HDTV 55"-65" purchasing advice (Widescreen)

I am interested in purchasing a decent Widescreen 55"-65" HDTV.
I enjoy watching DVD and my Directv. I have a DTS surround sound 100
watts per channel system with good speakers. What specs should I
concern myself with?
And at what price range? I do not want to spend more than $ 3,000 (if
this is possible).

Any advice is appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

John B.

Your situation sounds very similar to mine. We just purchased a Mitsubishi
WS-65513 65" RPTV with integrated HD/DTV tuner. Cost was under $3K,
delivered and set up. We're thrilled with it.

Brand: "web consensus" steered me away from Sony, Philips, RCA, and
Toshiba; and toward Hitachi and Mitsubishi, with Mitsubishi getting highest
marks for convergence, line doubler (which makes DVDs and satellite non-HD
signals look watchable on an HD screen), and long-term reliability. Video
sales/service folks on line seemed to have a strong preference for
Mitsubishi.

Technology: There is direct view, LCD projector, DLP projector, plasma,
LCoS, and CRT-RPTV. At 55"+, CRT-RPTV (cathode ray tube, rear projection
TV) is a mature technology that (at this point in time), offers the best
value (size, image quality, reliability, etc.) for dollar.

I surfed the local stores (Magnolia, Best Buy, Circuit City, Good Guys,
Fry's) and the web. I didn't see any cost advantage to buying inline - mail
order... shipping charges more than made up any base price advantage. And
do you really want to buy a sensitive (300+ lb.) display device sight
unseen, where the return logistics (in case of damage or lemon) are too
terrible to imagine ?

I ended up buying at Fry's, I happen to catch an unadvertised special
(discount on this model, plus a free delivery/setup promotion).

I looked at a LOT of RPTV sets. Philips and RCA impressed me as having the
world's WORST line doublers. Yuchhh on displaying non-HD material ! Sony
got lots of BAD comments on reliability. Toshiba sets looked good, Hitachi
and Mitsubishi were the winners (for me, my tastes) on brightness and
display of both HD and non-HD material.

NOTE: I did not see a single set that was shown to decent advantage in any
store, even the so-called "boutique" stores. Every one of them had
"velocity scan modulation" (VSM) (trade name varies by brand) turned on, and
every one of them looked better with this "feature" disabled. VSM is simply
edge sharpening, exaggerating the contrast on "edges", a form of
high-frequency "peaking" or exaggeration. Invariably the signal "feeds"
were horrible or worthless (e.g. animations !?) or both. Your only hope is
to look at reasonably representative material.

Here's what I looked at:

ESPN (non-HD) via satellite. Satellite should give you reasonably
consistent picture quality. Don't use material from a movie or DVD, you
want real "30 Frames per Second" interlaced TV.

1. Check out the text crawl along the bottom. If the text looks like it was
hacked up with a chainsaw, then turn off the velocity scan modulation. If
it still looks crappy, move on to the next set.

2. Check the text crawl, the logo "bug" etc. in the various "stretch" or
"zoom" modes. Check out the "geometry" of the picture. You're going to be
watching a lot of non-HD material in the next few years, still, and it needs
to look GOOD in at least one of the various display modes, with straight
lines (vertically and horizontally) and reasonable picture sizing (no cutoff
of image from overscan or over stretch, etc., in either horizontal or
vertical axis).

3. Check out diagonals (e.g. arms and shoulders of ESPN "hosts", they
shouldn't be moving). Non-HD images have 480 horizontal scan lines. The
HDTV display has 1080 lines. If you just "repeat" most of the scan lines,
diagonal lines suddenly look like stair steps. Looks bad. If the diagonals
look smooth, the set has a decent (or even better) algorithm for upscaling
from 480 scan lines to 1080 scan lines. This feature is called, of course,
"line-doubling". Low-end sets may not have ANY line-doubler (walk away).
Some have OK line-doublers. Some (including the Mitsubishi sets, of course)
impress you that they have refined their line-doubling algorithms over the
years.

4. Even brightness. Does the picture seem brighter or "hotter" in the
centre, and dimmer in the corners ? It shouldn't. You really need a "flat
picture" to judge this properly, but you can detect it on commercials and
picture credits, etc. as well.

DVD or movie via satellite. We're going to look at 3:2 pulldown detection
and picture sizing. Movies originate as 24 Frames per Second NON-interlaced
images, and that is how they are "captured" on a DVD (even if the DVD is in
the satellite network's studio). The DVD player converts the 24 FPS
non-interlaced image into a 30 FPS interlaced (60 fields per second,
roughly) signal format. A proper HDTV can detect and reconstruct the 24 FPS
non-interlaced image format.

5. Check diagonals on MOVING objects. If you can detect the even/odd
interlacing of scan lines as the diagonal edges move on the screen, then the
set isn't de-interlacing the signal. When an object moves in an interlaced
image, you can see the ODD scan lines move first, then the EVEN lines catch
up (or race ahead), and so on. A good set detects the quantitative "match"
of successive pairs of even and odd video fields, recognises the match
pattern as a film characteristic, and then de-interlaces the signal. The
result is a "progressive scan" picture.

6. Check picture size. No doubt most of your DVD-watching will be
wide-screen aspect ratio material. Most films are 2.35:1 aspect ratio, or
roughly 21:9 (not 16:9) image. There will still be narrow horizontal "bars"
at the top and bottom of the image. Make sure there is no unexpected
cropping or stretching going on.

Finally, what are the convergence tweaking facilities ? The odds of a 300
pound behemoth surviving the truck ride and delivery-crew trip into the
living room without needing convergence adjustments are tiny. Even if the
set doesn't need convergence adjustment at first, it *WILL* need convergence
adjustment after a few weeks of mechanical and thermal settling. So, how do
you fine-tune convergence ? Mitsubishi sets have an 8x8 grid for
independent convergence adjustments, readily user-accessible.

These are the basics. Once you get the set home, you can tweak the set with
Digital Video Essentials or Avia setup DVDs. These will mostly address
sharpness, brightness, contrast, and colour balance settings. They won't be
right in the stores, so there's no point in worrying about these issues on
the showroom floor.

One more question for you: With HDTV tuner, or without ?

If you are dead certain that you are about to buy a satellite HD receiver,
then there is little to be gained with a TV with internal HDTV tuner. The
satellite HD receiver will include an OTA (over the air) HD decoder, you
just hookup your own antenna.

On the other hand, if you think it will be a few years before the cost of a
satellite HD receiver (complete with video recorder capabilities) is
reasonable, and the available satellite HD content justifies the HD service
premium fee, then it will be worth it to go for the internal HD decoder so
you don't miss this year's Super Bowl in HD. NOTE: Viewing an NFL
football game (particularly the Green Bay Packers) in High Definition is, in
my opinion, a religious experience. You will never be happy with NFL via
satellite again. It will be OK, but nothing more.

