[jgreen171]

ok, after receiving advice from members of avsforum i purchased my first television ever this week. the one i chose, in keeping with my needs and budget, is a used SAMSUNG DynaFlat 27" TXM2796HF. i don't have anything to compare it with, since i have never really bothered to look at HDTVs even in the stores.


My first impressions are this: i love how my ps2 looks on the hdtv, its probably worth the price tag just for such a nice difference. i just wish the ps2 had a prog. scan DVD player, i hear that new models will have this feature.


As for cable tv...im fairly dissapointed. i think that the high resolution of the tv is actually demonstrating a lot of imperfections in the video itself. either that or i have the tv misconfigured, which is quite possible too.


dvds...i cant tell yet, because i havent used a progressive scan tv yet.


one thing that did make me curious was when i walked up close to the tv and looked at the dots (i forget what they're called) that make up the tv screen. i noticed that on my 20" Dell CRT computer monitor, the dots look like they are MUCH smaller and closer together than even the dots on the HDTV. I assume this means that the monitor displays a much sharper picture than my HDTV is capable of.


Can anyone tell me, am i correct about this, and second, are there HDTVs that have this increased dot density? Do they cost a lot more? I'm guessing they must look incredibly good.

 

[Xcalibur_255]

Yep, tvs have less dot pitch than monitors do, i.e. less pixels per line of resolution. Sony's XBR910 has the finest dot pitch of all the tubes at the moment. Whether your dvd player is progressive or not the image shown on your set will be, the tv will upconvert the interlaced dvd signal to 480p progressive on its own. A GOOD pro-scan dvd player can improve the picture, but not by a lot. Cable will look inferior, as you noted it is bringing out the poor signal quality. Having brightness/contrast/sharpness levels on the set turned up too high will amplify this effect. Invest in a calibration disc such as Digital Video Essentials (about 15 bucks), or AVIA (about 40 bucks), and calibrate your picture. It'll be the best 15 bucks you ever spent.

 

[Orta]

I believe you're looking for the SCPH-50001 (PS2). It's been out for a few months now, Sony kinda just snuck it out there. Anyways, paying another $180 probably isn't the best solution unless your just a really big fan of converging your devices into one. Like Xcali said, the TV's line doubler should be pro-scanning the images your current PS2's outputing, but I am of the opinion that even those $50 DVD players do a better job than the TV's. As far as cable's concerned, indeed, it looks crappy on everyone's set. You should be able to clean it up considerably by dropping the sharpness and employing the various noise reducing features in the menu's (Samsung's usually come equipped with some pretty good ones).

 

[Bob Dycus]

I have a Toshiba HD ready TV. If I feed it a 480I signal to the component inputs from my DVD player, it does the 3:2 pulldown on the signal and converts it to 480P.


I cannot tell the difference between the TV or the DVD player doing the 3:2 pulldown. Your set will do the same thing, so you really don't need a progressive scan DVD player. The TV will do the conversion just as good as a DVD player would do.

 

[ThumperBoy]

If you get a high quality progressive player with a top-rated de-interlacer it will be superior to using interlaced. Only the cheaper under $250 models are no better.

 

[Xcalibur_255]

What Thumperboy said. FWIW, IMO I have never seen a noise reduction or artifact reduction feature on a tv that did more good than harm. They mask artifacts at the expense of softening the picture and reducing resolution. The less picture "enhancement" features you have on, the better, as it will give you a more natural picture. DNR, Scan Velocity Modulation, Auto Color, Auto Contrast, etc., are all evil in my opinion.

 

[Orta]

"They mask artifacts at the expense of softening the picture and reducing resolution."


Oh yes, no doubt, but why should you be concerned with that on a sub-par analog cable signal? Depending on the strength, there are instances (or specific channels), where this isn't desired, but lets face it, there are some pretty nasty feeds being piped into homes. My current service seems to be having one hell of a time pulling in a couple of the local network affiliates at a decent quality, but most of the cable channels are reasonably clean. I assume this, and similar divisions, aren't uncommon among providers and regions.

 

[Bremerton]

those Samsungs Display a really lousy picture for Digital Cable and Sattelite in 480i and 480p, I suggest leaving it in 480i for regular TV(if you have a cable box) I know what you mean its so lousy in fact it looks like your streaming Windows Media Player on your computer! I feel for you I use to own the Samsung HD TXN model and I returned it just for that reason, now people will tell you that the Televisions is just showing how poor analog and digital cable signals really are but i beg to differ because my TV I exchanged the Samsung for(Went through 3 Samsungs) the Zenith C32V37 HDTV looks amazing in regular analog and digital cable NON HD signals this problem seems to be isolated to the Samsung models-Yes its that bad of a picture!