Planning ahead when buying a television

[bousozoku]

I played with it in the store, and their picture-perfect in-store hi-def digital signal looked fine zoomed at various levels. I didn't notice any distortion, just porportional enlarging, like clicking Zoom In in Preview.app.

But I just unpacked my own set and have yet to even open the box with the power cord. And I'll probably have to make a run back to the store for overpriced cables before I can try all the possible hookups.

There's only one thing I'm regretting... While I was loading the box into the car, a guy drove up and asked me if I wanted to buy some speakers because "somebody canceled a delivery and the boss would be mad if I came back with them". I said no thanks (obviously something shady), finished pushing the big box into the car, and then realized I should have written down his license plate number and reported it. :kicks self:

You should never try to open a box with a power cord. You might be a risk of electric shock. Congratulations on your new t.v. Hopefully, it works well for you.

Those speakers are all over the country, apparently. When I lived outside Philly in 1991, I called the police after being approached by such people. The police said it was legal--that they had a permit. When I asked how you could get a permit to run a con game, the person on the phone laughed at me. A month or two later, they showed up on the t.v. news and there were a lot of unhappy buyers.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I played with it in the store, and their picture-perfect in-store hi-def digital signal looked fine zoomed at various levels. I didn't notice any distortion, just porportional enlarging, like clicking Zoom In in Preview.app.

But I just unpacked my own set and have yet to even open the box with the power cord. And I'll probably have to make a run back to the store for overpriced cables before I can try all the possible hookups.

Sounds promising. We await your verdict.

There's only one thing I'm regretting... While I was loading the box into the car, a guy drove up and asked me if I wanted to buy some speakers because "somebody canceled a delivery and the boss would be mad if I came back with them". I said no thanks (obviously something shady), finished pushing the big box into the car, and then realized I should have written down his license plate number and reported it. :kicks self:

Like they said where I grew up, "It fell offa da truck!"

 

[matticus008]

Zoom should not be a crop, inherently, I think. Again assuming my 2.35:1 letterboxed DVD... it is made to show the full width of the original image with black bars top and bottom on a 4:3 conventional TV. Ideally, a zoom feature on a 16:9 TV should allow you to zoom the letterboxed image such that the only loss of image is part of the black bars encoded at the top and bottom.

Zoom is by definition a crop of the image. You want it to cut off the encoded black bars. Only when the image to be cropped should match the actual dimensions of the TV do you have a perfectly successful zoom. That is, if the portion of the encoded frame is 16:10 inside a 4:3 letterbox, then it would work. Almost any other kind of zoom is going to leave some off the black bars or chop some off the edges.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Zoom is by definition a crop of the image. You want it to cut off the encoded black bars. Only when the image to be cropped should match the actual dimensions of the TV do you have a perfectly successful zoom. That is, if the portion of the encoded frame is 16:10 inside a 4:3 letterbox, then it would work. Almost any other kind of zoom is going to leave some off the black bars or chop some off the edges.

Right, I think we're on the same page. The question then is does any given TV offer a variety of zoom levels sufficient to compensate for the many different aspect ratios which we will encounter with non-anamorphic widescreen sources? It sounds like the LG displays might. Perhaps Dr. Q can report when he gets his hooked up and sorted out.

 

[JAT]

Right, I think we're on the same page. The question then is does any given TV offer a variety of zoom levels sufficient to compensate for the many different aspect ratios which we will encounter with non-anamorphic widescreen sources? It sounds like the LG displays might. Perhaps Dr. Q can report when he gets his hooked up and sorted out.

They are all different, that's what makes it fairly tricky sometimes. Players will also have zoom modes. Another issue is that some zooms work with some connections, but not others. Or with some resolutions, but not others. Also, there seems to be desires from some in this thread for automatic setup/display of each type of signal. That is simply not going to happens since we don't have any sort of system to recognize the exact shape of shows, you'd better get used to either stretching everything into one shape, cropping everything into one shape, or (much better) use the remote to manually adjust occasionally. We do have the anamorphic flags, but that doesn't point out specific aspect ratios, and there are many.

