LCD/Plasma/CRT/DLP - questions

[Charlie]

To be honest, the picture on the right with sharpness set to -50, while looking superior overall, definately has less focus compared to the other two. I think perception plays a huge roll in picture settings though, and everyone sees things slightly different, even when looking at exactly the same image.

[andrewfee]

Well when I was taking those pics, I did a little experimenting, an you might like -30. It doesn't add too much in the way of ringing etc, but does provide a "sharper" image.

[EvilBoris]

Evil, I hate technology

the new 42" 100hz 1080p Toshiba Regza can be had for under a grand now, I paid more than that for my 32incher 6 months ago.

CURSE YOU
I'll just have to resist wanting to upgrade for another year until I move house

[andrewfee]

The new X and C series LCDs do not support 100/120Hz - only the Z series will, which isn't out until the end of September.

[EvilBoris]

Still, that'll only tag an extra 200 quid on which still makes me want to cry.

[Charlie]

Regarding the sharpness setting on a WLT68, I've found setting it to -50 looks very good through RGB Scart, but still find it looks too soft through component, and softer still through HDMI.

On a seperate matter - has anyone else realised Thomson's SkyHD box is a piece of ****? After using it for just under a week I developed suspicions regarding the picture quality so I reinstalled my 6 year old Sony digibox to see how it compared, and even through RGB the Sony looked much better than the Thomson (through HDMI). To think Sky charge £299 for it is disgusting so tomorrow I'm cancelling my HD subscription and am sending the piece of **** back to Sky. It's not on.

[MatWoods]

Just ordered my WLT68 from John Lewis - going to be here on Tuesday, so just booked Wednesday off and gonig to see if a mater wants to bring his ps3 round to keep my 360 company....

Thnaks to everyone on the forum for the info and advice - made choosing a TV a lot easier, that's for sure.

[EvilBoris]

Make sure you get yourself a VGA lead for the 360

[MatWoods]

picked it up at the traford centre on thursday night!!

well excited and trying to avoid paiyng much 360 until wednesday - not easy with the forza 2 demo now having been downloaded.

not long to go....

[andrewfee]

Well this is quite interesting - I ordered the HQV Benchmark disc last week, and it turned up today.

Did some testing on the 360, PS3, and my Oppo. As expected, 360 playback was shockingly bad, and only scored around 15. (iirc) PS3 was almost as bad, but did fare better on some of the tests.

The Oppo scored at around 76 when upscaling to 720p, but to my surprise, when I hooked up the Oppo via component for 480i to test how the TV handled things - it actually scored better by 9 points, getting a score of 85/130.

So if you've got a WLT68, you might actually be better off not buying an upscaling DVD player, and letting the TV handle things. The "jaggies" and detail tests in particular were noticeably better when the TV was handling things compared to the Oppo - these were the ones I was actually expecting the Oppo to be better at.

[Brats]

That might be because there are two levels of scaling occuring. If your Oppo could perform a 1:1 pixel map to your TV's resolution, I'm fairly sure it would be better.

This is one of the reasons why dedicated scalers are so much better, because they have that functionality.

[sj33]

This isn't the same thing, but I've reverted to 480p on my Oppo.

Some of you may know that Bravia's lock 720p/1080i in 16:9 mode, which basically means you have to run the Oppo in wide/sqz mode, which supposedly results in a lower horizonal resolution for 4:3 content as a side-effect.

I didn't take much notice of it until I found menu text on a DVD I recieved yesterday (the new Morning Musume PV DVD, unlikely anyone here has that to test), which was basically unreadable on the Oppo in 720p wide/sqz, was perfectly fine on the 360 (VGA 1360x768)!


Miffed, I stuck the Oppo in 480p and found it was much better on there in 480p using standard wide (though still not as clear as 360) and adjusting the AR on the TV - that wide/sqz mode is a real killer =/

In terms of actual picture quality, the Oppo didn't really look noticably worse in 480p and letting the TV upscale.

[MatWoods]

TV arrived yesterday - set it up in a few minutes and have been enjoying some HD gaming evr since - looks like the 20" 4:3 LG LCD is getting resigned to the spare bedroom then.

Cheers again for the informative threads and reviews - made buying a new TV nowhere near the challenge I was expecting.

Back off to enjoy GOW in HD - what a difference!!!!

[Lyris]

Some of you may know that Bravia's lock 720p/1080i in 16:9 mode, which basically means you have to run the Oppo in wide/sqz mode, which supposedly results in a lower horizonal resolution for 4:3 content as a side-effect.

There shouldn't be any loss in detail, since 720p and 1080i both have more horizontal resolution than the standard def formats.

The cheaper scaling solutions found in lower-end palyers can do more harm than good, though.

[andrewfee]

I believe the Oppo compresses the video horizontally before upscaling, for some reason. (I forget what that is now)

There is no reason HD formats should be locked out of aspect ratio switching. I don't care if 720p / 1080i should only be widescreen or not, having options is never a bad thing, and I love that my Toshiba lets me change it no matter what.