[lee3]

I was about 4 hours from purchasing the panny 50 inch about 3 months ago and then familiarized myself with dvi connection with this site which postponed the purchase. In the meantime, I've been able to see the fujitsu 50 and generally prefer that picture. A few questions:


The room I would put my plasma recieves a ton of light in the morning as one side of the room is floor to ceiling windows- will this severely degrade the picture and if so are some brands better than others at handling ambient light.


Next question: I was at a pals home this weekend who own the 50 inch fujitsu and saw the oak/tenn game sunday night thru direct tv in high def- stunning. On monday, since we live in san francisco the only way to see the high def broadcast was with a pitiful antenna. There were dropouts and I'm shocked that this is the technology he is forced to use to receive broadcasts in high def. As I understant it, direct tv has about 5 channels with high def broadcast (as told by my friend) but doesn't have the bandwidth to add much more??? What are all the rest of you using for high def. I believe san fran is way behind the rest of the country as even our cable system doesn't offer high def. Do you actually use rabbit ears for these signal? Lastly, anyone know if there is an all in one high def reciever with driect tv and tivo? Tripp, said they do not exist. I want desperately to get a plasma but have been frustrated for the better part of 2 years at the concerns with certain models and now the nonsense I witnessed to receive a non-direct tv high def signal in san fran. Thanks in advance for any help or clarity you can add to my confusion.

 

[SteveO2]

For your question about HD DTV, go to DirecTV's site at: directv.com/DTVAPP/imagine/HDTV.jsp


SteveO

 

[HDTV888]

1. Post your location, San Fran, under your name. Much easier for others to help you.

2. Where are you in San Fran, do you have a direct sight to Sutro tower. If so, all you need is a cheap UHF indoor antenna. The most common one is the Radio Shack double bow tie, $15. It's much smaller than "rabbit ears". For bad reception areas you may need an outdoor antenna.

3. Go buy your plasma, buy the DirecTV STB that includes OTA, connect the antenna, connect the Oval DirecTV dish with 3 LNB, and you'll get every HD channel there is. There is nothing wrong with going back to the good old days of antenna, the channels are free!

4. Continue reading this forum, Enjoy!

 

[lee3]

hdtv999, I'm on top of telegraph hill. I actually called comcast and they said i would have hdtv cable by year end in my zip code (whether that's true or not who knows.) So, probably the best scenario for me is to jsut buy the plasma and forego hdtv for a few months and keep satellite for all of my sport packages and use cable for hdtv. They have 6 hdtv channes (ijncluding espn, but not discovery) for $50/per month. That seems easier than buying an hdtv/direct tv receiver for $700 and then having to buy another one with tivo for $1k next year when they are released.


Still wondering if ambient light is worse on plasma than prjection tv's and if so are some brands better for dealing with ambient light than others. thx

 

[Eternity]

All plasma will handle ambient light much better than projection TVs. Plasma's are bright enough that you will probably not run it in full "torch" mode. Or, possibly, you will want to have an early morning "sunlight" setting with everything turned "up" and then a more normal setting for the rest of the day.

 

[JimSD]

Quote:

Originally posted by lee3 Still wondering if ambient light is worse on plasma than prjection tv's and if so are some brands better for dealing with ambient light than others. thx

We have a 42" Panasonic in a room that has mostly windows on one side that gets lots of light in the afternoon. The brightness of the picture is fine, but it can get a lot of glare on the screen. If you start looking for the glare it can be very distracting, but it you can ignore it your eyes seem to compensate and you don't really notice it. Definitely something that will be different for each individual. One nice thing about the wide viewing angles of the plasma is that I have found a sitting spot that is at quite an angle and use this location when watching during the daylight glare. There is no glare from that angle so it works out perfectly. The glare is no different than what we had on a flat screen Sony Wega CRT, it's just that the screen is bigger so there is more space for glare. Now I've spent a long paragraph on glare, but really it's not something that bothers or concerns me so it's not a problem.

 

[MattyP]

I have southern exposure and floor to ceiling windows in our living room. With my old CRT, it was difficult to watch TV during the daytime.


I bought a plasma and the ambient light issue has gone away completely - in fact that was one of the reason's I wanted to get a plasma in the first place.

