HDTV televisions/monitors with DirecTV standard-def receivers

We aren't ready to upgrade to HD yet. Not even close. We never watch local
channels, even if we could get them with rabbit ears (which we can't). But
when we DID live in an area with good local channel reception, we never
watched nbc, cbs, abc or fox anyway. The main channels we watch are food
(wife), tlc (wife), ngc, discovery, history, and several HBO channels. Of
that list, I think one of them is available in HD. Nobody in our household
has any interest at all in sports.

So HD has nothing to offer us, yet. It doesn't make sense to upgrade a
receiver and programming package just to watch Discovery in HD.

However, our standard-def CRT TV broke this past weekend, and I wanted a
flat panel of some kind to replace it. READ: large-ish, but something I
could handle myself (not 200 pounds like the set that just broke!). Looking
around, the only reasonable options I had were LCD HDTV televisions (or just
monitors) in the 32-ish inch size range. Yeah, I found some EDTV sets, but
they were about the same price as the HDTV sets, so what's the point?

Not wanting to wait for a few days or longer to have a television delivered
(could have got better deal online, but shipping would be slow or cost a
fortune or both), I settled for what was easily available locally. That
turned out to be a Westinghouse (Delta) 32" LCD HDTV on sale ($200 off) from
Best Buy. Amazingly, this is the first time in several years that I've
wanted to buy something at Best Buy, when they actually HAD what I wanted IN
STOCK.

Now, because this was a short-notice purchase, I didn't consider the other
equipment in the entertainment center. But AFTER I got the HDTV home and
started adjusting it (contrast/brightness/saturation/hue/backlight/color
temp, etc.), I realized that my other equipment might need to be tweaked a
bit to better match the new monitor.

I discovered something VERY INTERESTING:

Because our DirecTV receiver is fairly new (D11-300?), I believe, it has a
new feature that even DirecTV support (the girl I talked to anyway) was not
aware of. The newer DirecTV standard-def receivers are widescreen
compatible! I found a menu in the DirecTV receiver that allowed me to
change the output aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9. I wanted to know exactly
what would happen if I did that. So I called, and the girl I talked to at
DirecTV (after getting over the surprise that a D11 had that option) looked
it up. This is what I was told. If you select 16:9, the DirecTV receiver
puts back some of the video information that was clipped to make the output
conform to 4:3 standard. I tried it, and sure enough . . . there is more
video in the signal that is not displayed if 4:3 is selected.

Bottom line, if you have the right DirecTV standard-def receiver, you can
set the aspect ratio to 16:9, and then when you set your television/monitor
to "fill" the screen, the people end up looking NORMAL!!! If you leave the
DirecTV receiver at 4:3 aspect ratio and set your monitor to "fill" the
screen, every person shown instantly gains about 100 pounds, as they are
shown much WIDER than they should be. But with the DirecTV receiver at 16:9
ratio, the displayed picture is wider to begin with. So, when the
TV/monitor stretches it to fill the screen, the resulting display is NORMAL
looking, with no black bars!!!

Unfortunately, the picture is still slightly distorted as I am running the
monitor in a display resolution that is not "native". If anybody tells you
that their HDTV monitor displays standard-def content better than any
standard-def TV can, they are only kidding themselves. Standard-Def
programming will never look quite right on a flat panel HDTV set. It
doesn't look bad, but it's not as clear as it could be.

But, I thought I'd post some good news for those who need a new TV set but
aren't ready to go "all the way" with high-def yet. If you have the right
DirecTV standard-def receiver, you can set it up to drive a HDTV TV/monitor
*with no black bars*, and the image quality is more than acceptable, even if
it's not quite as good as you'd get out of a standard-def TV/monitor.

So don't be afraid to buy a HDTV TV/Monitor before you upgrade to an HDTV
programming package. -Dave

"Mike T." wrote:

But with the DirecTV receiver at 16:9
ratio, the displayed picture is wider to begin with. So, when the
TV/monitor stretches it to fill the screen, the resulting display is NORMAL
looking, with no black bars!!!

SD programming actually has an aspect ratio of 1.5 to 1, which is clipped,
usually by the TV set, to 1.33 to 1. This is why, if you do make any video
yourself, the viewfinder will show a "safe" area that is smaller than the
available image.

If you have SD programming that is not stretched and has no black bars, you
must be clipping a small amount from the top and bottom of the picture. This
may not be enough to be worrisome.

Unfortunately, the picture is still slightly distorted as I am running the
monitor in a display resolution that is not "native". If anybody tells you
that their HDTV monitor displays standard-def content better than any
standard-def TV can, they are only kidding themselves. Standard-Def
programming will never look quite right on a flat panel HDTV set. It
doesn't look bad, but it's not as clear as it could be.

