims "Advanced picture in picture" on these sets. There's nothing "advanced" about one tuner. And they lead you believe in the manual it's two tuners:
"4.4.1 Split/Swap/Shift the Screen

To split the screen so that two channels appear, press the SPLIT button on the remote control. Each press of the button cycles the screen through two-screen, picture-in-picture, and single-screen views.

To switch the images between screen sides/locations, press the SWAP button."


Yes, what you describe is the only way others are getting PiP on single-tuner sets.