grainy lcd

[Dale]

I am planing on buying a 42" lcd, possibly the Vizio.I went to look at a few in person.I have heard that a standard def picture on an lcd looks bad,but they were horrible.HD looks great.I looked at a Pioneer and Samsung.The picture looked worse than my 27" Toshibe tube tv.My ? is are all lcd's going to look that bad?I am reconsidering the purchase because my kids watch alot of tv that will not be broadcasted or offered in HD.Is that someting I will just have to deal with?

Thanks for any info or replies

 

[Brian_the_King]

Yea, I would expect that from any big flat panel tv. And CRTs are just better in general, which explains why your little tv does SD better.

Unfortunaltey, yes, you're going to have to deal with it.

 

[Seth=L]

Analog broadcasting will eventually disappear, then soon after, standard definition. Then everything will look fine on the TV, assuming that any TV made today would still work by the time we finally have everything in HD, we might not even live long enough to see it, as slow as they are moving.LOL

 

[Jack Hammer]

I've had very bad luck with the Vizio's quality control. I'm on my fourth tv in the past few months and I'm starting to notice issues again. I would personally recommend looking at a different brand. The graininess with SD tv is not an issue on my current set, it is tolerable. On two of the sets it was very bad, almost unwatchable on one. Again, I'd recommend looking at the Olevia for a similar pricepoint.

Jack

 

[j_garcia]

Of course a smaller CRT is going to look better - CRT is about as good as it gets even today. Size and weight are the main things killing them. Visio isn't a first teir supplier of LCDs, so it doesn't surprise me. If it is any consolation, regular broadcast TV are the worst looking channels on my CRT as well so the TV is only part of the problem.

 

[angstadt530]

CRT is about as good as it gets even today. Size and weight are the main things killing them.

I am thinking about selling my 30" CRT (Samsung TXN3075WHF; widescreen, flatscreen, 480p, 1080i) for a 27", 32", or 37" Olevia (5 Series) or another brand's 30"-37" LCD. I use my TV for video games, DVDs, and a little TV. Are you saying that I would be better off keeping my tube TV instead of getting an LCD?

Here are the specs on my current model: http://www.samsung.com/Products/TV/ArchivedTelevisions_2003/TXN3075WHFXXAA.asp

 

[Brian_the_King]

^^
I've got a very similar TV. Unless you are looking for a much larger TV, and screen size>IQ to you, I would keep the CRT.

 

[angstadt530]

Unless you are looking for a much larger TV, and screen size>IQ to you, I would keep the CRT.

At what size screen do LCD start taking their advantage over CRTs in high-def content? 37 in? 42 in?

 

[billy p]

I don't know my SD picture looks fine on my DLP. Yes my 27" crt has a sharper picture not by that much. I usually watch digital and hi def on the larger screen so its not an issue anyways, however if you switch the display to 4:3 on the bigger screens rather then WS, then SD PQ would improve as well. To be honest, even with my crt the signal varies from station to station some channels just plain suck.

 

[markw]

don't discount the source.

Virtually any cable company sends out a great HD signal but how they handle the SD stuff may be another matter entirely.

As much as I hate comcast, I'll give 'em credit here when it comes to signal quality. I can watch anything and still get a clean, crisp picture but, naturally, HD is light years ahead of SD. Now, my buddy in another town with cablevision, well...

then again, I'm using a Toshiba and he's got an Olevia (sp?) but, ultimately, they both are coming out of boxes provided by the service supplier over composite connections.

 

[j_garcia]

At what size screen do LCD start taking their advantage over CRTs in high-def content? 37 in? 42 in?

At the moment, LCDs (and more or less all of the digital formats) only advantage over CRT is screen size, and as I mentioned, weight. In terms of clarity, nothing is better than a good CRT; that is a fact. Your advantage comes at about 42" and over where there are basically no CRTs any longer.

I have yet to see a DLP set or projector that I didn't see rainbow effect on, so I will never recommend them.

 

[Hi Ho]

If you want an LCD that does a decent job with standard definition signals, look at Sharp. In my opinion, they are THE best LCD's when it comes to SD. They have an excellent HD picture as well.

 

[Dale]

Thanks for the replies and opinions.Im still undecided on what to buy.Im just going to look at a few more and make my decision.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I am planing on buying a 42" lcd, possibly the Vizio.I went to look at a few in person.I have heard that a standard def picture on an lcd looks bad,but they were horrible.HD looks great.I looked at a Pioneer and Samsung.The picture looked worse than my 27" Toshibe tube tv.My ? is are all lcd's going to look that bad?I am reconsidering the purchase because my kids watch alot of tv that will not be broadcasted or offered in HD.Is that someting I will just have to deal with?

Thanks for any info or replies

You may want to visit your local library and check Consumer Reports, the recent issue and one in the index of past reports.
They do evaluate performance on standard def TV picture quality. Some are better than others.

 

[Seth=L]

You may want to visit your local library and check Consumer Reports, the recent issue and one in the index of past reports.
They do evaluate performance on standard def TV picture quality. Some are better than others.

I don't like consumer reports, they are biased. Everytime they review Panasonic it is always better than everything else. I have purchased a couple Panasonic items, one was broken out of the box and the other started giving me trouble about a week into owning it. It may be a fluke, but I think that any mass manufacturer has a pretty wide margin of error, regardless of what consumer reports says.

 

[angstadt530]

I don't like consumer reports, they are biased. Everytime they review Panasonic it is always better than everything else.

I've noticed this too with Consumer Reports (and not just with Panasonic, but with others as well). Consumer Reports still does a pretty good job, IMO, but I mainly use them as a supplement after researching a product more in-depth elsewhere. But then again, almost every magazine/website has their biases, which just goes to show you that you should make sure to research products from a variety of sources!

 

[mtrycrafts]

I don't like consumer reports, they are biased. Everytime they review Panasonic it is always better than everything else. I have purchased a couple Panasonic items, one was broken out of the box and the other started giving me trouble about a week into owning it. It may be a fluke, but I think that any mass manufacturer has a pretty wide margin of error, regardless of what consumer reports says.

Maybe Panasonic is in fact worthy of the rating?
Maybe the 'frequency of repair history' would show Panasonic to be below average? If not, then yes, your two were flukes.
CR is not biased, no reason for them to be. And, most likely they hide the identity when they rate the sets.

 

[Dale]

Just a thought,would they(at the store) use a HDMI cable to show the full effect of HD causing SD to look worse?Would a different cable show SD better?Im just throwing ideas around in my head.It would be silly to get a LCD if you dont use the full effect of HD

 

[Jack Hammer]

PQ really depends a lot on the channel, too. Some of the channels I get look much better/worse than others. This goes for both SD & HD channels. It's hard to say what will look good or bad in your area and could be dependent on a lot of factors, incl - tv, cable provider, connection, how many times the signal is split in your place, etc.

A lot of the channels I get through my HD tuner only have a 480i signal and are basically a widescreen version of the SD channel. Though some of the HD channels do look good. The advantage of the stores using the same signal type for all tv's is you can at least try to compare the same program through a common input. The bad is that most stores have the tv's set up so poorly that it is difficult to see how the picture will actually look.

 

[angstadt530]

If you have the space, you could always keep your tube TV for your kids and their SD content, and then just get the LCD for yourself and your HD content. Also, kids don't tend to notice quality that much, so if they are the only ones watching the SD cable, I doubt it would matter either way.