Joe Sixpack and HDTV/Flat panels...

[avaserfi]

As most of us know typical consumers don't really care about sound quality or picture quality. I never realized how bad it was until yesterday....

Two of my friends got LCDs for Christmas one got a 26" Polaroid with an internal DVD player for $500 on sale and the other got a 30" larger JVC (unsure of price). Of course I am the HT guy so they have to show off to me and before I even get their I am told what a great price they got how clear the picture is in HD and what great sets they got.

First up the Polaroid guy he has a movie running, National Treasure, and is complaining about the black bars at the top and bottom so I explain what aspect ratio is and he is okay with it. Then he starts talking about how clear the picture is in HD with his internal DVD player as the source while we are sitting about 5 feet away from his 720p set . I didn't really give any impressions to him as there was no way he could exchange it and he was happy - but the most alarming thing to me was the complete and utter lack of blacks. I could ignore the poor tonal quality well enough, but the darkest dark was a medium gray and he didn't even notice/care!

The story with the JVC guy is almost exactly the same with a different movie.

Its flat screen and cool end of story - nothing else matter what the hell is picture quality anyways?

 

[GlocksRock]

didn't you offer to at least help him set the brightness and contrast? But it is true, most people don't have a clue, and others just could care less... they just want to brag about their flat panel tv... as for me, I could care less if the tv is hanging on the wall, or sitting on a stand, as long as it looks good. What kind of tv's did your friends have before they got their new ones?

 

[avaserfi]

didn't you offer to at least help him set the brightness and contrast? But it is true, most people don't have a clue, and others just could care less... they just want to brag about their flat panel tv... as for me, I could care less if the tv is hanging on the wall, or sitting on a stand, as long as it looks good. What kind of tv's did your friends have before they got their new ones?

I adjusted both their settings by eye - one complained that it didn't look as good, I told him to wait until his retinas grew back before complaining . One had an older CRT and the other just used his computer monitor which is far better than the new TV he has.

 

[stratman]

You said it best: they're flat and cool. Besides that not much else.

 

[ParadigmDawg]

Since you didnt come out and tell them their displays suck, I am concerned that you were not honest with me. You know you can give it to me straight; did my display and audio suck?

 

[avaserfi]

Thats it I give - Greg's stuff sucks!

Since you didnt come out and tell them their displays suck, I am concerned that you were not honest with me. You know you can give it to me straight; did my display and audio suck?

Hahaha worry worry worry. I don't know if you would be truly happy unless I told you they sucked ! For the prices you paid I don't know of much better unless you spent hours and hours building speakers yourself or just stole speakers. The display did suck - give it to me .

 

[ParadigmDawg]

It's kind-of funny, I am too cheap to go buy a AVR with HDMI but if you told me all my stuff sucked, I would go get all new gear!

 

[avaserfi]

It's kind-of funny, I am too cheap to go buy a AVR with HDMI but if you told me all my stuff sucked, I would go get all new gear!

Hmm... Your AVR sucks - it doesn't even have HDMI! You should go buy an Onkyo to piss of FMW .


Does that help?

 

[GlocksRock]

It's kind-of funny, I am too cheap to go buy a AVR with HDMI but if you told me all my stuff sucked, I would go get all new gear!

Go get a new RX-V1800 and start enjoying that HDMI switching right away, your tv will thank you.

 

[mtrycrafts]

... I could ignore the poor tonal quality well enough, but the darkest dark was a medium gray and he didn't even notice/care!
The story with the JVC guy is almost exactly the same with a different movie.
:

The 'general public' is not indoctrinated as to how the TV is supposed to look like. They are grown up with whatever they had at home all their lives, not knowing anything more, unless it becomes their hobby and dig deeper, like us.

But, showrooms do indoctrinate them what will impress them the most in the store. They are satisfied, end of story.

Moral of this story, forget it unless they are really interested in knowing more.

My neighbor bought a new large TV, told him would calibrate it.
I should have kept quiet He was not that interested and was looking at his watch constantly when it is over. He is a mech eng.

 

[Seth=L]

I wish I had a sixpack.

The Polaroid sucks because it's a Polaroid (don't they use TFT?, Yuck!). The built in DVD player sucks as well. I have been less impressed with JVC's recent LCD tvs. I think there are many LCD and Plasma panels that look great and have excellent contrast ratios (most don't display true black, which is annoying). I have noticed that HD content viewed on an HD LCD display does the picture far greater justice (I know this seems like a "well, no duh?" thing). The contrast ratios are far better when fed a solid HD signal. I can't wait to get a flat panel to view the Blu-rays on.

Avaserfi, you should take your PS3 to you friend's place and try it with the JVC and heck even the Polaroid if you feel froggy. I would think darks would be darker when fed a better source such as that.

