From a Wal-Mart Online TV Ad...
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My wife is the manager of the claims dept. in one of our local Wal-Marts. She tells me they have a 30% to 50% returns on the HDTV's (mainly Visio) they sell. They do not test them in the store they send most of them to a return center. I ma sure the failure rate of the tv is not this high.
When I bought my tv at Circuit City - they went out of their way to warn me that "regular" digital tv, like cable or satellite, would look like crap on HDTV.
The guy said that people are appalled when they spend thousands on a tv and get home and it looks terrible (as if everything was already hd) and that this was one of THE main reasons that they get returned.
My cheap walmart upscale dvd player looks pretty damn good on my hdtv - I wonder if the cable and satellite companies have any plans to upscale their channels so people can stand to watch it on their new tvs.
I never minded letterbox on a movie because I knew I was getting to see the whole picture as it was meant to be seen and not the cropped pan and scan which most other people I know prefer.
However, I simply can't stand to see black bars on either side of a 4:3 on a 16:9 for some reason. I would almost rather see their stretched faces fill the screen.
Wouldn't upscaling fix all of that?
-phil
The guy said that people are appalled when they spend thousands on a tv and get home and it looks terrible (as if everything was already hd) and that this was one of THE main reasons that they get returned.
My cheap walmart upscale dvd player looks pretty damn good on my hdtv - I wonder if the cable and satellite companies have any plans to upscale their channels so people can stand to watch it on their new tvs.
I never minded letterbox on a movie because I knew I was getting to see the whole picture as it was meant to be seen and not the cropped pan and scan which most other people I know prefer.
However, I simply can't stand to see black bars on either side of a 4:3 on a 16:9 for some reason. I would almost rather see their stretched faces fill the screen.
Wouldn't upscaling fix all of that?
-phil
What I would like to see is an option on HDTVs to present the picture in its (the pictures) native resolution by user choice. Not scaled to the HDTVs native resolution as is done today (you'd still want this scaling to be available, but by user choice). So if you're feeding the HDTV an SD picture at 480, you'd see 480 unscaled - with hellishly large black bars on all sides of the picture to fill out the 1080 screen. You might be looking at a postage stamp style image on your screen, but it might not be too bad 'a looking postage stamp.
I've got that right now on my Olevia 37" lcd tv. It's called "1 to1" mode. And it is small screen, but gorgeous picture. Or, I can scale it as I see fit. So, yes, there already are HDTV's with this feature. I've owned this tv for 1 year now, so they have been around.
I laughed when I first saw this. I wonder how many people took hdtvs back to the store.
I had an E* service call where the customer was complaining about a crappy picture.
A) he had it on SD ESPN
B) He had the screen stretched to fit his widescreen
C) He didn't have it hooked up with the component/composite (I get them mixed up) cables. It was an 811 and he was running the red/white/yellow cables.
I hooked it up right and put it on ESPN HD. problem solved. Also advised him that if he kept zooming in on the SD, it was gonna continue to look crappy. I thought it was pretty funny that E* mailed him the 811 and did not send or give any info to the guy about what channels were what.
When I first went HD, I made the mistake of buying a 32" 4:3 SONY Wega HD. Got the 622 hooked up to it, and sure enough, all Dish HD had black bar top and bottom, and any SD was a full rectangular of black bar. I was so annoyed, that I brought it back in a day. Darn thing weighed a ton, and it was a piece of work just physically returning it. Eventually got a 34" 16x9 XBR CRT, and never looked back. (Even though this baby is even heavier
) While I can handle left, right black bars (like right now, my son is watching the Grinch from ABC HD - and it has black bars), I could not stand a full rectangle of black wasting the screen.
That's where the "user settable" part comes in. You can choose "big and degraded", or "tiny and better" - whichever suits your fancy or your systems capabilities best. Your choice may well change from channel to channel. I've got several SD channels that are acceptable on my 65" set. Others are totally unwatchable (the SD version of Altitude for a hockey game being one example).
I agree. But the set I had, didn't have such settings. You'd think all sets would have a great deal of customization, but they sure don't.
Oh, and back to Don's original post...
when I was with my dad at a circuit city in NY before Christmas, I was pleased that they 1) were honest about SD pictures not looking good on the HD sets, and 2) actually were running a 480 DVD simulating digital but not High Def programming, on most of the sets.
Yeah at the local Wally World the TV's inside electronics are on a HD loop the one's outside are hooked to a DVD player, some are the same sets... if you can't tell the difference between them somethings wrong 
When I first went HD, I made the mistake of buying a 32" 4:3 SONY Wega HD. Got the 622 hooked up to it, and sure enough, all Dish HD had black bar top and bottom, and any SD was a full rectangular of black bar. I was so annoyed, that I brought it back in a day. Darn thing weighed a ton, and it was a piece of work just physically returning it. Eventually got a 34" 16x9 XBR CRT, and never looked back. (Even though this baby is even heavier
While I can handle left, right black bars (like right now, my son is watching the Grinch from ABC HD - and it has black bars), I could not stand a full rectangle of black wasting the screen.
Agreed. I bought the 36" Sony a few years ago, reasoniong that the 36" letterboxed HD image would be approx the same size as the 34" and that my SD 4:3 picture would be bigger. It just doesn't work that way. Psychologically, you see the stuff that is missing, and the HD picture looks smaller. I just don't like watching HD on that set.
I just moved the 36" set to Rockford. The manual says 215 pounds. Seemed a lot heavier. It took 4 people and a handtruck to get it down the stairs and into the trailer and three people to get it out again and into the house here.
Speaking up upscaling - how come that sometimes a movie (wide-screen) is upscaled on my upscale dvd player and it looks great - everything is in proportion and fills up more of the screen.
And then sometimes it just looks all stretched out like the non hd satellite channels?
I watched a movie from 1982 last week, The Thing.
It looked great on my tv.
Then last night I watched the Howard Stern movie, which I believe is the exact same ratio - and it stretched their faces out like Dish Network does. (or any other provider - not picking on just them!)
I can understand that even an upscaled 4:3 will be stretched no matter what on a 16:9.
But I do not know why a 16:9 would be stretched looking on a 16:9.
Also, I watched Children of Men on it and it looked really great. Everything totally proportioned - and with its ratio filled the screen up perfectly.
-phil
And then sometimes it just looks all stretched out like the non hd satellite channels?
I watched a movie from 1982 last week, The Thing.
It looked great on my tv.
Then last night I watched the Howard Stern movie, which I believe is the exact same ratio - and it stretched their faces out like Dish Network does. (or any other provider - not picking on just them!)
I can understand that even an upscaled 4:3 will be stretched no matter what on a 16:9.
But I do not know why a 16:9 would be stretched looking on a 16:9.
Also, I watched Children of Men on it and it looked really great. Everything totally proportioned - and with its ratio filled the screen up perfectly.
-phil
The super long play VHS quality these satellite providers pass off as SD is a joke. SDDVD looks damn good compared to it. I can't wait until their forced to broadcast everything in HD. I just hope they pass it along to us as they receive it. Which we all know they won't. But lets hope it doesn't get any worse.
Not sure what you mean here... Are you referring to the digital transition in 2009?
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