Digital displays have one resolution that they look best at. It's up to
conversion circuitry in the display to handle other resolutions. This
ability varies greatly from one set to another.

Also, an HD display will make the usual MPEG compression artifacts in the
satellite signal more noticeable than they were.

But, I thought I'd post some good news for those who need a new TV set but
aren't ready to go "all the way" with high-def yet.

I also use a SD Dish receiver with an HDTV (CRT). I get my high-def fix from
local broadcasts; the DISH HD channels are not interesting to me. And with a
good DVD player (like the Oppo 970), I'm happy with the overall situation,
too.

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 11:19:24 -0500, "Mike T." wrote:
....
Because our DirecTV receiver is fairly new (D11-300?), I believe, it has a
new feature that even DirecTV support (the girl I talked to anyway) was not
aware of. The newer DirecTV standard-def receivers are widescreen
compatible! I found a menu in the DirecTV receiver that allowed me to
change the output aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9. I wanted to know exactly
what would happen if I did that. So I called, and the girl I talked to at
DirecTV (after getting over the surprise that a D11 had that option) looked
it up. This is what I was told. If you select 16:9, the DirecTV receiver
puts back some of the video information that was clipped to make the output
conform to 4:3 standard. I tried it, and sure enough . . . there is more
video in the signal that is not displayed if 4:3 is selected.

My antique Sony SAT-B2, from the time when HBO was distributed by
USSB, has that menu item. It does exactly nothing in my receiver. Nice
to know it does something for somebody. So are you seeing "more"
detail within the same frame limits, or are you seeing "more" objects
that are outside the 4x3 frame limit? What happens when a show would
normally be letterboxed - does the receiver stretch it both ways to
fill the screen? Or maybe your new display does that?

Unfortunately, the picture is still slightly distorted as I am running the
monitor in a display resolution that is not "native". If anybody tells you
that their HDTV monitor displays standard-def content better than any
standard-def TV can, they are only kidding themselves. Standard-Def
programming will never look quite right on a flat panel HDTV set. It
doesn't look bad, but it's not as clear as it could be.

My original Apple "Studio Display" does an exquisite job of
upconverting SD signals to 1024X768. Sony's DRC "intelligent" pixel
doubling also makes a clear improvement. It is possible. But you are
right that most modern flat panels, even the ones that advertise a
fancy brand of video processor chip, do a lousy job.

Loren

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 13:32:53 -0500, Kimba W. Lion KimbaWLion wrote:

SD programming actually has an aspect ratio of 1.5 to 1, which is clipped,
usually by the TV set, to 1.33 to 1.

Video natively uses non-square pixels. A 4x3 image in digital video is
roughly 720x480, but the 720 horizontal pixels take up the same width
as 640 square pixels would. Flat panels use square pixels, so the 720
to 640 conversion is required. So in one sense you are right, the
pixel ratio is 1.5:1, but if you display that image directly on a
square pixel panel, people will be overweight and wheels won't be
round.

Digital displays have one resolution that they look best at. It's up to
conversion circuitry in the display to handle other resolutions. This
ability varies greatly from one set to another.

There's a candidate for the understatement award!

Loren

My antique Sony SAT-B2, from the time when HBO was distributed by
USSB, has that menu item. It does exactly nothing in my receiver. Nice
to know it does something for somebody. So are you seeing "more"
detail within the same frame limits, or are you seeing "more" objects
that are outside the 4x3 frame limit? What happens when a show would
normally be letterboxed - does the receiver stretch it both ways to
fill the screen? Or maybe your new display does that?

More objects are seen, if they happened to be in the overscan area when the
video was produced. Well without getting too technical, it appears that
some of the "overscan" area is recovered on both sides by selecting 16:9
format. The way I understand overscan, early 4:3 televisions were
considered defective if ANY black areas were displayed. So all video had to
be shot with a certain amount of "overscan" detail. Then the television
itself trims the excess to give you a display that covers the entire
viewable area of the screen (the picture is cropped, leaving the last inch
or two not visible on the sides). As I understand it, the DirecTV receiver
is altering the output to the television so that all video information is
now in the "safe" area, and the overscan area (normally clipped by the TV)
is nothing but black. The result is that you have a slightly higher
resolution picture than you'd normally see in a 4:3 set, even though the
source video was shot for 4:3. With the overscan visible on the sides, the
video is closer to widescreen format. So when the TV takes what is now
(virtual widescreen) and expands it out to fill the entire screen, there is
less distortion (faces don't look five miles wide, for example, ha ha)

Overall, I'm happier with the display quality than I thought I'd be.
Widescreen DVDs are incredibly sharp, through the component inputs. Even
the lowly SD DirecTV receiver looks good, through S-Video input. It looked
better through a SD CRT monitor, but oh well . . .