There! I've told you everything I know, plus a bit more.

I am VERY happy with our Mitsubishi 65" HDTV. We get ABC and CBS NFL games
in HD, we have enough inputs and outputs for DVD (component video), VCR
(composite), Satellite (S-Video), and Playstation (S-Video), with digital
audio out (from digital television decoder) for the surround sound receiver.

Hope this helps, and happy hunting!

-- Bob


"JohnB" wrote in message
m...
I am interested in purchasing a decent Widescreen 55"-65" HDTV.
I enjoy watching DVD and my Directv. I have a DTS surround sound 100
watts per channel system with good speakers. What specs should I
concern myself with?
And at what price range? I do not want to spend more than $ 3,000 (if
this is possible).

Any advice is appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

John B.

Your situation sounds very similar to mine. We just purchased a Mitsubishi
WS-65513 65" RPTV with integrated HD/DTV tuner. Cost was under $3K,
delivered and set up. We're thrilled with it.

Brand: "web consensus" steered me away from Sony, Philips, RCA, and
Toshiba; and toward Hitachi and Mitsubishi, with Mitsubishi getting highest
marks for convergence, line doubler (which makes DVDs and satellite non-HD
signals look watchable on an HD screen), and long-term reliability. Video
sales/service folks on line seemed to have a strong preference for
Mitsubishi.

Technology: There is direct view, LCD projector, DLP projector, plasma,
LCoS, and CRT-RPTV. At 55"+, CRT-RPTV (cathode ray tube, rear projection
TV) is a mature technology that (at this point in time), offers the best
value (size, image quality, reliability, etc.) for dollar.

I surfed the local stores (Magnolia, Best Buy, Circuit City, Good Guys,
Fry's) and the web. I didn't see any cost advantage to buying inline - mail
order... shipping charges more than made up any base price advantage. And
do you really want to buy a sensitive (300+ lb.) display device sight
unseen, where the return logistics (in case of damage or lemon) are too
terrible to imagine ?

I ended up buying at Fry's, I happen to catch an unadvertised special
(discount on this model, plus a free delivery/setup promotion).

I looked at a LOT of RPTV sets. Philips and RCA impressed me as having the
world's WORST line doublers. Yuchhh on displaying non-HD material ! Sony
got lots of BAD comments on reliability. Toshiba sets looked good, Hitachi
and Mitsubishi were the winners (for me, my tastes) on brightness and
display of both HD and non-HD material.

NOTE: I did not see a single set that was shown to decent advantage in any
store, even the so-called "boutique" stores. Every one of them had
"velocity scan modulation" (VSM) (trade name varies by brand) turned on, and
every one of them looked better with this "feature" disabled. VSM is simply
edge sharpening, exaggerating the contrast on "edges", a form of
high-frequency "peaking" or exaggeration. Invariably the signal "feeds"
were horrible or worthless (e.g. animations !?) or both. Your only hope is
to look at reasonably representative material.

Here's what I looked at:

ESPN (non-HD) via satellite. Satellite should give you reasonably
consistent picture quality. Don't use material from a movie or DVD, you
want real "30 Frames per Second" interlaced TV.

1. Check out the text crawl along the bottom. If the text looks like it was
hacked up with a chainsaw, then turn off the velocity scan modulation. If
it still looks crappy, move on to the next set.

2. Check the text crawl, the logo "bug" etc. in the various "stretch" or
"zoom" modes. Check out the "geometry" of the picture. You're going to be
watching a lot of non-HD material in the next few years, still, and it needs
to look GOOD in at least one of the various display modes, with straight
lines (vertically and horizontally) and reasonable picture sizing (no cutoff
of image from overscan or over stretch, etc., in either horizontal or
vertical axis).

3. Check out diagonals (e.g. arms and shoulders of ESPN "hosts", they
shouldn't be moving). Non-HD images have 480 horizontal scan lines. The
HDTV display has 1080 lines. If you just "repeat" most of the scan lines,
diagonal lines suddenly look like stair steps. Looks bad. If the diagonals
look smooth, the set has a decent (or even better) algorithm for upscaling
from 480 scan lines to 1080 scan lines. This feature is called, of course,
"line-doubling". Low-end sets may not have ANY line-doubler (walk away).
Some have OK line-doublers. Some (including the Mitsubishi sets, of course)
impress you that they have refined their line-doubling algorithms over the
years.

4. Even brightness. Does the picture seem brighter or "hotter" in the
centre, and dimmer in the corners ? It shouldn't. You really need a "flat
picture" to judge this properly, but you can detect it on commercials and
picture credits, etc. as well.

DVD or movie via satellite. We're going to look at 3:2 pulldown detection
and picture sizing. Movies originate as 24 Frames per Second NON-interlaced
images, and that is how they are "captured" on a DVD (even if the DVD is in
the satellite network's studio). The DVD player converts the 24 FPS
non-interlaced image into a 30 FPS interlaced (60 fields per second,
roughly) signal format. A proper HDTV can detect and reconstruct the 24 FPS
non-interlaced image format.

5. Check diagonals on MOVING objects. If you can detect the even/odd
interlacing of scan lines as the diagonal edges move on the screen, then the
set isn't de-interlacing the signal. When an object moves in an interlaced
image, you can see the ODD scan lines move first, then the EVEN lines catch
up (or race ahead), and so on. A good set detects the quantitative "match"
of successive pairs of even and odd video fields, recognises the match
pattern as a film characteristic, and then de-interlaces the signal. The
result is a "progressive scan" picture.

6. Check picture size. No doubt most of your DVD-watching will be
wide-screen aspect ratio material. Most films are 2.35:1 aspect ratio, or
roughly 21:9 (not 16:9) image. There will still be narrow horizontal "bars"
at the top and bottom of the image. Make sure there is no unexpected
cropping or stretching going on.

Finally, what are the convergence tweaking facilities ? The odds of a 300
pound behemoth surviving the truck ride and delivery-crew trip into the
living room without needing convergence adjustments are tiny. Even if the
set doesn't need convergence adjustment at first, it *WILL* need convergence
adjustment after a few weeks of mechanical and thermal settling. So, how do
you fine-tune convergence ? Mitsubishi sets have an 8x8 grid for
independent convergence adjustments, readily user-accessible.

These are the basics. Once you get the set home, you can tweak the set with
Digital Video Essentials or Avia setup DVDs. These will mostly address
sharpness, brightness, contrast, and colour balance settings. They won't be
right in the stores, so there's no point in worrying about these issues on
the showroom floor.

One more question for you: With HDTV tuner, or without ?

If you are dead certain that you are about to buy a satellite HD receiver,
then there is little to be gained with a TV with internal HDTV tuner. The
satellite HD receiver will include an OTA (over the air) HD decoder, you
just hookup your own antenna.

