Gadzooki

In Defence of HD

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NEC_T2000_Plasma_TV.jpgFairly recently there’s been a huge boom in the television market. In particular, this has been in relation to flat screen technology such as DLP, Plasma and LCD. This boom has been driven by a consumer need for technology that offers better clarity, sound and image quality. The rise of DVD’s has also fuelled the purchase of home cinema systems. So where does HD fit in?

Well according to Sky UK I will be “wowed by the difference” when watching HD. Well, is this in fact the truth? Lets put this in some sort of personal perspective. About a year and a half ago I saw Monsters Inc running on one of the first HD screens in the UK that was commercially available. The quality was unparalleled. So why are people indifferent to HD when the quality is so noticeable?

The first point is that people may have not bought an HD enabled set when lat screens first became available. They may have paid a lot (as my folks did) for a TV that was new at the time, but obsolete in a couple of years due to not having the capacity for HD. Naturally, if you’d just paid £1,000 (or more likely more) on a television you’re not going to just nip out and buy another.

Another restriction to HD take-up is the amount of channels that are offering it at the moment. The BBC broadcast signal will go digital only, though this won’t have much of an impact on the quality of the picture overall, and there’s been difficulties rolling this out. HD seems to be faster yet still not widespread. Nonetheless, a growing number of channels are sending out the HD signal.

Finally there’s just so much technology about (with so much jargon, slang and corporate buzzwords) that it can be incredibly hard to make any sort of sensible choice. Quimby covered this very well in his recent article, and I’m in total agreement. Now we have HD, DVD, SA-CD, CD, VCD, HD-DVD, BLU-RAY and more I’m sure besides. This is not to mention ‘alternative’ kit such as Tivo. My oh my.

I genuinely think that there’s a market for new business in the form of a ‘Technologist’. Essentially you tell him what you need – whether it’s a TV, computer or toaster – and you give him a budget, and he tries to find you the best kit or advises you on the reason to hold back a month or two. Obviously he’d get a cut of the sale, say 10 percent or something. Then he could deal with all those acronyms and leave the rest of us to do the watching. Then again, being at the forefront of tech, I wouldn’t complain if I had that job…

Buying an HDTV: My Crazy Adventure & What I Learned

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So my wife and I promised each other not to go out on Black Friday. We didn’t.

But we did go out Black Saturday (errr… the day after Black Friday). Lately, I’ve been compulsive about getting a big screen TV. Actually, what I’ve been really compulsive about is getting a Wii. But since I couldn’t find a damned Wii anywhere, I opted for the big screen HDTV that I’d eventually play my Wii on.

So, on Saturday morning, we got our morning Ads (where we live, the newspaper delivers ads separate from the paper…wierd, I know). Those ads told me that I could finance my big screen TV at 0% interest for 18 months. That sounded tasty. Uh? Sounded tasty? You get the point.

Back when I first started my HDTV pursuit, I was committed to getting a 50 incher or better. This, in turn, convinced me that I would be getting a DLP. But to be honest, I just haven’t been very impressed with the DLP picture. Looks too grainy to me, even on the 1080p models. Plus, quick motion (the sort of motion I expect my Wii to have), didn’t look to hot.

Next, I got stuck on LCD because of a beautiful 40 inch Samsung 1080p I saw at BestBuy. Just absolutely shocking. Stunning. Aesthetic perfection. It was with this model in mind that we went out to compare prices around the various big box retailers. Suffice it to say, they were all sold out. December 5th the earliest delivery date.

But that didn’t work. You see, my wife and I had spent the last 3 hours carefully picking our favorite, most cost effective TV. We were ready to spend the cash. But no. We were supposed to go home empty?

Not us! My wife and I are fairly compulsive buyers. And we were determined to come home with an HDTV. So next, we decided on a 42 inch Samsung Plasma. Plasmas really do have the best picture and they are the best for video games. But they are also ultra sensitive and ultra heavy. We didn’t know that. So when we went to check out, they asked us if we wanted to pay the $85 delivery charge. Of course not. We wanted to go straight home and watch this sucker.

Well, then they told us that Plasmas can’t lay down on their sides. Too bad, because the 42 inch model wouldn’t fit into our SUV standing upright.

Blah! This really sucked. We were getting depressed and were about to call it quits, when we decided, once again, to go the LCD route. Well, we opted for a downgrade from the 40 inch 1080p Samsung to a 40 inch 720p Samsung. This time it was in stock. So we bought it.

Here are some things I learned in this crazy process:

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Shopping For High Definition TVs

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Samsung DLPI’m in the market for a big screen, high definition television. I’m committed to getting my TV by December 2006, just in time for the NFL playoffs.

Here’s what I’ve been learning. Specs are squat. You can read all the sales literature you want about picture quality, resolution, 720 this or 1080 that. But in the end, it all comes down to the quality of the picture.

You see, I’ve seen lower resolution 720p DLPs look better than high resolution 1080i LCDs. Even better, I’ve seen Samsung DLPs with a lower resolution look better than Toshiba DLPs at a higher resolution.

The moral of the story is that you should only use TV specs to narrow down the field. There are a few rules that you can follow. Choose DLP if the quality of picture and price of TV matter. Choose LCD or Plasma if you want lightweight, thin screen.

But don’t make your decision based on specs alone. I’m at a point where I’ve narrowed the field down to DLP. However, as I noticed, many DLPs with great specs don’t have a great picure. And in the end, it all comes down to how the TV will look in your living room. When you are watching the Super Bowl, the specs don’t matter anymore…you want the best looking HDTV picture you can get.

So do yourself a favor and don’t buy a TV off the internet without having seen the actual picture quality…because as I’ve discovered, the specs can be deceiving.

My Dream TV: A 62 inch Big-Screen Toshiba DLP

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Some of you might be underwhelmed with the TV that I have on my mind right now. No it’s not 103 inches. It’s not even plasma or lcd. But then again it’s also not $80,000.

Toshiba 62 inch DLP

The TV I have my eye on right now is the new 62 inch DLP from Toshiba. Before you question my choice, let me tell you a bit about the criteria I set for myself a while back.

Rule 1: Can’t spend more than $2000
Rule 2: Must be at least 50 inches
Rule 3: Must be highest quality picture currently available
Rule 4: Must be HD ready

So there you go: 4 rules. Now it turns out that Plasma and LCD are currently priced too high to meet rule 1 and 2 at the same time. DLP is really the only candidate. Plus, on rule 3, DLP still kicks the butt of Plasma and LCD with overall resolution, color and contrast.

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