On a side note...
I read some review somewhere stating that the monitor I chose has poor color
accuracy. But I've checked gray level as well as levels of red, green and
blue. Factory settings are totally ****ed up (just like all televisions, NO
exceptions), but it can be adjusted to PERFECT color accuracy. In
particular, the color decoder couldn't possibly be more accurate. With blue
level (color level/saturation) and tint (hue) set correctly, neither red nor
green are pushed at all. I should mention, I made the adjustments at the
"warm"/orange-biased gray setting. There are sets out there with terrible
color decoders (can't set blue correctly, or if you do, red and green are
totally messed up), but the westinghouse/delta 32" LCD HDTV that Best Buy
carries at the moment is NOT one of them. -Dave

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 16:06:07 -0500, "Mike T." wrote:

[Loren Amelang wrote:]
My antique Sony SAT-B2, from the time when HBO was distributed by
USSB, has that menu item. It does exactly nothing in my receiver. Nice
to know it does something for somebody. So are you seeing "more"
detail within the same frame limits, or are you seeing "more" objects
that are outside the 4x3 frame limit? What happens when a show would
normally be letterboxed - does the receiver stretch it both ways to
fill the screen? Or maybe your new display does that?

More objects are seen, if they happened to be in the overscan area when the
video was produced. Well without getting too technical, it appears that
some of the "overscan" area is recovered on both sides by selecting 16:9
format. The way I understand overscan, early 4:3 televisions were
considered defective if ANY black areas were displayed. So all video had to
be shot with a certain amount of "overscan" detail. Then the television
itself trims the excess to give you a display that covers the entire
viewable area of the screen (the picture is cropped, leaving the last inch
or two not visible on the sides).

Very true. I remember back when TV was black-and-white, and the water
pump starting up would both dim the lights and shrink the TV picture
so much you could see the black edges. And see that an inch or more of
picture was normally hidden. Often you could see the size change when
the screen image got brighter or darker, as well. The power supplies
were so variable, they couldn't keep the picture size stable.

As I understand it, the DirecTV receiver
is altering the output to the television so that all video information is
now in the "safe" area, and the overscan area (normally clipped by the TV)
is nothing but black.

On my Apple display, even with S-video input, I see exactly all of the
active video area, regardless of the source - DirecTV, VCR, or DVD. If
I use its position controls to move the image one pixel in any
direction, I see the blanking bars, data signals, VCR head switching,
and other garbage just beyond the actual video. Often when the video
has been converted from a foreign system, I see several pixels of
artifacts along the edges. I thought all flat panels were like this,
but my experience is limited to computer-capable displays. Could it be
that flat-panel _television_ sets imitate overscanned TVs?

CRT monitors sometimes had overscan/exact/underscan switches. It
sounds like you are saying your DirecTV receiver has a switch that
imitates a CRT monitor's overscan/underscan switch. Seems odd, but I
guess it is possible. I certainly wouldn't expect it to be labeled
"4:3 / 16:9" though!

Loren

On my Apple display, even with S-video input, I see exactly all of the
active video area, regardless of the source - DirecTV, VCR, or DVD. If
I use its position controls to move the image one pixel in any
direction, I see the blanking bars, data signals, VCR head switching,
and other garbage just beyond the actual video. Often when the video
has been converted from a foreign system, I see several pixels of
artifacts along the edges. I thought all flat panels were like this,
but my experience is limited to computer-capable displays. Could it be
that flat-panel _television_ sets imitate overscanned TVs?

Good question. As I understand it, HD no longer uses overscan. That is, if
you are producing 1080P, you are shooting 1920 (I think it's 1920) pixels of
horizontal resolution and consumer level video equipment is displaying 1920
pixels of horizontal resolution, also, if it is capable of doing so and set
up correctly. Most flat-panel television sets that people should consider
buying at this point would be HD capable. EDTV is a real ******* of a
technology, not really offering any advantage for SD content, yet incapable
of displaying HD content.

If there are any SD flat-panels (non-CRT-based) still on the market, I
certainly couldn't find them, and I was looking for them.

So my best guess is, flat panel TVs could imitate overscanned TVs, but don't
need to, as that is so, so ....YESTERDAY.

CRT monitors sometimes had overscan/exact/underscan switches. It
sounds like you are saying your DirecTV receiver has a switch that
imitates a CRT monitor's overscan/underscan switch. Seems odd, but I
guess it is possible. I certainly wouldn't expect it to be labeled
"4:3 / 16:9" though!

Actually, it appears that that's EXACTLY what DirecTV has done with their
more recent SD-capable receivers. And it makes perfect sense. I mean, how
do you stretch out a 4:3 SD picture to make it look more normal on a 16:9
display? Reduce the overscan area to 0% on the sides!!! Now the picture is
wider without actually being altered, at all. Now think about it from a
user-friendly perspective. How do you label such a feature? "Turn overscan
off" would be kind of cryptic. At least most consumers who own
widescreen monitor/TVs would be familiar with 4:3 and 16:9. That's how I
found that function. -Dave

I'm in the market for a HDTV/LCD TV for use on Directv. I know the best
picture will be from a HD channel using a HD receiver. Can anyone
answer the following two questions?

