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Discussion starter · #42 ·
So you do have a 50"?


I still think some motion issues will be there but hopefully they'll be dramatically reduced. I'll know tomorrow I hope. If that fails, I'll give a VERY quick look a plasma (I don't think they're in my range even for a 42 for what I'd want and the burn-in would still be a concern) and if that fails I'll just let the order for the 40" XBR tube go through.
 
My 20" Sony V50 is the best looking picture of any TV in the house for SD, including the GWII. But, the 20" doesn't exactly give you that theater feel. My point here is, that the smaller pictures are inherently going to look better if the set is of fairly high quality.


Assuming you don't stretch you SD on the GWII, you are looking at roughly a 50" picture (diagonally), compared to about 35" (realistically) for your 36" tube, which is around double the screen area, meaning that you would have to sit twice as far away from the GWII as the 36" tube in order for the comparison to be fair. I suspect you are probably looking at your 36" from maybe 10 feet away. I don't know about yours, but my GWII looks absolutely incredible at 20 feet away, like looking at a picture, even in SD mode.


This isn't the fault of the TV, it's that the SD picture quality is so poor, and the compression artifacts only make the problem worse. This is where HD comes into play. It allows you to sit closer to the TV while maintaining the same effective element/pixel size, thus enhancing the theater experience. SD simply cannot give the theater experience as you have to sit so far away to make it not look like crap.


You need to think of bigger TV's as nothing more than a magifying glass over a little low-resolution TV, because that is all you are really getting when you feed it SD signals. No matter how good the technology gets, low-res SD programming is going to look bad when magnified onto a 60" screen and you sitting right next to it.


For fun, do this, hit the picture-and-picture button on the remote and create two equal-sized pictures, put one of them to an unused input so it is simply black, then resize the other one to be 35" diagonally, then compare that picture quality to that of your 35" tube from your normal sitting position. I think you will find it fairly comparable in terms of sharpness, color, artifacting, etc. The tube will likely look a bit better due to better contrast and a brighter picture. Let's face it, it is tough to beat modern tube technology, but unfortunately tube-technology has reached it's limit in terms of size, if you want the bigger picture that HD and DVD sources can support, then you are going to have to sacrafice a little bit right now, but not near as much as you think you have sacraficed.
 
I have a 60xbr800. While I understand your points, I don't see anything different on it (blurring, motion artifacts, etc.) that I didn't see on my 57XBR10W (CRT based RPTV). If the GWII were my first HD set, I might think the "problems" you seem to associate with the GWII are problems with the set.


The picture quality and clarity are better on the GWII than it was on the CRT based tv. Even if you get a direct view model, I think you'll still have the same problems. The only difference will be that they will be covered up by the smaller screen. In doing a direct comparison, use a similar distance for viewing (same multiple of screen height to distance, for example 4X). That is the only fair way to do a comparison.


How far away are you from the set (viewing distance)?
 
Discussion starter · #45 ·
Quote:
Originally posted by BagMan

This isn't the fault of the TV, it's that the SD picture quality is so poor, and the compression artifacts only make the problem worse. This is where HD comes into play. It allows you to sit closer to the TV while maintaining the same effective element/pixel size, thus enhancing the theater experience. SD simply cannot give the theater experience as you have to sit so far away to make it not look like crap.

Compression artifacts are not my biggest complaint. Those I am used to and they can be dealt with. What I'm complaining about is a) sharpness, b) washed out picture and most importantly c) motion blur.


I have a 12" laptop that shows motion blur on games. Size isn't the issue there. Sharpness may be related to size but I had concerns about it at the store looking at the 50" before going for the 60". A washed out picture also seems to have very little to do with size. There are washed out pictures on TV's of every size.


If SD pictures were all that I was concerned about, I could have easily waited that out, chalked it up to that and enjoyed each new HDTV channel that came along. But again, watching the Flyers in 1080i the other night was not enjoyable. You could feel the eye fatigue. So if there is going to be a problem at SD and issues at 1080i, sorry, but there isn't going to be much in the way of a solution there.

Quote:
For fun, do this, hit the picture-and-picture button on the remote and create two equal-sized pictures, put one of them to an unused input so it is simply black, then resize the other one to be 35" diagonally, then compare that picture quality to that of your 35" tube from your normal sitting position. I think you will find it fairly comparable in terms of sharpness, color, artifacting, etc.
I did that right off the bat and you're incorrect. First, even though the picture is smaller, the pixels are not smaller. The image being displayed is just a smaller subset of a larger picture. Plus, if they're reducing the picture, they're going to introduce their own issues into it. It didn't look comparable to my 36" set and suffered from much the same trouble. The only thing I didn't try at that size was to see how motion blur was impacted.

