I finally got into HD TV with a 37 inch HP LCD

[WMcD]

Long story. Perhaps everyone's story. What the heck to buy, and when, and why.

Basically I don't replace old equipment until it fails. It removes a little bit of the issue of when to get on the merry-go-round of better equipment being just another year away.. Best to wait until you're forced to.

I had a big old Triniton. State of the art at the time. After 15 years it croaked. Then reverted to the old small Triniton of the same vintage.

I bought an Envisons 18 inch for the office computer and wordprocessing. But it looked much better than the small Trinitron I kept it for home viewing. It has an RF input.

Events lead to the fancy condo purchase. There is room in the corner for a big TV but then again I've got all these speakers. Not as many as Michael C, but in the same league. Smile.

I was resolute in parcimony. I will not buy a big TV until the Cubs are in the playoffs or the Envisions croaks. The Envions blinked a few times last week but recovered. The Cubs are in the cellar. Thursday, the Cubs were not doing well. The Envisons got terminally cranky.

To use the most often used line in Star Trek by Bones, "He's dead, Jim."

There are "city life" issues. No car. I walked over to BB. I want something tonight I can take home.

So may choices.

I eventually settled on the HP LC3760N. I'd have liked the highest definition and a screen the size of Alaska. But that is for another day.

Otherwise this small rig makes a lot of sense. It fit in the trunk of a cab. It has all sorts of inputs and tuners. At 50 pounds it can be moved around.

I'm having a ball.

Presently I'm looking at DVD and analog cable. It is quite surpising that these sources vary quite a bit in quality between themselves.

Best,

Gil

I

[Steve_L]

So congrats, I think the HP's are nice units.

So now what you need to do immediately, is:

order "digital" cable service

go out and buy a really sweet 5.1 surround sound system

So, what's your budget? We'll help.

[wuzzzer]

You probably know this already, but component or HDMI cables are a must for both your DVD player and your digital cable box, if you have one.

[JJkizak]

HP in the old days used to make very high quality stuff (My 3c scanner weights more than 5 new scanners and still works fine with the old software). Their test equipment was top shelf also. I would hope their new stuff is quality.

JJK

[oldbuckster]

Enjoy, it's a whole new world, Wuzzers right,in this case cables matter, alot..................Are you 5.1 ready?

[Petrol]

if you order HD cable service they will/should provide you with the cables, my service did

[WMcD]

As a progress report: Maybe others who are making choices would like to know. Hard to tell what is wheat and what is chaff information. I ramble.

Background: The condo association brings in RCN cable which has analog and digital. If you want anything but basic channels in either there will be an extra charge and you have to get a box. I've not done that.

The HP has the three decoders NTSC, Clear-Quam, and ASTC, plus all the video, being component, composite, S-Video, and HDMI (2). Being able to investigate all these is a reason for buying this unit.

You can flip sceen image and rotate. I suppose upside down is used so you can mount it up high, upside down, and have the controls on the top of the unit, within reach. Something to fool with.

There are options for adjusting color, contrast, etc. But in view of the spotty quality of sources (see below), I'm not soon going to fool with it until I understand more.

The internal speakers are not much to talk about. The Quartets with an old oriental amp are outstanding in comparison.

The read-out on the HP for digital channels are some sort of quasi-frequency. They don't correspond to what is shown on the RCN website. But I've started a list on a spreadsheet. Obviously, they are playing with bandwidth.

I'm in the north side of Chicago (just north of Fullerton, fairly close to downtown). But it seems that the cable feed is from the Skokie section of RCN and not Chicago. Skokie is the first northern suburb. Just another matter of mis-information. [Aside, if you read "The Mote in God's Eye". Evanston is the moon around New Chicago, origin of term, unknown. Evanston is just north of Skokie.]

It looks like they're bringing in Chicago broadcast digital. NBC digital and WTTW (public) digital are outstanding. Starz is also excellent. VERY IMPRESSIVE. This what HD is all about.

The other digital channels are obviously at lower resolution. Many seem to be sub-NTSC quality. Very compressed. Some color seems off spec too.

It may be that local digital broadcast will be better than the cable version. I have not tried.

I do like Turner Classic Movies. It is on a digital channel but has some annoying artifacts. OTOH, it is on an analog channel and shows some grainy video noise which is far less distressing.

It seems to me that this is the same lesson from audio. Good analog beats poor digital. There is a lot of poor digital out there.

I will have to find an anamorphic DVD. Letterboxed NTSC / DVD can be "zoomed". But this give you about 300 horizontal lines. It is UUGGG-LEE.

Other comments.

I like that the LED HP is silent. The DLP units have a wheel and blower. A good buddy has a Samsung and these bump up the noise floor a bit. I'm in a 35-storey re-inforced concrete structure. Overall very quiet except for street noise and HVAC; noise floor is an issue. OTOH, I do worry about cranking the audio and annoying my compatriots.

The final issue is something PWK commented on about Quad Sound. He cited Sam Goldwin (?) who said that a bad movie in 3-D is three times as bad. So bad music in Quad sound is four times as bad.

TV is a time - waster. High def TV is so enticing that it wastes more time. The one-eyed monster HP is bigger and I've brought it into my living room. Fool.

Smile,

Gil