 

[annunaki]

Nothing much can help those Polaroids. They are just inherently bad.

Feeding a Polaroid a high quality signal is like putting premium 93 octane in a Prius and expecting a big difference.

 

[Alex2507]

The 'general public' is not indoctrinated as to how the TV is supposed to look like. They are grown up with whatever they had at home all their lives, not knowing anything more, unless it becomes their hobby and dig deeper, like us.

But, showrooms do indoctrinate them what will impress them the most in the store. They are satisfied, end of story.

Moral of this story, forget it unless they are really interested in knowing more.

My neighbor bought a new large TV, told him would calibrate it.
I should have kept quiet He was not that interested and was looking at his watch constantly when it is over. He is a mech eng.

That reminds me ..... keep mouth shut. Sometimes I forget. Thank you.

 

[mtrycrafts]

That reminds me ..... keep mouth shut. Sometimes I forget. Thank you.

Or, just gently feel them out what they are after, what will satisfy them perhaps with minimal input
Yes, it is hard at times knowing what you know about a subject at hand.

 

[annunaki]

I will tell people straight up about something if they are going to brag about how great it is. I will also tell them why it is not what they think and show them when possible. I do this in a pleasant way though. Some just won't hear it so I stop right there, but many people end up thanking me for it.

#1 they thank me for being honest.

 

[Hi Ho]

You guys have no idea how bad it can be unless you have seen the Nexus 40" LCD. These were special ordered at work (against our recommendations and not anywhere near the MSRP on the website) for someone who was renovating a housing development and wanted to include a flat panel TV in every house! Sounds great, huh?

I can say with 110% certainty that I have NEVER seen a worse looking TV. Watching the Nexus may make one forget what black is (It's blue instead). Artifacts and video noise? Tonal quality? Talk about clay face!

I'm still in awe at how TERRIBLE those sets look! They are so bad that they are worth seeking out and making a special trip to see how bad they really are. I'll bet the people that buy the houses will be happy as clams with their flat panel TV mounted on the wall and wired with composite (the guy is installing them himself and really did run only composite). By the way, how can a display with 1280x768 resolution display "true 1080p high definition video" as the website suggests?

 

[Alex2507]

Or, just gently feel them out what they are after, what will satisfy them perhaps with minimal input
Yes, it is hard at times knowing what you know about a subject at hand.

Even though I try, I'm not good at being gentle with people or words. Nor am I a wealth of information, I just know that there is more to this A/V stuff than what marketing types would have you believe and I know that looking at two uncalibrated TV's in a BB or CC is no way to determine which has a better picture.

Take a look at the gear in my sig. I simply want it to perform as well as it can. So the placement and calibration of said gear has had some thought put into it and I've spent time here learning what LFE and X-over points are. That makes me a nut bar in the view of most people. Never mind when I mention that I'm looking for a paticular kind of fabric to use on sound panels to make the room acoustics BETTER. That is crazy talk.

The people that I run into that are interested in HDTV want as previously mentioned in this thread, flat and cool. I will add cheap. I haven't done myself any favors telling anybody that they need to subscribe to digital cable and pay extra for a HD set top box. That's just people that I run into. If they wanted to know more, they would. If they want to be consumer sheep being run off to marketing slaughter ..... F___ 'em!

 

[annunaki]

A big problem I see with most of the sheeple buying electronics is that they "know more than you", because they looked at a consumer reports magazine for 3 minutes or looked on the internet for 10 seconds and know it all.

The worst is when the sheeple have "friend" or an "electronics guy" who is "really into this stuff" and actually knows next to nothing but took time to research one extra minute in consumer reports or online. These "electronics guys" tend to be the ones who spread the biggest myths and lies about all new tech.

 

[hemiram]

A friend of mine has a restaurant with an LCD above the bar, and the one he had until recently looked ok, but not great. Well, it died one day last month, so he replaced it witha Maxent 32". I went in there last week, and sat there, thinking, "Man. this is the worst picture I have ever seen on an LCD!" Finally, I went and grabbed the remote when he went to the kitchen, and started playing with it, and within 30 seconds of figuring out how to get to the pic adjustments, I had it looking ok, and after about 5 minutes, I had it looking pretty good.

He comes back, and sees me with the remote, looks at the TV, and says, "What the hell did you do to it?" I said, "I set it about where it's supposed to be! How could you stand it like you had it?" He's whining about how he spent all day getting it to look like it did, when one of the waitresses walks by and says, "Thank you, looking at people with orange faces was bugging the crap out of me!" My friend waits until she went away, and says, "I thought it looked great!" I took a piece of paper from behind the bar, and wrote down my eye doctor's name and number, and handed it to him, "Go see him, right away!!".

He calls me yesterday, and says people's faces are too "real looking". I said, "Umm, what do you want them to look like?" He says, "Not like that!"
I just hung up.