On the other hand, if you think it will be a few years before the cost of a
satellite HD receiver (complete with video recorder capabilities) is
reasonable, and the available satellite HD content justifies the HD service
premium fee, then it will be worth it to go for the internal HD decoder so
you don't miss this year's Super Bowl in HD. NOTE: Viewing an NFL
football game (particularly the Green Bay Packers) in High Definition is, in
my opinion, a religious experience. You will never be happy with NFL via
satellite again. It will be OK, but nothing more.

There! I've told you everything I know, plus a bit more.

I am VERY happy with our Mitsubishi 65" HDTV. We get ABC and CBS NFL games
in HD, we have enough inputs and outputs for DVD (component video), VCR
(composite), Satellite (S-Video), and Playstation (S-Video), with digital
audio out (from digital television decoder) for the surround sound receiver.

Hope this helps, and happy hunting!

-- Bob


"JohnB" wrote in message
m...
I am interested in purchasing a decent Widescreen 55"-65" HDTV.
I enjoy watching DVD and my Directv. I have a DTS surround sound 100
watts per channel system with good speakers. What specs should I
concern myself with?
And at what price range? I do not want to spend more than $ 3,000 (if
this is possible).

Any advice is appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

John B.

Bob,
I am having this unit delivered next week. I am curious how the stretch
modes do with regular DirecTV signals? Which one do you use for best
picture?

Thanks in advance.....


"bob elkind" wrote in message
...
Your situation sounds very similar to mine. We just purchased a
Mitsubishi
WS-65513 65" RPTV with integrated HD/DTV tuner. Cost was under $3K,
delivered and set up. We're thrilled with it.

Brand: "web consensus" steered me away from Sony, Philips, RCA, and
Toshiba; and toward Hitachi and Mitsubishi, with Mitsubishi getting
highest
marks for convergence, line doubler (which makes DVDs and satellite non-HD
signals look watchable on an HD screen), and long-term reliability. Video
sales/service folks on line seemed to have a strong preference for
Mitsubishi.

Technology: There is direct view, LCD projector, DLP projector, plasma,
LCoS, and CRT-RPTV. At 55"+, CRT-RPTV (cathode ray tube, rear projection
TV) is a mature technology that (at this point in time), offers the best
value (size, image quality, reliability, etc.) for dollar.

I surfed the local stores (Magnolia, Best Buy, Circuit City, Good Guys,
Fry's) and the web. I didn't see any cost advantage to buying inline -
mail
order... shipping charges more than made up any base price advantage. And
do you really want to buy a sensitive (300+ lb.) display device sight
unseen, where the return logistics (in case of damage or lemon) are too
terrible to imagine ?

I ended up buying at Fry's, I happen to catch an unadvertised special
(discount on this model, plus a free delivery/setup promotion).

I looked at a LOT of RPTV sets. Philips and RCA impressed me as having
the
world's WORST line doublers. Yuchhh on displaying non-HD material ! Sony
got lots of BAD comments on reliability. Toshiba sets looked good,
Hitachi
and Mitsubishi were the winners (for me, my tastes) on brightness and
display of both HD and non-HD material.

NOTE: I did not see a single set that was shown to decent advantage in
any
store, even the so-called "boutique" stores. Every one of them had
"velocity scan modulation" (VSM) (trade name varies by brand) turned on,
and
every one of them looked better with this "feature" disabled. VSM is
simply
edge sharpening, exaggerating the contrast on "edges", a form of
high-frequency "peaking" or exaggeration. Invariably the signal "feeds"
were horrible or worthless (e.g. animations !?) or both. Your only hope
is
to look at reasonably representative material.

Here's what I looked at:

ESPN (non-HD) via satellite. Satellite should give you reasonably
consistent picture quality. Don't use material from a movie or DVD, you
want real "30 Frames per Second" interlaced TV.

1. Check out the text crawl along the bottom. If the text looks like it
was
hacked up with a chainsaw, then turn off the velocity scan modulation. If
it still looks crappy, move on to the next set.

2. Check the text crawl, the logo "bug" etc. in the various "stretch" or
"zoom" modes. Check out the "geometry" of the picture. You're going to
be
watching a lot of non-HD material in the next few years, still, and it
needs
to look GOOD in at least one of the various display modes, with straight
lines (vertically and horizontally) and reasonable picture sizing (no
cutoff
of image from overscan or over stretch, etc., in either horizontal or
vertical axis).

3. Check out diagonals (e.g. arms and shoulders of ESPN "hosts", they
shouldn't be moving). Non-HD images have 480 horizontal scan lines. The
HDTV display has 1080 lines. If you just "repeat" most of the scan lines,
diagonal lines suddenly look like stair steps. Looks bad. If the
diagonals
look smooth, the set has a decent (or even better) algorithm for upscaling
from 480 scan lines to 1080 scan lines. This feature is called, of
course,
"line-doubling". Low-end sets may not have ANY line-doubler (walk away).
Some have OK line-doublers. Some (including the Mitsubishi sets, of
course)
impress you that they have refined their line-doubling algorithms over the
years.

4. Even brightness. Does the picture seem brighter or "hotter" in the
centre, and dimmer in the corners ? It shouldn't. You really need a
"flat
picture" to judge this properly, but you can detect it on commercials and
picture credits, etc. as well.

DVD or movie via satellite. We're going to look at 3:2 pulldown detection
and picture sizing. Movies originate as 24 Frames per Second
NON-interlaced
images, and that is how they are "captured" on a DVD (even if the DVD is
in
the satellite network's studio). The DVD player converts the 24 FPS
non-interlaced image into a 30 FPS interlaced (60 fields per second,
roughly) signal format. A proper HDTV can detect and reconstruct the 24
FPS
non-interlaced image format.

5. Check diagonals on MOVING objects. If you can detect the even/odd
interlacing of scan lines as the diagonal edges move on the screen, then
the
set isn't de-interlacing the signal. When an object moves in an
interlaced
image, you can see the ODD scan lines move first, then the EVEN lines
catch
up (or race ahead), and so on. A good set detects the quantitative
"match"
of successive pairs of even and odd video fields, recognises the match
pattern as a film characteristic, and then de-interlaces the signal. The
result is a "progressive scan" picture.

6. Check picture size. No doubt most of your DVD-watching will be
wide-screen aspect ratio material. Most films are 2.35:1 aspect ratio, or
roughly 21:9 (not 16:9) image. There will still be narrow horizontal
"bars"
at the top and bottom of the image. Make sure there is no unexpected
cropping or stretching going on.