Here's an odd example:
My current TV has a position feature which my former one did not. They both could zoom a non-anamorphic pic just fine. But the zoom + position means I can take a non-anamorphic film with subtitles and watch it how I want, which I love. I have most of the Zatoichi films on DVD-Rs, these are all 2.35:1 with subtitles down below the pic in the black space. So I Zoom, then I shift the pic up a foot so the actual film is touching the top of the screen and the entire letterboxing space is below. Then the subtitles all fit onscreen. It does look a little weird since we're conditioned to see letterboxing on top and bottom. It's kinda like an iMac with the pic on top.

This takes a minute each time I want to watch such a show, and then afterwards to reset the position setting, but it's worth it.

 

[IJ Reilly]

And the TV that performs this trick is?

 

[panther08]

Check out Panasonic's 42" EDTV Plasma displays. They give the most consistent image across all resolutions. DVDs will look incredible, regular SD programming looks just as good as a SD set, and HDTV broadcasts also look great.

The Panasonic TH-42PD60U goes for around $1,200. AbtElectronics sells it for $999.

I agree with spicy, I've been shopping around this neighborhood as well, you may want to check some comparison sites, I found the TH-42PD60U at YaPrice.com here:

http://www.yaprice.com/compare-prices/panasonic-th-42pd60u-42-diagonal-plasma-tv-p3238233.html

 

[balamw]

And the TV that performs this trick is?

Sounds very similar to the settings on my Toshiba. As he said, not magic but manual tweaking required.

[Have I mentioned that I hate the Toshiba? ]

B

 

[JAT]

And the TV that performs this trick is?

Panasonic AE900. Note that this is a projector, not exactly mainstream to most.

With my previous TV, also a projector, I would just watch these movies window boxed (bars on all 4 sides) so I could read the subtitles.

 

[matticus008]

Right, I think we're on the same page. The question then is does any given TV offer a variety of zoom levels sufficient to compensate for the many different aspect ratios which we will encounter with non-anamorphic widescreen sources? It sounds like the LG displays might. Perhaps Dr. Q can report when he gets his hooked up and sorted out.

There are some good suggestions in the past few posts, but I don't think there's a comprehensive method of finding such models on any review site, especially given the variety of marketing terms applied to it. Unfortunately, even the models with adjustable zoom settings aren't capable of accommodating all the various shapes and sizes out there, and chances are that if such a model ever did get released, the studios would quickly introduce a new ratio just out of spite.

All I can add is that it seems to be a relatively common feature on Panasonic TVs (not just projectors)...but that it might be preferable to find a DVD player with adjustable video settings if DVD viewing is your primary concern (and especially given that this video source is the most problematic). That way, any changes to aspect ratios in the coming years won't require a new TV to accommodate them.

 

[Doctor Q]

There's always the issue of whether to get features in your TV that you can't use yet without a new DVD player, receiver, cable box, etc., to plan ahead for upgrading those components. If you plan to do the upgrades soon, I think that is often sensible.

If you don't really have a schedule in mind for those upgrades, and its just a vague idea for "someday", then you may be spending extra money unnecessarily. That's a judgement you have to make based on your future plans and your finances.

 

[matticus008]

That's certainly true, but my point was more along the lines of "instead of restricting yourself to a TV you might otherwise not like that much just to get adjustable zoom, you might consider buying an adjustable zoom DVD player. It's a lot cheaper than the TV and it frees up your selection of HDTV sets."

 

[IJ Reilly]

I wasn't aware of any DVD players with zoom features but then I haven't really looked. Zoom is a key feature that nobody really talks about, at least not on TVs. A simple stepped incremental system is all that's really required, with enough steps to get close to full horizontal coverage without significant clipping -- and it sounds like the LG set has such a thing. Or does it? I'm anxious to find out.

 

[matticus008]

I wasn't aware of any DVD players with zoom features but then I haven't really looked. Zoom is a key feature that nobody really talks about, at least not on TVs.

Mostly because few people care that much--lots of them will just put up with whatever appears on screen. As for DVD players, there are a number of them, including this Daewoo that I just pulled up from a quick search. There are more "mainstream" brands which offer these features, but it takes a bit of digging.

