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Author
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Topic: Are all HD TV's crap?
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted June 12, 2014 01:37 PM
I recently spent a week at my daughter's house and had the opportunity to view her new 56ins LCD TV. To say that I was unimpressed is an understatement. Not that the picture was not sharp, and there was plenty of detail, but it just did not look real. I was able to play around withe the menu and adjust the calibration, but no matter what, the colors did not look right. It all had that supersaturated plastic look, and live TV studio shots in particular looked plain crappy. When I moved my head more than 45 degrees off center the picture started washing out.
I came home and turned on my old sony XBR 36 ins CRT television, which is standard definition, and the picture really looked so much better, far more natural.
Made me realize how vastly superior digital projectors are to flat panel TV'S. And how much better the old CRT television set was.
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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Rob Young.
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1633
From: Cheshire, U.K.
Registered: Dec 2003
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posted June 12, 2014 02:07 PM
Well, Paul, this isn't a straight forward one to answer.
I'm sure many here will just chip in with agreement that anything modern is crap, but that isn't true and certainly things are not as straight forward as they once were.
Certainly, CRT is very forgiving of any video you provide.
The issue with LCD or, indeed Plasma (please bring on Oled!) is that it is so very dependent upon so many factors...
I'm off to work now, but I'm sure that this is going to be a most interesting discussion, because the real answer is that some HD displays are good, some are crap, and the results really do depend upon so many variables...
So short answer to "Are all HD TV's crap?" is, yes, some are, and, no, some aren't; and that most can be made to look crap, and that some, when they look right, are pretty darn amazing...
TBC...
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Claus Harding
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1149
From: Washington DC
Registered: Oct 2006
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posted June 12, 2014 02:13 PM
Paul,
Don't forget that such sets usually are switched to the "Maximum Brightness/Maximum Color" exhibition mode which dealers use for the showroom. It looks like hell but it attracts the customers!
My Panasonic Viera 58-inch plasma looks quite lovely both with B/W and color films, Blu-Rays in particular. I set it using a greyscale and a set of NTSC color bars which are readily available on-line.
I know you are familiar with this, but just for anyone who has a bad set-up:
Strong black levels are essential, as they are with a film print and/or a video, in order to get a punchy good-looking image.
Set contrast/brightness with the greyscale before you start on color.
Leave sharpness in center position or possibly roll it off a little, and don't overcrank the "color" (chroma) setting.
Now, plasma or a good projector, to me, is still the best-looking technology for watching video (I have yet to see the new 4K screens in action) but with the above setup "Mad Men", shot in 35mm and beautifully transferred, looks amazing.
Claus.
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"Why are there shots of deserts in a scene that's supposed to take place in Belgium during the winter?" (Review of 'Battle of the Bulge'.)
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Martin Jones
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1269
From: Thetford , Norfolk,England
Registered: May 2008
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posted June 12, 2014 03:12 PM
Now, I'm very, very fussy over TV pictures (see my working life occupation), and at the time I retired (2005) I would not have touched LCD or Plasma, HD or not, with a bargepole.There was nothing to match a good CRT, properly set up, and fed with a good strength signal from an Analogue transmitter. And then all transmitters carried Digital channels only with a consequent degradation provided by a reconstituted Analogue picture from an SD digital stream. Even the results from an HD Convertor couldn't match up to my previous off-air Analogue pictures.
Then my last decent sized CRT set gave up the ghost in late 2011 and I bit the bullet with a 37 inch LED Backlit LCD Panasonic. It gives STUNNING pictures .... but it did need careful setting up to achieve that result.
My 40 inch Toshiba, 19 inch Toshiba and 19 inch LG (all acquired later) are not a patch on it, EVEN WITH my best set-up endeavours.
Rules: If you pay peanuts you get rubbish.
Don't buy a bigger screen than you ACTUALLY NEED!
SET IT UP PROPERLY (or get an expert to do it!!!!)
Edit (as a footnote)..... EVERY TV set I sold during my 45 years in TV retail was delivered and properly installed by either myself or my engineer at the time ... and I personally pre-"set-up" those I didn't deliver. Every set encountered during a Service call was re-"Set-up" as well. I was still selling ONLY CRT sets at my retirement.
Martin
[ June 13, 2014, 03:00 AM: Message edited by: Martin Jones ]
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Retired TV Service Engineer
Ongoing interest in Telecine....
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted June 13, 2014 12:36 PM
I have heard that the plasma TV's are better ...
Though we just upgraded to a 2000 year model 36 inch TV, (we have an LCD projector TV, "Sharp" brand, but rarely use it, just watching what was for 8 years, our 25 inch old school TV) ...
I am highly impressed with this Toshiba 36 inch. It has dolby surround even built into it, (two front speakers, two back speaks built into, well the back of the TV), and it is truly sharp and for a 36 inch, the lines of resolution are quite limited. That is, they don't distract much at all.
Not a bad investment for 30 some bucks! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Rob Young.
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1633
From: Cheshire, U.K.
Registered: Dec 2003
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posted June 13, 2014 01:37 PM
Screen burn isn't so much of an issue with any modern plasma; it's the sort of thing which plagued early sets and has stuck as being perceived as a problem. It really isn't on new sets and if you're unlucky enough to burn something into the image, it will probably fade over a few days, or just run a full white screen for a few hours.
Anyway, the point is mostly academic as plasma is officially on the way out. OLED is the future and really is a fantastic technology which will see some of the best TV displays, well, ever.
From my point of view, plasma was generally always better than LCD because it had much better contrast and response time. Early LCD were truly dreadful; it was primarily a computer monitor display technology and really not up to the task of displaying decent quality video.
The whole "flat screen" thing really was, initially, a step backwards in image quality versus style.
However, in the last few years, several factors have changed that. The backlighting on LCD is now LED, either from each of the four corners, or in rows behind the image (array).
Array is better as it can introduce local dimming and thus improve contrast further. There is some confusion, however, as TV sets are now sold as LED when quite simply they are not. They are LCD technology, utilising LED backlighting; although the results are clearly better.
The other major factor is in processing power. This has increased substantially over the last few years, even on "budget" sets, and provides much better images on LCD displays.
This isn't to be confused with the gizmos associated with picture enhancement. Vidar is dead on; these are usually best switched off.
But, plasma remains the better display, although it generally comes with a higher price.
And Claus is right, correct calibration is essential. With an expensive set, this should be done professionally as the average user will simply not have the required tools for the job.
But even on a "cheap" set, running a basic calibration DVD will do wonders for contrast, brightness and chroma.
Also, the sad fact is that most modern displays look pretty darn good with current HD (1080i or 1080p), but many struggle with the old 480i or 576i, especially with compressed images, where again, CRT was really quite forgiving.
There is a lot to be said for CRT and quite simply there was nothing wrong with it, although pushing screen size above 36 inch would have been a problem. And presenting HD, although, not by any means impossible, would have probably resulted in very expensive sets.
But then, Martin is right, do you really need a 55 inch screen in the living room where you are pushing quality for the sake of size?
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