Finally, what are the convergence tweaking facilities ? The odds of a 300
pound behemoth surviving the truck ride and delivery-crew trip into the
living room without needing convergence adjustments are tiny. Even if the
set doesn't need convergence adjustment at first, it *WILL* need
convergence
adjustment after a few weeks of mechanical and thermal settling. So, how
do
you fine-tune convergence ? Mitsubishi sets have an 8x8 grid for
independent convergence adjustments, readily user-accessible.

These are the basics. Once you get the set home, you can tweak the set
with
Digital Video Essentials or Avia setup DVDs. These will mostly address
sharpness, brightness, contrast, and colour balance settings. They won't
be
right in the stores, so there's no point in worrying about these issues on
the showroom floor.

One more question for you: With HDTV tuner, or without ?

If you are dead certain that you are about to buy a satellite HD receiver,
then there is little to be gained with a TV with internal HDTV tuner. The
satellite HD receiver will include an OTA (over the air) HD decoder, you
just hookup your own antenna.

On the other hand, if you think it will be a few years before the cost of
a
satellite HD receiver (complete with video recorder capabilities) is
reasonable, and the available satellite HD content justifies the HD
service
premium fee, then it will be worth it to go for the internal HD decoder so
you don't miss this year's Super Bowl in HD. NOTE: Viewing an NFL
football game (particularly the Green Bay Packers) in High Definition is,
in
my opinion, a religious experience. You will never be happy with NFL via
satellite again. It will be OK, but nothing more.

There! I've told you everything I know, plus a bit more.

I am VERY happy with our Mitsubishi 65" HDTV. We get ABC and CBS NFL
games
in HD, we have enough inputs and outputs for DVD (component video), VCR
(composite), Satellite (S-Video), and Playstation (S-Video), with digital
audio out (from digital television decoder) for the surround sound
receiver.

Hope this helps, and happy hunting!

-- Bob


"JohnB" wrote in message
m...
I am interested in purchasing a decent Widescreen 55"-65" HDTV.
I enjoy watching DVD and my Directv. I have a DTS surround sound 100
watts per channel system with good speakers. What specs should I
concern myself with?
And at what price range? I do not want to spend more than $ 3,000 (if
this is possible).

Any advice is appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

John B.

Bob,
I am having this unit delivered next week. I am curious how the stretch
modes do with regular DirecTV signals? Which one do you use for best
picture?

Thanks in advance.....


"bob elkind" wrote in message
...
Your situation sounds very similar to mine. We just purchased a
Mitsubishi
WS-65513 65" RPTV with integrated HD/DTV tuner. Cost was under $3K,
delivered and set up. We're thrilled with it.

Brand: "web consensus" steered me away from Sony, Philips, RCA, and
Toshiba; and toward Hitachi and Mitsubishi, with Mitsubishi getting
highest
marks for convergence, line doubler (which makes DVDs and satellite non-HD
signals look watchable on an HD screen), and long-term reliability. Video
sales/service folks on line seemed to have a strong preference for
Mitsubishi.

Technology: There is direct view, LCD projector, DLP projector, plasma,
LCoS, and CRT-RPTV. At 55"+, CRT-RPTV (cathode ray tube, rear projection
TV) is a mature technology that (at this point in time), offers the best
value (size, image quality, reliability, etc.) for dollar.

I surfed the local stores (Magnolia, Best Buy, Circuit City, Good Guys,
Fry's) and the web. I didn't see any cost advantage to buying inline -
mail
order... shipping charges more than made up any base price advantage. And
do you really want to buy a sensitive (300+ lb.) display device sight
unseen, where the return logistics (in case of damage or lemon) are too
terrible to imagine ?

I ended up buying at Fry's, I happen to catch an unadvertised special
(discount on this model, plus a free delivery/setup promotion).

I looked at a LOT of RPTV sets. Philips and RCA impressed me as having
the
world's WORST line doublers. Yuchhh on displaying non-HD material ! Sony
got lots of BAD comments on reliability. Toshiba sets looked good,
Hitachi
and Mitsubishi were the winners (for me, my tastes) on brightness and
display of both HD and non-HD material.

NOTE: I did not see a single set that was shown to decent advantage in
any
store, even the so-called "boutique" stores. Every one of them had
"velocity scan modulation" (VSM) (trade name varies by brand) turned on,
and
every one of them looked better with this "feature" disabled. VSM is
simply
edge sharpening, exaggerating the contrast on "edges", a form of
high-frequency "peaking" or exaggeration. Invariably the signal "feeds"
were horrible or worthless (e.g. animations !?) or both. Your only hope
is
to look at reasonably representative material.

Here's what I looked at:

ESPN (non-HD) via satellite. Satellite should give you reasonably
consistent picture quality. Don't use material from a movie or DVD, you
want real "30 Frames per Second" interlaced TV.

1. Check out the text crawl along the bottom. If the text looks like it
was
hacked up with a chainsaw, then turn off the velocity scan modulation. If
it still looks crappy, move on to the next set.

2. Check the text crawl, the logo "bug" etc. in the various "stretch" or
"zoom" modes. Check out the "geometry" of the picture. You're going to
be
watching a lot of non-HD material in the next few years, still, and it
needs
to look GOOD in at least one of the various display modes, with straight
lines (vertically and horizontally) and reasonable picture sizing (no
cutoff
of image from overscan or over stretch, etc., in either horizontal or
vertical axis).

3. Check out diagonals (e.g. arms and shoulders of ESPN "hosts", they
shouldn't be moving). Non-HD images have 480 horizontal scan lines. The
HDTV display has 1080 lines. If you just "repeat" most of the scan lines,
diagonal lines suddenly look like stair steps. Looks bad. If the
diagonals
look smooth, the set has a decent (or even better) algorithm for upscaling
from 480 scan lines to 1080 scan lines. This feature is called, of
course,
"line-doubling". Low-end sets may not have ANY line-doubler (walk away).
Some have OK line-doublers. Some (including the Mitsubishi sets, of
course)
impress you that they have refined their line-doubling algorithms over the
years.

4. Even brightness. Does the picture seem brighter or "hotter" in the
centre, and dimmer in the corners ? It shouldn't. You really need a
"flat
picture" to judge this properly, but you can detect it on commercials and
picture credits, etc. as well.

DVD or movie via satellite. We're going to look at 3:2 pulldown detection
and picture sizing. Movies originate as 24 Frames per Second
NON-interlaced
images, and that is how they are "captured" on a DVD (even if the DVD is
in
the satellite network's studio). The DVD player converts the 24 FPS
non-interlaced image into a 30 FPS interlaced (60 fields per second,
roughly) signal format. A proper HDTV can detect and reconstruct the 24
FPS
non-interlaced image format.