(1) What will be the quality of non-HD channels when using a HD Directv
receiver. Please compare to a standard CRT TV and receiver.

(2) What will be the quality of any Directv channel using a standard
receiver. Please compare to a standard CRT TV and receiver.

Thanks

On 27 Dec 2006 13:48:29 -0800, "gwtx2" wrote:

I'm in the market for a HDTV/LCD TV for use on Directv. I know the best
picture will be from a HD channel using a HD receiver. Can anyone
answer the following two questions?

(1) What will be the quality of non-HD channels when using a HD Directv
receiver. Please compare to a standard CRT TV and receiver.
I am currently using a Directv HD-DVR reciever playing through a
Yamaha HTR reciever going to a Pioneer Elite 43 Plasma. In all
honesty I try not to watch standard broadcast on this unit becuase I
do not like the grey side bars. The picture is better than the unit
in my master bedroomm, a Directv DVR with a 32" JVC CRT. I attribute
this to the fact that the Pioneer Elite is state of the art and a high
end unit.
(2) What will be the quality of any Directv channel using a standard
receiver. Please compare to a standard CRT TV and receiver.
In all honesty the best to see how good the HD set is going to be that
you are buying is to get a black and white DVD and have the salesman
run it to the set you are interested in. If you are seeing black
blacks and white whites you are going to love the set.
Thanks

(1) What will be the quality of non-HD channels when using a HD Directv
receiver. Please compare to a standard CRT TV and receiver.
I am currently using a Directv HD-DVR reciever playing through a
Yamaha HTR reciever going to a Pioneer Elite 43 Plasma. In all
honesty I try not to watch standard broadcast on this unit becuase I
do not like the grey side bars.

Does your DirecTV receiver not have an option to set your output aspect
ratio to 16:9? Does your Pioneer Elite 43 Plasma not have an option to
display/stretch an image full-screen? We've got a cheap 32" LCD HDTV
running off a DirecTV standard-def receiver, and it looks pretty good!
Fills whole screen, no gray bars, and people aren't stretched out like they
are 2 yards wide, either. In other words, the picture looks very natural,
with no viewing area wasted with black/gray filler. I find it tough to
believe that you can't match that, with better equipment than we own.

In all honesty the best to see how good the HD set is going to be that
you are buying is to get a black and white DVD and have the salesman
run it to the set you are interested in. If you are seeing black
blacks and white whites you are going to love the set.

Good in theory, but in practice? All televisions (NO exceptions) ship from
the factory with really ****ed-up (to put it bluntly) picture quality
settings. To make matters worse, probably .05% (or less) of retail workers
have any clue at all that a television needs to be adjusted for optimum
display quality. Even fewer know how to do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In particular, I will guarantee you that if you walk up to any random
television set on retail display, there is a 99.99% (or better) chance that
the brightness (black level) and contrast (white, in relation to black) are
not only set wrong, but are nowhere NEAR being properly set. Typically,
these are both set way too high from the factory, and never adjusted in a
retail display (or worse, adjusted incorrectly). Therefore, blacks look
light gray and whites will give you a migraine headache, instantly.

Other problems are, most televisions leave the factory pushing red. The few
that don't, will push green. This means the hue is off. Or typically,
"flesh" tones will look pretty close to fire engine red, and nowhere near
natural. Oh, and color level is often cranked up to near maximum also.
Yeah, it's colorful. Too bad it looks so unnatural that way.

Oh, and sharpness is often cranked up too high also. Too high meaning,
anywhere above MINIMUM, because this control just adds distortion to the
picture.

Do I need to go on?

Unfortunately, there is no good way to evaluate a television *for picture
quality* on a retail floor. You can view any source you want on it (such as
playing a black/white DVD), but you are seeing it at factory settings, which
are always crap (ALWAYS!!!). The best you can do is pick a good name brand
television, with a decent warranty, at what you feel is a fair price. Take
it home, hook it up to a good DVD player, then find a good calibration disk
such as digital video essentials and use that to set it up. If you are not
happy with the picture quality after that, then you probably got a defective
set.

The good news is, even most of the cheapie television sets can be adjusted
properly to offer very good picture quality. But even the high-end units
will look like **** in a retail display setting. There's no way around
that, as the manufacturers deliberately distort the picture to make the TV
stand out on the sales floor. And you aren't going to spend several hours
adjusting televisions on a retail floor (assuming you even know how to) so
you can compare them, even if the retail store would allow you to do that
(which of course they won't) -Dave