A simple stepped incremental system is all that's really required, with enough steps to get close to full horizontal coverage without significant clipping -- and it sounds like the LG set has such a thing. Or does it? I'm anxious to find out.

The LG, I'm guessing, has about 4 zoom modes.

Ideally, I'd like it to be a fine-tuned control like brightness or contrast, but I've yet to see such an implementation. 0 would be full, unadulterated 4:3 content as originally presented, and 100 would be sufficient to create a "manual pan and scan" from a 2.35:1 DVD. That would allow for any aspect ratio in between. Each step would take a thin row from the top and bottom of the image, gradually eroding the black bars on the sides until it fit the screen or there remained just a very small black border. If only wishes were horses...

 

[balamw]

The LG, I'm guessing, has about 4 zoom modes.

My Toshiba has 5 modes and they are described here: http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/tacpassets-images/models/27HLV95/docs/27HLV95_om_E.pdf

2 of those modes have a fine position slider that allows you to customize it a bit.

Note that the auto scaling function described doesn't work for the built-in DVD player, but only the component/HDMI ports.

B

 

[matticus008]

2 of those modes have a fine position slider that allows you to customize it a bit.

Now that's a step in the right direction! Maybe I'll be in the market again before long (though I only have a handful of DVDs with this problem, and the preset zoom mode works well for all of them, except subtitles on about two.

 

[Doctor Q]

A grand idea: Why don't they just give us all of Photoshop's adjustment features and let us scale, shift, zoom, stretch, distort, apply special effects, or make any other changes we want to every frame, all done in real time?

 

[JAT]

Pretty much all DVD players now have something for zoom. Not all of them are very useful, though. My Denon has 2 zoom modes, but they are basically worthless. I think they are just for zooming in on photos when you watch a slide show.

The Malata players originally had X/Y scaling, which was a continuous zoom in both directions. You could distort/zoom however you wanted. I am not sure if the latest models retain this feature.

 

[IJ Reilly]

The LG, I'm guessing, has about 4 zoom modes.

The manual implies that it has 16 zoom levels.

Dr. Q -- got yours set up yet?

 

[matticus008]

The manual implies that it has 16 zoom levels.

Dr. Q -- got yours set up yet?

But are they progressive ratio zooms or fixed ones? If some of those zoom levels are just magnification, it won't help much.

 

[IJ Reilly]

But are they progressive ratio zooms or fixed ones? If some of those zoom levels are just magnification, it won't help much.

I don't understand the distinction.

 

[Doctor Q]

The aspect/zoom features on the LG 37LC2D are:

• 4:3
• 16:9
• Set By Program: It determines whether to use 4:3 or 16:9 based on the source.
• Horizon: Adjusts picture in a non-linear proportion, more enlarged at both sides, to create a panorama view.
• Zoom 1: Displays picture without alteration. Top and bottom cropped.
• Zoom 2: Picture horizontally extended and vertically cropped. They call this a "halfway trade off between alteration and screen coverage."
• Cinema Zoom: Picture enlarged "in correct proportion" in 16 increments. They warn that the image may become distorted.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Cinema Zoom: Picture enlarged "in correct proportion" in 16 increments. They warn that the image may become distorted.

Right, this is the feature I mentioned above. I'm wondering how well it works.

I was in a Circuit City store last night hoping to see an LG TV with this feature, but they had only one small LG TV on display.

 

[Doctor Q]

Interesting CNET article: The case against 1080p.

It includes the claim that these factors that affect image quality should be ranked as follows, with the most important first:

1. contrast ratio
2. color saturation
3. color accuracy
4. resolution

They were looking at sets 42" and up, but it may apply for smaller sets as well.

 

[JAT]

Ah yes, read that earlier today when visiting another forum. Pretty bad comparison. All they really compared was 1080i with 1080p, which should have no difference if the processors are adequate in the TV.

I might note that although ISF puts resolution 4th on the list, it is still a deal/no deal issue for videophiles. Just not as big as 3 other issues.

I'm really not sure what the point of the article is. There are few true 1080p TVs even available for purchase today, and many of those have sub-par processing. Once more TVs like Pioneer's FHD1 plasma or the Sony Ruby are out and being sold, this will be more of an issue to argue about.