5. Check diagonals on MOVING objects. If you can detect the even/odd
interlacing of scan lines as the diagonal edges move on the screen, then
the
set isn't de-interlacing the signal. When an object moves in an
interlaced
image, you can see the ODD scan lines move first, then the EVEN lines
catch
up (or race ahead), and so on. A good set detects the quantitative
"match"
of successive pairs of even and odd video fields, recognises the match
pattern as a film characteristic, and then de-interlaces the signal. The
result is a "progressive scan" picture.

6. Check picture size. No doubt most of your DVD-watching will be
wide-screen aspect ratio material. Most films are 2.35:1 aspect ratio, or
roughly 21:9 (not 16:9) image. There will still be narrow horizontal
"bars"
at the top and bottom of the image. Make sure there is no unexpected
cropping or stretching going on.

Finally, what are the convergence tweaking facilities ? The odds of a 300
pound behemoth surviving the truck ride and delivery-crew trip into the
living room without needing convergence adjustments are tiny. Even if the
set doesn't need convergence adjustment at first, it *WILL* need
convergence
adjustment after a few weeks of mechanical and thermal settling. So, how
do
you fine-tune convergence ? Mitsubishi sets have an 8x8 grid for
independent convergence adjustments, readily user-accessible.

These are the basics. Once you get the set home, you can tweak the set
with
Digital Video Essentials or Avia setup DVDs. These will mostly address
sharpness, brightness, contrast, and colour balance settings. They won't
be
right in the stores, so there's no point in worrying about these issues on
the showroom floor.

One more question for you: With HDTV tuner, or without ?

If you are dead certain that you are about to buy a satellite HD receiver,
then there is little to be gained with a TV with internal HDTV tuner. The
satellite HD receiver will include an OTA (over the air) HD decoder, you
just hookup your own antenna.

On the other hand, if you think it will be a few years before the cost of
a
satellite HD receiver (complete with video recorder capabilities) is
reasonable, and the available satellite HD content justifies the HD
service
premium fee, then it will be worth it to go for the internal HD decoder so
you don't miss this year's Super Bowl in HD. NOTE: Viewing an NFL
football game (particularly the Green Bay Packers) in High Definition is,
in
my opinion, a religious experience. You will never be happy with NFL via
satellite again. It will be OK, but nothing more.

There! I've told you everything I know, plus a bit more.

I am VERY happy with our Mitsubishi 65" HDTV. We get ABC and CBS NFL
games
in HD, we have enough inputs and outputs for DVD (component video), VCR
(composite), Satellite (S-Video), and Playstation (S-Video), with digital
audio out (from digital television decoder) for the surround sound
receiver.

Hope this helps, and happy hunting!

-- Bob


"JohnB" wrote in message
m...
I am interested in purchasing a decent Widescreen 55"-65" HDTV.
I enjoy watching DVD and my Directv. I have a DTS surround sound 100
watts per channel system with good speakers. What specs should I
concern myself with?
And at what price range? I do not want to spend more than $ 3,000 (if
this is possible).

Any advice is appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

John B.

I prefer "stretch plus" for standard 4:3 material, but my kids may not agree
with me. In this mode, on a Mitsubishi, only the outer 25% of the picture
is stretched out to the ends of the 16:9 screen. So stuff in the center
looks normally proportioned, and as you wander out to the sides you
progressively appear wider. This is something you can "try before you buy"
in the store.

Made a mfr/model selection, yet ?

-- Bob

"Shad" wrote in message
news:[email protected]
Bob,
I am having this unit delivered next week. I am curious how the stretch
modes do with regular DirecTV signals? Which one do you use for best
picture?

Thanks in advance.....


"bob elkind" wrote in message
...
Your situation sounds very similar to mine. We just purchased a
Mitsubishi
WS-65513 65" RPTV with integrated HD/DTV tuner. Cost was under $3K,
delivered and set up. We're thrilled with it.


.... snipped

I prefer "stretch plus" for standard 4:3 material, but my kids may not agree
with me. In this mode, on a Mitsubishi, only the outer 25% of the picture
is stretched out to the ends of the 16:9 screen. So stuff in the center
looks normally proportioned, and as you wander out to the sides you
progressively appear wider. This is something you can "try before you buy"
in the store.

Made a mfr/model selection, yet ?

-- Bob

"Shad" wrote in message
news:[email protected]
Bob,
I am having this unit delivered next week. I am curious how the stretch
modes do with regular DirecTV signals? Which one do you use for best
picture?

Thanks in advance.....


"bob elkind" wrote in message
...
Your situation sounds very similar to mine. We just purchased a
Mitsubishi
WS-65513 65" RPTV with integrated HD/DTV tuner. Cost was under $3K,
delivered and set up. We're thrilled with it.


.... snipped

Bob,

What's your viewing distance on that 65" Mits? I've got 11 feet and
have been told by a salesman I trust that this is really too short a
distance to use the 65" to its best advantage.

BB

bob elkind wrote:

Your situation sounds very similar to mine. We just purchased a Mitsubishi
WS-65513 65" RPTV with integrated HD/DTV tuner. Cost was under $3K,
delivered and set up. We're thrilled with it.

Brand: "web consensus" steered me away from Sony, Philips, RCA, and
Toshiba; and toward Hitachi and Mitsubishi, with Mitsubishi getting highest
marks for convergence, line doubler (which makes DVDs and satellite non-HD
signals look watchable on an HD screen), and long-term reliability. Video
sales/service folks on line seemed to have a strong preference for
Mitsubishi.

Technology: There is direct view, LCD projector, DLP projector, plasma,
LCoS, and CRT-RPTV. At 55"+, CRT-RPTV (cathode ray tube, rear projection
TV) is a mature technology that (at this point in time), offers the best
value (size, image quality, reliability, etc.) for dollar.

I surfed the local stores (Magnolia, Best Buy, Circuit City, Good Guys,
Fry's) and the web. I didn't see any cost advantage to buying inline - mail
order... shipping charges more than made up any base price advantage. And
do you really want to buy a sensitive (300+ lb.) display device sight
unseen, where the return logistics (in case of damage or lemon) are too
terrible to imagine ?

I ended up buying at Fry's, I happen to catch an unadvertised special
(discount on this model, plus a free delivery/setup promotion).

I looked at a LOT of RPTV sets. Philips and RCA impressed me as having the
world's WORST line doublers. Yuchhh on displaying non-HD material ! Sony
got lots of BAD comments on reliability. Toshiba sets looked good, Hitachi
and Mitsubishi were the winners (for me, my tastes) on brightness and
display of both HD and non-HD material.

NOTE: I did not see a single set that was shown to decent advantage in any
store, even the so-called "boutique" stores. Every one of them had
"velocity scan modulation" (VSM) (trade name varies by brand) turned on, and
every one of them looked better with this "feature" disabled. VSM is simply
edge sharpening, exaggerating the contrast on "edges", a form of
high-frequency "peaking" or exaggeration. Invariably the signal "feeds"
were horrible or worthless (e.g. animations !?) or both. Your only hope is
to look at reasonably representative material.