Quote:
if you want the bigger picture that HD and DVD sources can support, then you are going to have to sacrafice a little bit right now, but not near as much as you think you have sacraficed.
What I cannot sacrifice is an enjoyable experience and neither my wife or I enjoyed watching that hockey game. As I noted very early on, people would see my 36" XBR and say "WOW, what a stunning picture." And that's not HDTV and 4:3. Now, everyone who sees this picture is very mixed about it. No one, and we're talking normal mainstream people here, has said, "Wow" yet. Not one. Most say, "That looks really washed out" or "Why isn't the picture very sharp?"


I don't think that's what anyone had in mind when it came to sacrificing something.


In response to not seeing anything different on this set than on a CRT-based RPTV, I entirely disagree. There were NO motion blur problems on the RPTV's I had. And I sit 12' from the TV. Motion blur is a well-known LCD by-product. It manifests itself on this set easily. Just bring up a Tivo menu and presto, you see it. You will not see that on a CRT-based RPTV and mine was a 65" so it should have been even more prevalent.
 
Quote:
In response to not seeing anything different on this set than on a CRT-based RPTV, I entirely disagree. There were NO motion blur problems on the RPTV's I had. And I sit 12' from the TV. Motion blur is a well-known LCD by-product. It manifests itself on this set easily. Just bring up a Tivo menu and presto, you see it. You will not see that on a CRT-based RPTV and mine was a 65" so it should have been even more prevalent.
So, you had an HDTV prior to your LCD HDTV? Am I reading your statement correctly?
 
Discussion starter · #47 ·
Quote:
Originally posted by CCsoftball7
So, you had an HDTV prior to your LCD HDTV? Am I reading your statement correctly?
That's correct. I own a 36" XBR250 tube TV 4:3 so HDTV and widescreen have been of interest to me for a while.


I then went into Tweeter for another reason and saw how much the quality of the CRT-based RPTV's had improved so I bought one (a KP-65WV700). Tweeter delivered it and it died in 48 hours. In addition, I HATED the gray bars that appeared on the 4:3 shows, also hated the stretch modes and most of all hated the burn-in issues. I had people telling me to watch different news shows to avoid burning in logos and such. I am not having a TV dictate what I watch to me. So, when they delivered the dead units replacement and it had a horrible picture (the first one was just fine with respect to the picture), I went directly to Tweeter to tell them I wasn't happy. They then showed me the 50XBR800 and I mentioned my concerns about dead pixels and motion blur but they assured me that wouldn't be a problem so I ordered the 60" version.


I got it delivered and it was a problem. Several dead pixels that can be seen from 12' away and motion blur so bad that it ruined watching TV.
 
OK. I still think you have a bad set. I am extremely picky and am quite satisfied with the change from CRT based RPTV to the LCD.
 
Points well taken. The 35" picture and picture comparison may not entirely work-out. I was assuming that at 35", the GWII would have enough resolution to still display the full detail of the low-resolution image (which it may), but it won't be a perfect ratio and you will almost certainly get some stretch/compression issues.


The only thing you have to go by then is to stand the same distance ratio from the two sets. This isn't likely to happen unless you have a room 20 ft long.


Another thing you have going against you is how fantastic the 36xbr2 set is. That is a fantastic television, and tube-technology is still way ahead of any big-screen technology in terms of picture quality.


Like I said before, if you want a screen big enough for a theater like experience, then you are probably going to have to sacrafice a few things. Personally, I sit 15'-16' from my GWII (just measured it) and I am blown away by the picture (of course, I didn't have a 36xbr2 sitting there before, so....).


My kids (4 of them) absolutely love the TV, they have the PS/2 on one input, and the GameCube on the other, then the put it in split-screen mode and everybody is happy (you get a really decent size picture and picture with the wide screen).


I can't tell you how many times I have walked into the room and found that the kids have left the game paused on the screen. The whole family came home from Sea World the other day and the kids had left a blank (black) video input on the screen the entire time we were gone. Not a problem, except for that bright green (VIDEO 2) in the corner that had been sitting there literally all day. I can't tell you how happy I am that this TV doens't have burn-in issues...that feature alone is worth a mountain of other sacrafices for me.


But, to each his own. I haven't noticed any motion blur, but then again, I haven't watched any sports yet. Though again, at 15'+ away I am doubting much is going to bother me.


The one thing I do notice is the lack of details in the dark scenes, like harry-potter often is. But, I haven't done the UMR tweaks yet, and was playing the DVD through the PS/2 connected via composite video, and I still find it quite acceptable, so I am not too worried.


I guess I just may not be as picky as some. If you consider yourself an average joe that wants a great TV, I wouldn't hestitate to buy this one. If you consider yourself a hard-core videophile, then there certainly may be a few issues that disappoint you (but then again, every set will).



(ps, maybe you just have a bad tv too...)
 
Discussion starter · #50 ·
That seems to be the biggest issue. Everyone keeps talking about expectations being to high and such. Well, it's not as if I'm looking at an image in a lake and thinking that my next TV should look better than that. What my wife and I are hoping for is something that approaches the clarity and presentation of what we already had, just in 16:9 and preferably a bit bigger.