 

[Descolada]

To expand on the viewing angle tip that Jim mentions, one of the great parts about a plasma is that you can mount it to the wall on an articulating arm mount (I have the Peerless), and if glare becomes a problem from your favorite seating position you can always pull the display out from the wall and angle it away from the wall that has all the windows... I get a lot of light in my living room from different angles at different times of the day, so if I ever notice a little too much glare from where I'm sitting I get up and give the plasma a quick twist, and problem gone...

 

[mattgoff]

OK, I could use some antenna help. I'm in SF at Union/Jones, nearly at the top of Russian Hill, but on the wrong side for line-of-sight to Sutro tower. A rooftop antenna is out of the question (strict landlords), or I'd probably just get one of the satellite options. Hopefully Comcast will get their act together soon-- they said that they were bringing HDTV to this neighborhood "next month." (Which was actually last month, but no change in the party line yet).


I bought the Zenith Silver Streak, but have been unsuccessful getting any HDTV signal at all. In fact, I'm questioning if I'm doing it right. Will my TV automatically detect the HDTV signal and select it over the analog version? My TV manual doesn't mention anything, but it's a little on the thin side IMHO. Any tips on placement, tuning, or if I should just give up and wait for ComcastHD are appreciated.


Matt

 

[GlenH]

Quote:

Originally posted by mattgoff I bought the Zenith Silver Streak, but have been unsuccessful getting any HDTV signal at all. In fact, I'm questioning if I'm doing it right. Will my TV automatically detect the HDTV signal and select it over the analog version? My TV manual doesn't mention anything, but it's a little on the thin side IMHO. Any tips on placement, tuning, or if I should just give up and wait for ComcastHD are appreciated. Matt

What kind of TV do you have? The vast majority of HDTVs do not have a built in HD tuner. In fact, if you have a plasma, I know of no plasmas available today with a built in HD tuner.


Thus, what you need to receive OTA HD is a separate HD tuner which will run you about $300 to $400 for OTA stations only. Then, hook up a UHF antenna to the HD tuner, run the component cables or DVI cable to your TV.


The HD channels are on the digital stations and if set up correctly, you will have an analog station and a separate digital station. For instance, in my area, CBS, NBC and ABC are on channels 2, 4, and 7. The digital stations are channels 2.1, 4.1, and 7.1.


So, your TV would not automatically detect and select the HD channel over the analog channel. You would either have to select the HD channel by pressing "2 - dot - 1" instead of just channel 2. Or, you can also block out the analog channels on the tuner so you can just surf the digital channels.


Additionally, depending on your area, the digital stations may not be mapped to the channel x.1 prefix. For instance, in Los Angeles, CA, digital CBS is actually channel 60. When the HD tuner scans for channels, it picks up channel 60 and recognizes that it is digital CBS and automatically maps it to channel 2.1. Sometimes, the tuner does not pick up all the digital stations and you would have to input it manually. For instance, my tuner did not pick up the local Fox digital station. Fox is on channel 11 here. Before I could pick up digital channel 11.1, I had to look it up (digital Fox is actually channel 65 in my area), enter channel 65 in my tuner and it automatically mapped that channel to 11.1. You can find out what digital channels are available in your area by punching in your zip code at this website. If you give a precise address, it even tells you what type of antenna you would need to receive each particular station:

http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Address.asp


Just because a station broadcasts digitally, it does not always broadcast in true HD. Much of the stuff you see may be upconverted standard definiton material with black bars on the side.


Glen

 

[mattgoff]

Duh-- now I feel dumb again


At one point, I "knew" that my plasma only had NTSC tuners, but somehow forgot it in all of my excitement. Now I have a hard decision to make. I can buy the digital tuner, I can cross my fingers and wait for Comcast to get their act together, or I can try to sneak a dish on a tripod up onto the roof.


I'm not too excited about dropping another $300+ on a tuner, so I'm leaning towards one of the latter two options. I finally spoke to someone who seemed knowledgable at Comcast and they claim that my zipcode is supposed to be upgraded to the new network "before the end of the year."


I mean, I knew this HDTV (well, EDTV, really) would be a money-pit, but... really!


Thanks,

Matt