Here's what I looked at:

ESPN (non-HD) via satellite. Satellite should give you reasonably
consistent picture quality. Don't use material from a movie or DVD, you
want real "30 Frames per Second" interlaced TV.

1. Check out the text crawl along the bottom. If the text looks like it was
hacked up with a chainsaw, then turn off the velocity scan modulation. If
it still looks crappy, move on to the next set.

2. Check the text crawl, the logo "bug" etc. in the various "stretch" or
"zoom" modes. Check out the "geometry" of the picture. You're going to be
watching a lot of non-HD material in the next few years, still, and it needs
to look GOOD in at least one of the various display modes, with straight
lines (vertically and horizontally) and reasonable picture sizing (no cutoff
of image from overscan or over stretch, etc., in either horizontal or
vertical axis).

3. Check out diagonals (e.g. arms and shoulders of ESPN "hosts", they
shouldn't be moving). Non-HD images have 480 horizontal scan lines. The
HDTV display has 1080 lines. If you just "repeat" most of the scan lines,
diagonal lines suddenly look like stair steps. Looks bad. If the diagonals
look smooth, the set has a decent (or even better) algorithm for upscaling
from 480 scan lines to 1080 scan lines. This feature is called, of course,
"line-doubling". Low-end sets may not have ANY line-doubler (walk away).
Some have OK line-doublers. Some (including the Mitsubishi sets, of course)
impress you that they have refined their line-doubling algorithms over the
years.

4. Even brightness. Does the picture seem brighter or "hotter" in the
centre, and dimmer in the corners ? It shouldn't. You really need a "flat
picture" to judge this properly, but you can detect it on commercials and
picture credits, etc. as well.

DVD or movie via satellite. We're going to look at 3:2 pulldown detection
and picture sizing. Movies originate as 24 Frames per Second NON-interlaced
images, and that is how they are "captured" on a DVD (even if the DVD is in
the satellite network's studio). The DVD player converts the 24 FPS
non-interlaced image into a 30 FPS interlaced (60 fields per second,
roughly) signal format. A proper HDTV can detect and reconstruct the 24 FPS
non-interlaced image format.

5. Check diagonals on MOVING objects. If you can detect the even/odd
interlacing of scan lines as the diagonal edges move on the screen, then the
set isn't de-interlacing the signal. When an object moves in an interlaced
image, you can see the ODD scan lines move first, then the EVEN lines catch
up (or race ahead), and so on. A good set detects the quantitative "match"
of successive pairs of even and odd video fields, recognises the match
pattern as a film characteristic, and then de-interlaces the signal. The
result is a "progressive scan" picture.

6. Check picture size. No doubt most of your DVD-watching will be
wide-screen aspect ratio material. Most films are 2.35:1 aspect ratio, or
roughly 21:9 (not 16:9) image. There will still be narrow horizontal "bars"
at the top and bottom of the image. Make sure there is no unexpected
cropping or stretching going on.

Finally, what are the convergence tweaking facilities ? The odds of a 300
pound behemoth surviving the truck ride and delivery-crew trip into the
living room without needing convergence adjustments are tiny. Even if the
set doesn't need convergence adjustment at first, it *WILL* need convergence
adjustment after a few weeks of mechanical and thermal settling. So, how do
you fine-tune convergence ? Mitsubishi sets have an 8x8 grid for
independent convergence adjustments, readily user-accessible.

These are the basics. Once you get the set home, you can tweak the set with
Digital Video Essentials or Avia setup DVDs. These will mostly address
sharpness, brightness, contrast, and colour balance settings. They won't be
right in the stores, so there's no point in worrying about these issues on
the showroom floor.

One more question for you: With HDTV tuner, or without ?

If you are dead certain that you are about to buy a satellite HD receiver,
then there is little to be gained with a TV with internal HDTV tuner. The
satellite HD receiver will include an OTA (over the air) HD decoder, you
just hookup your own antenna.

On the other hand, if you think it will be a few years before the cost of a
satellite HD receiver (complete with video recorder capabilities) is
reasonable, and the available satellite HD content justifies the HD service
premium fee, then it will be worth it to go for the internal HD decoder so
you don't miss this year's Super Bowl in HD. NOTE: Viewing an NFL
football game (particularly the Green Bay Packers) in High Definition is, in
my opinion, a religious experience. You will never be happy with NFL via
satellite again. It will be OK, but nothing more.

There! I've told you everything I know, plus a bit more.

I am VERY happy with our Mitsubishi 65" HDTV. We get ABC and CBS NFL games
in HD, we have enough inputs and outputs for DVD (component video), VCR
(composite), Satellite (S-Video), and Playstation (S-Video), with digital
audio out (from digital television decoder) for the surround sound receiver.

Hope this helps, and happy hunting!

-- Bob


"JohnB" wrote in message
m...

I am interested in purchasing a decent Widescreen 55"-65" HDTV.
I enjoy watching DVD and my Directv. I have a DTS surround sound 100
watts per channel system with good speakers. What specs should I
concern myself with?
And at what price range? I do not want to spend more than $ 3,000 (if
this is possible).

Any advice is appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

John B.

Bob,

What's your viewing distance on that 65" Mits? I've got 11 feet and
have been told by a salesman I trust that this is really too short a
distance to use the 65" to its best advantage.

BB

bob elkind wrote:

Your situation sounds very similar to mine. We just purchased a Mitsubishi
WS-65513 65" RPTV with integrated HD/DTV tuner. Cost was under $3K,
delivered and set up. We're thrilled with it.

Brand: "web consensus" steered me away from Sony, Philips, RCA, and
Toshiba; and toward Hitachi and Mitsubishi, with Mitsubishi getting highest
marks for convergence, line doubler (which makes DVDs and satellite non-HD
signals look watchable on an HD screen), and long-term reliability. Video
sales/service folks on line seemed to have a strong preference for
Mitsubishi.

Technology: There is direct view, LCD projector, DLP projector, plasma,
LCoS, and CRT-RPTV. At 55"+, CRT-RPTV (cathode ray tube, rear projection
TV) is a mature technology that (at this point in time), offers the best
value (size, image quality, reliability, etc.) for dollar.

I surfed the local stores (Magnolia, Best Buy, Circuit City, Good Guys,
Fry's) and the web. I didn't see any cost advantage to buying inline - mail
order... shipping charges more than made up any base price advantage. And
do you really want to buy a sensitive (300+ lb.) display device sight
unseen, where the return logistics (in case of damage or lemon) are too
terrible to imagine ?

I ended up buying at Fry's, I happen to catch an unadvertised special
(discount on this model, plus a free delivery/setup promotion).