It would appear from most posts and experience that such a thing does not currently exist. I can get it by going with the 34" XBR widescreen tube but that screen is tiny. I don't think there's anything wrong with using a tube to measure up other technologies against. You don't compare a new car you consider against a stagecoach. Once you have a point of reference, you work from there. It does seem that this is more of a mainstream consumer approach. Enthusiast are almost as much into the concept of a new technology as they are into the picture. The rest of us don't give a hoot about the technology and only care about the picture.


I think the XBR800 LCD stuff is exciting and capable of some great things but, in comparison, it falls well short of the intended goal. People WILL compare the output to what they see today.


I also agree with you on perspective. You didn't have the XBR sitting in that spot before. Two other friends with XBR tubes have also tried other technologies hoping to go bigger and widescreen and both ended up back with their XBR's and a new respect for how good their picture is.


On the burn-in issue, I too was quite relieved to have that. I have an 8 year-old and he does that continually. Plus, I have yet to see regular TV look anywhere near as good as it does just presented 4:3 with bars. That this TV can present it that way with non-distracting BLACK bars is a major plus.


If not for the negatives, in our view, overriding the positives, the TV would be here without question. But it's just too big a hill for us to get over at this point.


I also don't think anything is wrong with the TV as it appears very much the same as the several I've now seen in several showrooms.


My GUESS is that LCOS and Sony's version of it are likely my best bet. I think I need something to bridge the gap between now and when that can be had for $5,000 or less with all the bells and whistles. Yes, Toshiba has their set but it appears to have no discreets and is still out of the price range. I figure I'm 24 months away from being able to get something that will address all my concerns.
 
So you are not going to try the 50" ??? :(


I really think that your 60" is way to big for your viewing distance. It would be different if it were a CRT based set, but with these LCD's, the 'sweet spot' is definitely back a few feet. I can't remember if you are unable to move your setup back a few feet. But, if you can...


Like we had discussed, I had a 65" Toshiba CRT and sat about 9 ft. and it was fine. Sitting 9 ft. from my 50" GWII is not. Moving back to 12 ft. is perfect. You could get away with 9 to 10 ft. with the 50" but to me is got even sharper and smoother after 10 ft. I just can't imaging the 60" at 9 ft. I totally think that with your current viewing distance, your expectations, and your comparisons with your tube XBR, it's no wonder you are not enjoying this set !!!! I don't blame you in the least. I would probably have the exact same opinion.
 
Discussion starter · #52 ·
Quote:
Originally posted by Spooky
So you are not going to try the 50" ??? :(
I spent the day at Tweeter as I mentioned and brought in all my gear (Avia, DVD's, XBox, etc.) and hooked them up to the 50". As luck would have it, they had a DVD with various sports on it including hockey. We tried everything out on various sets (I moved the 50" all over the showroom ) and with 3 of us there, it was unanimous with regard to the results. Two of us saw motion effects quite easily while the third person didn't see them or was not impacted by them. What we all agreed on was that the picture on the Pioneer Elite RPTV was significantly better. They cut me a major deal on it so I decided to go that way until this technology matures a bit. I figure 2 years. So, I ended up getting a great deal on a nice set, though it too is not perfect but it only needs to carry me 2-4 years and then I should meet up with LCOS or whatever is next at just the right time. There are MANY things I will miss from this set. The size, the look, the features. But I just could not get away from the motion problem. For me it was extreme and it was enough to go in another direction.

Quote:
I can't remember if you are unable to move your setup back a few feet. But, if you can...
Not an option right now. In a few years we plan to blow out the back of the family room another 10' so then we will be able to.

Quote:
I totally think that with your current viewing distance, your expectations, and your comparisons with your tube XBR, it's no wonder you are not enjoying this set !!!! I don't blame you in the least. I would probably have the exact same opinion.
Well, I can't begin to thank you enough for the help and hope we're able to discuss the next round and how it all goes as well. This all reminds me of a phone purchase I just went through. I needed a good 2-line phone for home business work. I tried just about everything out there and then went for a $300 Siemens phone. It had every feature you could want, looked great, etc. But as a phone, it just didn't work well for me (its voicemail light wouldn't go on when I had voicemail and call waiting causes the volume on the phone to increase, among other things) and that was enough for me to go in another direction. This feels very much the same way. I am coming to the conclusion that nothing I buy right now is going to meet my biggest needs so that's why I'm TRYING the stop-gap measure. This one I think I can live with for the period of time involved. I'll be watching the situation with SXRB very closely. I suspect the next GW set or two will be what I'm looking for, or VERY CLOSE to what I'm looking for.
 
Well, we'll miss you an the GWII threads. ;)


But I hope you find the Elite a much better fit for you. They are very nice sets, that's for sure.


What size did you end up with ?
 
Discussion starter · #54 ·
Still deciding between the 58" and 53". I think it'll be the 53" (have to decide today for delivery tomorrow, both are in stock) given the discussion on viewing distance.
 
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