The WORST ever

[Sandy G]

This is what I LOVE about this place;We have the "smarts" here enuff to have a complicated thing like CRTS Vs Plasma Vs. LCDs explained so even an old dummy like me could understand it-You'll NEVER hear a sales guy "'splain" it that way w/so much clarity...Doubt that many of 'em would know, anyhow...-Sandy G.

[frenchy]

<<They also can't do continuous tones of brightness. You'll notice that continuous light to dark shades show up as bands of brightness.>>

So is that due to what you said about the difficulty in dimming the plasma dots compared to a CRT, or just that they aren't using enough brightness resolution when they are driven? I.e. even if you multiplied the resolution of the plasma's driver system by 100, the plasma dots are just not capable of showing that resolution anyway? Can you still see those bands when they are displaying HD? I never looked close enough to notice.

[andy]

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[JCFitz]

One big design problem I've seen with plasmas especially is their use of COF(chip on film) ics.The actual drive ics for the plasma panel are mounted on the ribbon cables going to the panel.If one should fail they are not replaceable and the panel must be replaced.Usually causes vertical lines or horizontal lines in the picture.If they short they can shut the whole set down.None of the boards in Plasmas are component level repairable making them expensive to repair and have to get the propietary boards from the manufacturer.A lot of times they'll only sell the parts to a factory authorized repair center.Same with the boards in LCDs.The lamp is expensive in the DLPs and LCD projectors and short lived.Depending on use and on-off cylces I've seen a year or so on average.A lot fail long before a year is up.They advertise 2 years.Also Plasmas are power hogs.Look at the wattage rating on a Plasma.Some of them exceed the wattage of an old tube type color console.

[Jeffhs]

I have an RCA (Thomson) CTC-185A7 19" set, bought new almost six years ago when I moved here. The set has worked just wonderfully all that time, with only a slight problem a few months after purchase (the RF connector for antenna/cable snapped off the tuner PC board). Other than that, the set works extremely well on cable (antennas don't work well in this area ). The auto color circuits work very well also, as I have not had to adjust the onscreen color controls in months. It is for these reasons I intend to keep this set fully as long as it works as well as it does. Digital? Doesn't bother me. I use the set with a cable box now, so if I still have this set when everything goes all-digital, all I'll have to do is call the cable company and have them put in a HD-capable box--if the one I'm using now won't handle the new channels, that is.

I agree with the posters here who have said that plasmas and LCDs, particularly the former, still have bugs which must be worked out. I was particularly interested in one post, in which the writer said some LCDs now are built with some of the video ICs actually incorporated in a cable which requires the entire panel to be replaced if those ICs go bad. The projection lamps in DLPs and other projection HDTV sets are something else yet again. These lamps can open after only a year or two, depending entirely on how much the set is used, and are expensive as all get-out to replace (I saw one for an RCA/Thomson projection set listed for something like $400). Compare this with standard TV CRTs. If you get a good one in a modern analog set, it can last years. (The CRT in my set is the original and still looks as good as the day I purchased the TV; I had a Zenith b&w solid-state 12" portable that was still making a great picture on its original CRT, after 22 years, and I also have a 10-year-old Zenith Sentry 2, original CRT and fantastic picture.)

There are still problems with image burn-in in plasmas. I was browsing ebay earlier this evening and saw a listing for an RCA or Zenith 27" CRT set, in which the seller mentioned the burn-in problem with plasmas and that the CRT set he was selling could last another 25 years without the tube burning out or burning up the screen. Some day, plasma panels will have a similar reliability record (with the panel lasting up to, say, ten years or so; I wouldn't expect a plasma or LCD to last anywhere near 25 years), but the current technology is still new enough that it has bugs in it yet. Perhaps when all TV is digital in 2009 (or whenever; I read recently where some Washington bigwigs are trying to move the deadline up to late 2006 or 2007) this may change for the better, but for the time being we are stuck with what's currently available. Compare today's plasma sets with the first CRT televisions 55+ years ago. Back then, the idea of sending pictures over the air was new, and the technology to receive those images was primitive by today's standards. The same thing can be said for today's plasma/LCD TVs. The technology is still very new and has more than a few bugs (heck, even some TV stations are having problems with their digital signals; for example, several stations in Cleveland are transmitting poor-quality, on-again off-again DTV signals because of problems with the transmitters and so forth), so it is not realistic, IMHO, to come to the conclusion that digital or HDTV has "arrived" yet. Far from it. In five years, maybe, but for now the technology is still evolving, so we have to tolerate the bugs in the current system. Speaking for myself, I won't even think of getting a flat-panel plasma or LCD TV until they work as well as and are as reliable as any good CRT set.

[Telecolor 3007]

In the "conflict" CRT vs Plasma/LCD: I think the peoples want LCD/Plasma tv's because for 2 BIG reasons:
- 1. The LCD/Plasma tv's and monitors are friendly with your eyes (for eg., if you stay too much with yout eyes in the fornt of an old CRT tv, your eyes will hurt you after a time)
- 2.They are space saving
Well, the big problem with the LCD/Plasma tv's and monitors is that the image haves lower qualty than at an CRT tv/monitor (I only watch normal television, not HDTV, maybe in HDTV the image provided by the LCD/Plasma tv's is better; I saw an 16:9 17"? monitor conected to an "Apple" computer that provided an image way above than that provided by CRT's monitors-well that moniutor cost unleas $1000); and another problem with the LCD/Plasma tv's/momitors is that of the side wiew: if you stay to much on the left or on the right side of the screen you risk to see nothing.
I have a question: there is an adapter that allows you to conect an roudie to HDTV?