I looked at a LOT of RPTV sets. Philips and RCA impressed me as having the
world's WORST line doublers. Yuchhh on displaying non-HD material ! Sony
got lots of BAD comments on reliability. Toshiba sets looked good, Hitachi
and Mitsubishi were the winners (for me, my tastes) on brightness and
display of both HD and non-HD material.

NOTE: I did not see a single set that was shown to decent advantage in any
store, even the so-called "boutique" stores. Every one of them had
"velocity scan modulation" (VSM) (trade name varies by brand) turned on, and
every one of them looked better with this "feature" disabled. VSM is simply
edge sharpening, exaggerating the contrast on "edges", a form of
high-frequency "peaking" or exaggeration. Invariably the signal "feeds"
were horrible or worthless (e.g. animations !?) or both. Your only hope is
to look at reasonably representative material.

Here's what I looked at:

ESPN (non-HD) via satellite. Satellite should give you reasonably
consistent picture quality. Don't use material from a movie or DVD, you
want real "30 Frames per Second" interlaced TV.

1. Check out the text crawl along the bottom. If the text looks like it was
hacked up with a chainsaw, then turn off the velocity scan modulation. If
it still looks crappy, move on to the next set.

2. Check the text crawl, the logo "bug" etc. in the various "stretch" or
"zoom" modes. Check out the "geometry" of the picture. You're going to be
watching a lot of non-HD material in the next few years, still, and it needs
to look GOOD in at least one of the various display modes, with straight
lines (vertically and horizontally) and reasonable picture sizing (no cutoff
of image from overscan or over stretch, etc., in either horizontal or
vertical axis).

3. Check out diagonals (e.g. arms and shoulders of ESPN "hosts", they
shouldn't be moving). Non-HD images have 480 horizontal scan lines. The
HDTV display has 1080 lines. If you just "repeat" most of the scan lines,
diagonal lines suddenly look like stair steps. Looks bad. If the diagonals
look smooth, the set has a decent (or even better) algorithm for upscaling
from 480 scan lines to 1080 scan lines. This feature is called, of course,
"line-doubling". Low-end sets may not have ANY line-doubler (walk away).
Some have OK line-doublers. Some (including the Mitsubishi sets, of course)
impress you that they have refined their line-doubling algorithms over the
years.

4. Even brightness. Does the picture seem brighter or "hotter" in the
centre, and dimmer in the corners ? It shouldn't. You really need a "flat
picture" to judge this properly, but you can detect it on commercials and
picture credits, etc. as well.

DVD or movie via satellite. We're going to look at 3:2 pulldown detection
and picture sizing. Movies originate as 24 Frames per Second NON-interlaced
images, and that is how they are "captured" on a DVD (even if the DVD is in
the satellite network's studio). The DVD player converts the 24 FPS
non-interlaced image into a 30 FPS interlaced (60 fields per second,
roughly) signal format. A proper HDTV can detect and reconstruct the 24 FPS
non-interlaced image format.

5. Check diagonals on MOVING objects. If you can detect the even/odd
interlacing of scan lines as the diagonal edges move on the screen, then the
set isn't de-interlacing the signal. When an object moves in an interlaced
image, you can see the ODD scan lines move first, then the EVEN lines catch
up (or race ahead), and so on. A good set detects the quantitative "match"
of successive pairs of even and odd video fields, recognises the match
pattern as a film characteristic, and then de-interlaces the signal. The
result is a "progressive scan" picture.

6. Check picture size. No doubt most of your DVD-watching will be
wide-screen aspect ratio material. Most films are 2.35:1 aspect ratio, or
roughly 21:9 (not 16:9) image. There will still be narrow horizontal "bars"
at the top and bottom of the image. Make sure there is no unexpected
cropping or stretching going on.

Finally, what are the convergence tweaking facilities ? The odds of a 300
pound behemoth surviving the truck ride and delivery-crew trip into the
living room without needing convergence adjustments are tiny. Even if the
set doesn't need convergence adjustment at first, it *WILL* need convergence
adjustment after a few weeks of mechanical and thermal settling. So, how do
you fine-tune convergence ? Mitsubishi sets have an 8x8 grid for
independent convergence adjustments, readily user-accessible.

These are the basics. Once you get the set home, you can tweak the set with
Digital Video Essentials or Avia setup DVDs. These will mostly address
sharpness, brightness, contrast, and colour balance settings. They won't be
right in the stores, so there's no point in worrying about these issues on
the showroom floor.

One more question for you: With HDTV tuner, or without ?

If you are dead certain that you are about to buy a satellite HD receiver,
then there is little to be gained with a TV with internal HDTV tuner. The
satellite HD receiver will include an OTA (over the air) HD decoder, you
just hookup your own antenna.

On the other hand, if you think it will be a few years before the cost of a
satellite HD receiver (complete with video recorder capabilities) is
reasonable, and the available satellite HD content justifies the HD service
premium fee, then it will be worth it to go for the internal HD decoder so
you don't miss this year's Super Bowl in HD. NOTE: Viewing an NFL
football game (particularly the Green Bay Packers) in High Definition is, in
my opinion, a religious experience. You will never be happy with NFL via
satellite again. It will be OK, but nothing more.

There! I've told you everything I know, plus a bit more.

I am VERY happy with our Mitsubishi 65" HDTV. We get ABC and CBS NFL games
in HD, we have enough inputs and outputs for DVD (component video), VCR
(composite), Satellite (S-Video), and Playstation (S-Video), with digital
audio out (from digital television decoder) for the surround sound receiver.

Hope this helps, and happy hunting!

-- Bob


"JohnB" wrote in message
m...

I am interested in purchasing a decent Widescreen 55"-65" HDTV.
I enjoy watching DVD and my Directv. I have a DTS surround sound 100
watts per channel system with good speakers. What specs should I
concern myself with?
And at what price range? I do not want to spend more than $ 3,000 (if
this is possible).

Any advice is appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

John B.

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 11:37:03 -0500, BB wrote:

Bob,

What's your viewing distance on that 65" Mits? I've got 11 feet and
have been told by a salesman I trust that this is really too short a
distance to use the 65" to its best advantage.


It's really a personal thing but to put it bluntly, I think the
salesman is nuts.When you first get your new set it will look huge but
in a matter of days or a couple of weeks it will shrink and you may
even wish you could get a bigger screen.
Thumper
BB

bob elkind wrote:

Your situation sounds very similar to mine. We just purchased a Mitsubishi
WS-65513 65" RPTV with integrated HD/DTV tuner. Cost was under $3K,
delivered and set up. We're thrilled with it.

Brand: "web consensus" steered me away from Sony, Philips, RCA, and
Toshiba; and toward Hitachi and Mitsubishi, with Mitsubishi getting highest
marks for convergence, line doubler (which makes DVDs and satellite non-HD
signals look watchable on an HD screen), and long-term reliability. Video
sales/service folks on line seemed to have a strong preference for
Mitsubishi.

