HDTV showroom image quality

HDTV showroom image quality

  • I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought so!

    Votes: 9 90.0%

  • No, it's just you.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I know what you mean, but it doesn't bother me.

    Votes: 1 10.0%

  • What's HDTV?

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    10
JoeFriday

JoeFriday

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this might call for a poll (assuming anyone else cares).. I've kicked around the idea of upgrading my tv for one of those fancy new wide aspect HD sets.. obviously the image quality must be good, if not jaw-dropping.. or so you would think

am I the only person who walks around a tv sales room openly appalled by the horrible image on nearly every screen in the room? the contrast is pumped up beyond belief to show all the 'detail'.. it looks like someone new to Photoshop found the Unsharp mask filter and went to town

I'll stand 10 feet away from the screen and cringe.. meanwhile, all the other potential customers are drooling and nodding along with the salesman who talks about the 'amazing image quality'

is it just me?
 
Last year my analog tv went after 13 years. How good need it be to watch Wolf Blitzer? I purchased out of necessity as I had a large empty spot in my rec room an HDTV because I was told by big brother Cable TV that all soon will be HDTV and if I want keeping watching reruns I'd better get with it. Bought the HDTV as was it expensive and let me tell you good old Wolf Blitzer looks like he's standing in my room...not that I needed him that close.
 
JoeFriday said:
am I the only person who walks around a tv sales room openly appalled by the horrible image on nearly every screen in the room? the contrast is pumped up beyond belief to show all the 'detail'.. it looks like someone new to Photoshop found the Unsharp mask filter and went to town
Click to expand...

Here's what I thought, and it's been about a year since I got mine. It seemed like they had the brightest and most saturated picture on the sets they were trying to push. It's almost like they set the brightness on the other sets down a couple notches. I noticed this at quite a few shops.
 
Just one word to say Brett: Sony.

Having said that, I was pretty upset to find out recently that soon (2009?) all transmissions will be in digital and our analog sets won't work. Is that correct? Is everybody in America supposed to be able to afford a fancy HDTV? My Sony analog is a cracking telly and has years of service left in it... 😡
 
I purchased a Samsung 30 inch HD crt, I am still one of the few of the opinion that crt teles just give a "truer" picture. I love mine, after getting into the service menu and turning off a lot of digital enhancement features, correcting the "red push" and setting the picture to my liking .
I do agree with you though, it seems that some of the pictures you see are just plain ugly. I, personally don't want my picture to look unreal, as lot of teles do.

Also, I work in the telecommuncations industry, analog won't be going away anytime soon. Most cable companies are digitally simulcasting analog channels so they provide analog, that same analog as digital, and high definition. No need to upgrade or throw away your teles anytime soon, that date has been modified since the late 80's ealy 90's.
 
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peter, digital transmission does not mean high-definition tv. You can happily use your old analog tv set with a small cheap digital decoder unit (that's what i am doing now).

The HDTV screens, at least here in NL, are in most cases not used to their potential in those tv sales rooms. Besides the screwed-up contrast and colour setting you mentioned, Brett, there's also the questionable quality of the signal they get. Highly compressed digital media (anybody watching national geographic channel lately?), or low (not high-def) resolution image will show up real ugly on a good screen esp. when sized up to full screen.
 
to clarify a bit more.. I do understand what the hype about high definition television is about.. I like to claim that I witnessed HDTV a decade before everyone else I know.. I used to be in the electronics business nearly 20 years ago, and attended the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 1990.. the show floors covered a total of about 20 acres and comprised gagetry ranging from stereo equipment to PDA devices to Nintendos

I very clearly remember only two things at the show that impressed me (not counting the many centerfold models).. one was the AKG K1000 headphones that made me consider eliminating speakers from my house altogether.. the other was a 'live' demonstration of HDTV.. the demonstration was done on a smallish (by today's standards) screen, and basically just showed a nature channel sort of video with a lot of panning of the landscape.. I was instantly sold on the concept and have been waiting over a decade for the US government and corporations to settle on a signal standard.. after waiting over 10 years, my enthusiasm dwindled and I learned I didn't have to be the first kid on the block to own HDTV.. not to mention that the cost was (and still is) exorbitant

which brings us back to my nearly forgotten point.. I know what the tvs (or at least most of them) are capable of, and it's a very good thing.. but I'm shocked and dismayed by the horrible presentation given in the 'big box' tv stores.. and even more alarmed by the customers who stand in front of the 'tweaked beyond recognition' images proclaiming them to be the greatest invention ever, since the Lazy Boy, I assume.. and I wait for one of them to inquire if there are any sets available that are large enough to make Jeff Gordon's car appear lifesize in their living room

ok, I'm being a bit disingenuous here (and having a good time at it).. but I was seriously wondering if I was the only one who felt the tv images in the stores were not showing a good representation of the product
 
peter_n said:
Just one word to say Brett: Sony.

Having said that, I was pretty upset to find out recently that soon (2009?) all transmissions will be in digital and our analog sets won't work. Is that correct? Is everybody in America supposed to be able to afford a fancy HDTV? My Sony analog is a cracking telly and has years of service left in it... 😡
Click to expand...


Peter,
You are correct about the HDTV deadline. However, you'll be able to purchase a converter for you existing set.

There is a good reason for the enforced change in transmissions. As you know, the airwaves are a public commodity. National governments control access to the bandwidth contained therein. In the US, that entity is the FCC. The bandwidth set aside for television is limited and in order to be able to carry TV signals as HD, we cannot have both analogue and digital signals side by side. As it stands, many local stations carry both analogue and digital programming. However, this system cannot last for long as all signals will switch to HD; there simply isn't enough bandwidth.
 
Oh, back to the topic... yes, the quality of TV showroom images are appalling. I bought a nice 26 inch HDTV LCD TV last year and had to "dumb down" the contrast and colour to about 25% of the maximum values shown in the TV's menus. I can't imagine how anyone could watch at even 75% of max let alone 100%.
 
Thanks to all for calming me down. 😀 Don't get me wrong; I like the look of digital TV (if it's a Sony 😉) I just don't want to give up my regular television until I have to, i.e. it breaks.

Still don't like digital cameras though... 🙂
 
incidentally, Peter.. my tv is a 20 year old Sony Trinitron that has rather good image quality (after having been calibrated at great length).. but I'm fairly confident my next set will be a Panasonic from their 'industrial monitor' lineup.. I don't need a built-in tuner or speakers, and can save $500 or more by purchasing a stripped down monitor with the same, or better, image quality

and I see that Panasonic has just released a new 50" monitor with 1920x1080 resolution (TH-50PZ700U).. but better yet, the previous reigning champion, the TH-50PH9UK just dropped in price to $1500
 
The only reason why we ended up buying a new TV is that the 20+ year old GE set bought the farm. It was a great old set. I wonder if the new set will last as long... not.
 
I had the same experience as Brett when we bought a replacement for our dear old Fisher the other day. Most of the sets were far too contrasty. It was easy to see the improvement in shadow detail in one set that was not adjusted to maximum contrast. But isn't this the same thing that people seem to want in their drugstore prints, and even their "professional" film? High contrast, even at the cost of acuity, and high color saturation always seem to win out over tonal range.
 
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