[frenchy]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

I have a question: there is an adapter that allows you to conect an roudie to HDTV?

My Hitachi HDTV has video or RF outputs but you have to have the TV on to use them, but yes I can just run that into a video/audio box that converts to RF, or right from the RF out to the antenna of any of my old tvs. Probably applies to any of the hdtv standalone tuners I would think, but not sure.

[nasadowsk]

IMHO, the FCC really jumped the gun on HDTV and DTV. Hey look, the standard was hammered out in '98. Well, video codecs, processors, etc have advanced lightyears since then. We're stuck with a 1998 standard though. At least NTSC left some wiggle room, and NTSC was better than could be achived practically in the 50's anyway.

Do any NTSC TVs today even come with full I/Q demod, or NTSC correct phosphors? The former should be a no brainer - it's just another few transistors on a chip. The latter? Aren't there tinted phosphors that can get you there, too?

Actually, didn't RCA's colortrak have I/Q, along with some Panasonics?

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by nasadowsk

IMHO, the FCC really jumped the gun on HDTV and DTV. Hey look, the standard was hammered out in '98.

Actually the FCC almost went with an analog style HDTV system. Something like the Japanese MUSE HD system. Then some company announced that they could do an all digital system with compression that would make an HDTV signal fit in a 6MHz TV channel. The FCC said "Great, do some refinements, field test it and make it good, and we'll do it, an all digital HDTV standard". About the only real arguement was about the transport stream modulation onto the TV channel, 8VSB or COFDM. COFDM is a little better with ghosting, but with its 2000 or 8000 subcarriers, severe clipping in transmitters and intermod in receivers is a big problem. If all 8000 subcarriers decide to turn completely on full ampliitude at the same time, you'd have a huge power spike to try to transmit or receive without overload.

[frenchy]

With my over the air HDTV reception and quality, the ONLY complaint I have is when networks add those stupid subchannels. It almost exclusively affects 1080i main channels quality, you start to get pixelization, sometimes not even on fast motion. Here in Los Angeles area it's NBC which is 1080i and one stupid weather subchannel. Other night on Conan, they had Dolly Parton on, and just her slightly moving around and her large amount of hair made pixelization around her chin and neck that looked awful. Jeez NBC who were the forerunners of color can't even show someone sitting in a chair talking and no camera movement without it degrading?? Also it may be a problem of them not broadcasting using the full 19mbs or something but I have no idea how to measure it. But they are by far the worst out here. Otherwise CBS, ABC etc look great out here and to me HDTV looks incredible unless they screw it up and don't give a damn like NBC L.A. Really hard to believe the people there just accept this lousy quality, sometimes NTSC would look BETTER! The TWO subchannels have almost no effect on ABC out here which is 720p. CBS is superb, 1080i and no stinking subs. I'm using a 51 inch crt-based projection Hitachi.

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by frenchy

With my over the air HDTV reception and quality, the ONLY complaint CBS is superb, 1080i and no stinking subs.

Same here on the east coast. WCBS New York: no subs. But the WB channel has a 1080i sub on its 1080i main channel. I don't/won't watch it out of spite.

[Carmine]

But the WB channel has a 1080i sub on its 1080i main channel. I don't/won't watch it out of spite.

Not watching the WB out of spite is the same as "not" poking your eye with a stick because you hate trees. I don't even have a digital TV, yet I have no problem ignoring the WB!

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by Pete Deksnis

Same here on the east coast. WCBS New York: no subs. But the WB channel has a 1080i sub on its 1080i main channel. I don't/won't watch it out of spite.

I don't beleive anyone is doing a 1080i sub on top of a 1080i main - what you are probably seeing is the same as what WGN (WB channel in Chicago) is doing - two program table entries for the same video, perhaps with Spanish audio on the second entry when available.

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

what you are probably seeing is the same as what WGN (WB channel in Chicago) is doing - two program table entries for the same video, perhaps with Spanish audio on the second entry when available.

Well, okay, that means it isn’t a bad as it looks. And you’re right about the Spanish audio — but I’m still not watching the WB!

Here’s what I misinterpreted.

In the NYC reception area, WPIX channel 11 is the NTSC WB over-the-air signal. UHF channel 33 is the actual ATSC broadcast channel for the WB. (To reduce confusion, the actual broadcast channel doesn’t appear; it is replaced with the NTSC channel designation with a -n to indicate the individual, or sub, channels.)

As you can see in these screen shots taken last night, the channel 11-1 WPIX-DT image shows an icon for Dolby digital 5.1 as opposed to the channel 11-2 image with its icon for Dolby digital stereo (sometimes in Spanish).

It’s the same 16:9 1080i HD video; just the audio changes. I feel better about the technical thing, but I’m still not watching the WB!

[andy]

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