Technology: There is direct view, LCD projector, DLP projector, plasma,
LCoS, and CRT-RPTV. At 55"+, CRT-RPTV (cathode ray tube, rear projection
TV) is a mature technology that (at this point in time), offers the best
value (size, image quality, reliability, etc.) for dollar.

I surfed the local stores (Magnolia, Best Buy, Circuit City, Good Guys,
Fry's) and the web. I didn't see any cost advantage to buying inline - mail
order... shipping charges more than made up any base price advantage. And
do you really want to buy a sensitive (300+ lb.) display device sight
unseen, where the return logistics (in case of damage or lemon) are too
terrible to imagine ?

I ended up buying at Fry's, I happen to catch an unadvertised special
(discount on this model, plus a free delivery/setup promotion).

I looked at a LOT of RPTV sets. Philips and RCA impressed me as having the
world's WORST line doublers. Yuchhh on displaying non-HD material ! Sony
got lots of BAD comments on reliability. Toshiba sets looked good, Hitachi
and Mitsubishi were the winners (for me, my tastes) on brightness and
display of both HD and non-HD material.

NOTE: I did not see a single set that was shown to decent advantage in any
store, even the so-called "boutique" stores. Every one of them had
"velocity scan modulation" (VSM) (trade name varies by brand) turned on, and
every one of them looked better with this "feature" disabled. VSM is simply
edge sharpening, exaggerating the contrast on "edges", a form of
high-frequency "peaking" or exaggeration. Invariably the signal "feeds"
were horrible or worthless (e.g. animations !?) or both. Your only hope is
to look at reasonably representative material.

Here's what I looked at:

ESPN (non-HD) via satellite. Satellite should give you reasonably
consistent picture quality. Don't use material from a movie or DVD, you
want real "30 Frames per Second" interlaced TV.

1. Check out the text crawl along the bottom. If the text looks like it was
hacked up with a chainsaw, then turn off the velocity scan modulation. If
it still looks crappy, move on to the next set.

2. Check the text crawl, the logo "bug" etc. in the various "stretch" or
"zoom" modes. Check out the "geometry" of the picture. You're going to be
watching a lot of non-HD material in the next few years, still, and it needs
to look GOOD in at least one of the various display modes, with straight
lines (vertically and horizontally) and reasonable picture sizing (no cutoff
of image from overscan or over stretch, etc., in either horizontal or
vertical axis).

3. Check out diagonals (e.g. arms and shoulders of ESPN "hosts", they
shouldn't be moving). Non-HD images have 480 horizontal scan lines. The
HDTV display has 1080 lines. If you just "repeat" most of the scan lines,
diagonal lines suddenly look like stair steps. Looks bad. If the diagonals
look smooth, the set has a decent (or even better) algorithm for upscaling
from 480 scan lines to 1080 scan lines. This feature is called, of course,
"line-doubling". Low-end sets may not have ANY line-doubler (walk away).
Some have OK line-doublers. Some (including the Mitsubishi sets, of course)
impress you that they have refined their line-doubling algorithms over the
years.

4. Even brightness. Does the picture seem brighter or "hotter" in the
centre, and dimmer in the corners ? It shouldn't. You really need a "flat
picture" to judge this properly, but you can detect it on commercials and
picture credits, etc. as well.

DVD or movie via satellite. We're going to look at 3:2 pulldown detection
and picture sizing. Movies originate as 24 Frames per Second NON-interlaced
images, and that is how they are "captured" on a DVD (even if the DVD is in
the satellite network's studio). The DVD player converts the 24 FPS
non-interlaced image into a 30 FPS interlaced (60 fields per second,
roughly) signal format. A proper HDTV can detect and reconstruct the 24 FPS
non-interlaced image format.

5. Check diagonals on MOVING objects. If you can detect the even/odd
interlacing of scan lines as the diagonal edges move on the screen, then the
set isn't de-interlacing the signal. When an object moves in an interlaced
image, you can see the ODD scan lines move first, then the EVEN lines catch
up (or race ahead), and so on. A good set detects the quantitative "match"
of successive pairs of even and odd video fields, recognises the match
pattern as a film characteristic, and then de-interlaces the signal. The
result is a "progressive scan" picture.

6. Check picture size. No doubt most of your DVD-watching will be
wide-screen aspect ratio material. Most films are 2.35:1 aspect ratio, or
roughly 21:9 (not 16:9) image. There will still be narrow horizontal "bars"
at the top and bottom of the image. Make sure there is no unexpected
cropping or stretching going on.

Finally, what are the convergence tweaking facilities ? The odds of a 300
pound behemoth surviving the truck ride and delivery-crew trip into the
living room without needing convergence adjustments are tiny. Even if the
set doesn't need convergence adjustment at first, it *WILL* need convergence
adjustment after a few weeks of mechanical and thermal settling. So, how do
you fine-tune convergence ? Mitsubishi sets have an 8x8 grid for
independent convergence adjustments, readily user-accessible.

These are the basics. Once you get the set home, you can tweak the set with
Digital Video Essentials or Avia setup DVDs. These will mostly address
sharpness, brightness, contrast, and colour balance settings. They won't be
right in the stores, so there's no point in worrying about these issues on
the showroom floor.

One more question for you: With HDTV tuner, or without ?

If you are dead certain that you are about to buy a satellite HD receiver,
then there is little to be gained with a TV with internal HDTV tuner. The
satellite HD receiver will include an OTA (over the air) HD decoder, you
just hookup your own antenna.

On the other hand, if you think it will be a few years before the cost of a
satellite HD receiver (complete with video recorder capabilities) is
reasonable, and the available satellite HD content justifies the HD service
premium fee, then it will be worth it to go for the internal HD decoder so
you don't miss this year's Super Bowl in HD. NOTE: Viewing an NFL
football game (particularly the Green Bay Packers) in High Definition is, in
my opinion, a religious experience. You will never be happy with NFL via
satellite again. It will be OK, but nothing more.

There! I've told you everything I know, plus a bit more.

I am VERY happy with our Mitsubishi 65" HDTV. We get ABC and CBS NFL games
in HD, we have enough inputs and outputs for DVD (component video), VCR
(composite), Satellite (S-Video), and Playstation (S-Video), with digital
audio out (from digital television decoder) for the surround sound receiver.

Hope this helps, and happy hunting!

-- Bob


"JohnB" wrote in message
m...

I am interested in purchasing a decent Widescreen 55"-65" HDTV.
I enjoy watching DVD and my Directv. I have a DTS surround sound 100
watts per channel system with good speakers. What specs should I
concern myself with?
And at what price range? I do not want to spend more than $ 3,000 (if
this is possible).

Any advice is appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

John B.




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