[shaka999]

Hey all,


So I'm trying to decide on what size of screen to get. After doing a lot of Googling, I still can't decide. I've looked at articles and calculator and they all give different answers. It really seems to come down to the video source. If your just running Blu-Ray then go big. HDTV, a bit smaller. DVD a bit smaller. SDTV smaller yet again.


The solution seems so obvious that I'm sure I'm missing something. For all I know its already offered, but why don't the large sets offer built in scaling based on the source? If I'm watching an SDTV show then scale it down to what would be ideal. If I have Blu-Ray then use the full screen....


Is this feature available?


Thanks

 

[mes444]

You are overthinking this. SD looks OK on an HD tv being fed a good signal, one not over compressed (Verizon FIOS does a very good job delivering uncompressed signals), using an hd box as this improves all signals being received, using component cables rather than HDMI, sd looks better coming in over component, (at least that is my experience). You ofcourse want to maximize HD viewing, but regular dvds being played on bluray look great if well transferred and more and more channels are being offered in HD, so SD should be a secondary consideration, again, just my opinion.


The tv scales any signal it receives to its own native resolution, so your sd signals will be upscaled, you can't control that. SD shows will be in the 4:3 format, so they are smaller.


The rule of thumb I used for our big 56" tv is 10' away. Something for you to consider is how far back you sit in a movie theater. If you sit in the back half, don't get a tv which is too big as the IMAX dizzyness may annoy you. If you sit in the front of movie theaters, and love getting lost at the IMAX theater, get the largest screen you can afford. I don't like sitting too close, so 56" was plenty for me at 10'.


1080p if you sit closer than about 10' for clarity is a must.

 

[shaka999]

Hmm, I'm not so sure. Its all about pixel size. Fewer pixels on a large screen makes things look worse. Sure you can interpolate/upscale but its not the same as having a high native resolution.

 

[davegow]



Quote:
Originally Posted by shaka999 /forum/post/14157145


...Its all about pixel size. ...

I respectfully disagree. A 480i signal on a 720p or 1080p TV is still 480. You cannot manufacture data that does not come in the signal. The extra pixels will still contain duplicate information. True, the better and newer sets interpolate but it's still artificial data and often has problems, such as blocking, jaggies, ripples and other artifacts.


There is no substitute for bandwidth.

 

[shaka999]



Quote:
Originally Posted by davegow /forum/post/14157400


I respectfully disagree. A 480i signal on a 720p or 1080p TV is still 480. You cannot manufacture data that does not come in the signal. The extra pixels will still contain duplicate information. True, the better and newer sets interpolate but it's still artificial data and often has problems, such as blocking, jaggies, ripples and other artifacts.


There is no substitute for bandwidth.

Aren't we saying the same thing here. To keep the same refresh rate with an increased resolution you need more bandwidth. Many of the viewing distance calculations I've seen use the native pixel count of the video source to calculate optimal distance. This leads to a different distance for different video sources given a fixed screen size.


If, on the other hand, you adjust screen size dynamically this goes away.

 

[walford]

The whole reason that the Japanese invented was that the wanted to use bigger screens in their very small homes and to do this the needed TV standards that supported higher resolutions. Since to just upscale a SD progam to be displayable on a large screen will cause the video to appear grainy and/or washed on the depending on the resolution of the screen. This is why standard 480i SD programs or dVDs always look better on a good old 480i CRT TV and then when shown on a 720p or 1080p HDTV at close distances.

Each year better upscaling algorithims are invented to improve the PQ content of the additional pixels that has to be invented when upscaling SD.

The TV networks use upscaling hardware equipment costing thousands of $ when upscaling SD programs to be broadcast over their HD channels.

Both 1080p BD disk and 1080i HD programs will only show their full detail when played on a 1080p HDTV.

 

[shaka999]

Ok, so back to the original question. If you are watching SD programs why not use a smaller portion of the screen so it will look better. With the built in scaling for most sets this would practically be a drop in. Let the user select how large to make each picture type.

 

[walford]

An interesting idea that has probably been considered but whose business plan did not return a profit.

The biggest problem would probably be that digital cable and satellite STBs and OTA digital broadcasts are converging on 1080i as the stanard broadcast resolution regardless of the resolution of the source of the program being broadcast.

Also AFAIK all new TV cameras are being made so that they can "film" in HD resolutions so that in a few years SD programs will be a thing of the past as will SD DVDs once the cost of BDs is reduced to that of SD DVDs.