HDTV

Quite by accident I'm in the market for a new television. The old one "just quit". I'd really been hoping for another five years from it, to let HDTV technology settle down some, but no.

Televisions used to be simple things to evaluate: you picked them by size, and cost, and whether you wanted it to be a piece of furniture. Our last tv was a piece of furniture ("Console"), as had the previous one. It was clear at the time that CRTs were going away, and the console style was history--we bought probably the last one. It had already gotten stupid about its input, the coax had quit working 2-3 yrs ago, so we have been using composite-video input (red/yellow/white RCA cables).

Now, it seems you need an Advanced Degree (tm) to figure out what kind of tv to buy.And that's what we're here for.

There are four technologies where there used to be one (actually, CRT is still available, so that's five).

CRT: same old same old. you can get big CRTs, they work just like always, but they weigh multi-hundred pounds. Avoid.

DLP: Digital Light Processor. This is some funky semiconductor technology that actually dates back to the late 70s. There were demos of this just being shown internally at TI in the late 80s when I was working at TI. By applying microvoltages to what are tiny little mirrors on the surface of a semiconductor, they change shape and flex angle, reflecting light differently. So the tv has light bulb source, these mirrors (I don't know how many are on the chip, but it's a fair quantity), and then a rotating color wheel. Light from bulb reflects off the mirrors, through the color wheel (think of that old slowly rotating color wheel you'd see with a shiny christmas tree and it would change colors), onto the screen. The wheel spins about 10 thousand rpm. I've been told the next gen of tvs with DLP chips won't be using a color wheel, but I have not verified this. You'd figure eventually that thing wears out somehow. The minimum size on these seems to be 42 inches (just over a meter for the international readers).

LCD: a giant version of your thin/flat computer screen. The max size on these seems to be 40 inches right now. I was looking at 32, 37, and 40 inch units. These are good looking units.

Plasma: there's a charged plasma inside (plasma is a gas with electrons stripped off the atoms). Altering the charge applied from outside changes color and intensity. These units seems to start at 42 inches, and that's for the low-resolution versions. They all looked grainy to me, and the big ones are out of my price range. The color intensity of what you see is excellent--everyone likes that part. The old problem of early burnout is gone, I believe.

LCD Projection: A bulb is the light source, shines through several small LCDs (one per color), onto the screen. This is just like the little computer projector units, only larger, and self-contained instead of shining on your wall. The minimum size here seems to be 42 inches, to 70 or more.

There's also the really huge projection units that have been around for years. Not in my price range.

Think about what all inputs you need--there are rather too many of those as well, I think. Composite is the red/yellow/white trio you may already be using. Component is the other color combo, you might be using that, my impression is that this is better than composite. HDMI seems to be the newest one, but I think it's about to get replaced by something else soon. Then there's the antenna input, and the coax (analog cable) input, and maybe a PC/VGA input (play a computer game on the huge screen).

The next characteristic to think about is the signal resolution. CRT tvs are 480i. LCDs are 720p or 1080p; generally a 720p tv can display a 1080 signal (presumably by just dropping out pixels). Projection units are 720 or 1080, for both DLP and LCD. Plasmas tend to be the in-between EDTV. The "p" versus "i" means progressive or interlaced. Old tv is interlaced, it's not so good, and is the cause of weird flickering you see with fine horizontal lines. Progressive is better.

CRT tvs are: 640x480. EDTV is 840x620 or something like that; better, but really not worth your time. LCDs are 1280x720, or 1366x900 or something. High-res HDTV is 1900x1080.

So your best picture is going to be on the 1900x1080 screen with a full 1080 signal (and that 1080 is why the signal is called 1080). Of course, these cost more, but they are good looking. But you are going to have to pay a bit more for the content/signal. We decided against that.

Another concern for me was what about DVR? Right now, I have analog cable. It feeds the tv and my DVR unit, which has channel selection, converts analog into DV, goes right into my computer, where I can edit it down a little by cutting out commercials, and then burn a DVD. That thing isn't going to work if I switch to digital cable. Then I'd have to get the box, and pipe the coax output into my DVR unit. Not what I want to do.

In 2008, the tv broadcasters are required to switch over to HD broadcasts (I'm probably screwed re DVR at that point, having to buy something new). I presume that means 1080, but I don't know. My impression is that many are already broadcasting an HD signal on some other channel. I had hoped not be getting a new tv until after this had happened, but even then a lot of older stuff is still going to be CRT-resolution content, so you really want to be happy with how an older signal looks on the new tv. I've also read that you can probably receive those HD broadcast signals on a normal antenna, if you aren't going to go with digital cable--which we are not: higher cost, and we aren't interested in any of those other digital channels.

I really wanted to like the DLP units. There was a spec-wise nice unit available for $1600, with stand, but it just didn't look that good; seemed dark, real off-axis trouble. DLP screens seem to have trouble about off-axis image brightness: you really need to be watching them straight-on. At the almost last minute I saw a 1080 DLP unit that was in my price range, but it just didn't look that great; it seemed better than the others, and getting into 1080 right away would be good (ready for the future), I wasn't that impressed.

if Samsung offered a 3751 LCD unit, we'd have bought that--the 3251 and 4051 units look great, but 32 is smaller than I want to go, and the 4051 is out of my price range. We also liked a Philips 37 inch we saw, that was 2nd choice overall.

but we are going with the Sony KDFE 50A10 LCD projection unit. It looked best overall. Well, actually the 42A10 looked best, because it's 1280x720 at 42 inches, the 50A10 is 1280x720 at 50 inches--so it looks a little grainier. But overall these two looked best at the multiple signals we saw, and the online comments re both 42 and 50 were excellent.

And they're not too heavy about 75 pounds. The base/stand is about the same weight--you pretty much have to have one, and really for these two you need to get the matching stand, which costs about $300.

I recommend looking them over at a couple of different stores (because they'll have different signals they show, and different lighting). And check the online prices, and remember about the shipping cost, which will be around $200--which might make up the different between that price and your local store. and think about the extended warranty if you get a projection unit--the dirty little secret seems to be the unmentioned bulb life. My suspicion is that no one really knows what the lifetime is on the bulbs, and they aren't cheap (typically $200 or so, and you can't just buy them at Home Depot). And how long will they be in production? This worries my slightly.

Think about how much time you really spend in front of the tv, and whether you really want to spend the $ for a great big one. We have the tv on maybe two hours per day (depending of course on what's showing), and we really only watch a few channels: FoodTV, TCM, Spike (MXC)...I could swear there was another one, but maybe not. We do have plenty of DVDs, and older VCR tapes. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing Star Wars on a big screen: remastered high-res spaceships going kablooey on a big screen--that's what I'm talking about.