BleepingComputer.com: I think I hate HDTV

I never pay much attention to the TV's in the stores. They all look the same to me. Today I know got an APEX (cheap brand) 40" LCD HDTV.

I didn't like it one bit.

The contrast was terrible. Thats probably the cheap TV's fault. Instead of rich dark BLACK, the sides (for non-hd) were dark gray. But they weren't black. I adjusted the brightness and contrast and it helped. But still. I've read that LCD tv's just can't do BLACK like CRTs. I believe them.

I didn't notice a difference. I was not blown away at all.

In fact, I thought the picture was actually WORSE than regular tv. The big problem I noticed was that all the pics had JPEG artifacts around everything. That can't be the TV's fault I don't think. The JPEG artifacts totally ruined everything. Id rather have regular tv if that means not having JPEG artifacts.

One time I studied two comparison tvs at BestBuy. One was labled High Definition and the other Standard Definition. The big difference I noticed between them was that the HDTV had the Jpegies while the regular tv didn't.

Is that what HDTV is? Jpegies? Does it take so much more bandwidth to broadcast HD that the cable company has to compress it and distort it that bad just to get it to your tv?

Right now I feel like hugging my regular "globe" tv and praying that it never dies.

This post has been edited by TheEgg: 28 November 2009 - 07:27 PM

Are you watching a digital Hi-Def input signal?

Regular LCD's won't do dark blacks do to the way they're designed (or so the TV elitists tell me, mine looks fine at 720i or p whichever it is) they say the new LED LCDs do a better job that CRT's. The pixelating your seeing is most likely caused by poor reception of a digital signal (be it satellite, antenna, or DVD player) it is the most aggravating thing possible when trying to watch TV. Nothing can be done for the antenna or Sat. issues ,as frankly, it's someone else's issue not yours to quote the local news anchors at the digital switchover here in the US

Quote

At least with analog i wasn't paying the Sat. company $10 a month for a box (we owned our old box) and i could watch the game without the screen blacking out every 10 min.

Well I guess we are all better off with digital TV(??). HD is suppose to be better. It is slightly more defined. I mean now I can count the blackheads on a baseball pitchers nose where before I was lucky to notice a pimple.
In my popup camper I have an old BW TV. Use to just pull up the rabbit ears and get about a dozen channels. A little snowy but watchable. With digital either you get a perfect signal or none at all. With a converter box and a RShack digital rabbit ears I fell into the none at all category. Oh well I don’t go camping to watch TV anyway.
Regards
Nawtheasta

Digital TV is fine. I have 100% Digital Fiber Optic tv coming into my house from Verizon. It goes into a box, then into my analog tv. The picture looks 100% fine. I dont get no Jpegies or anything.

My friends house gets cable tv from optimum (cablevision. Long Island, NY). The TV was fine before, just like mine. Now his new cheap APEX 40" tv looks like garbage if you ask me. Hes got teh Jpegies. He had to get a new (different) model cable box for the HDTV. The cable box menu display is HORRIBLE. Its like the menu was made for regular tv and everything is stretched and blured. Horrible. This can't be right.

I will try to take a close up picture of the tv and post it here. The good thing about LCD tv's is that they are easy to take pics of. Regular tv's come out horrible and have a line that constantly scrolls down when recording it. I think that has something to do with a strobe effect or somethin. eh?

TheEgg, on Nov 29 2009, 04:20 PM, said:

You are correct - it is not right.

Your friend does not have something in the setup configured correctly.

Either that, or the APEX model really is crap.

Can you post the exact model number here?

TheEgg, on Nov 29 2009, 04:20 PM, said:

This is it
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/192-3...asin=B002L6AI3K

So far its got 2 bad reviews on Target's *spits* website. Some people on amazon seem to love it though

http://www.amazon.com/Apex-quot-1080p-LCD-HDTV/dp/B002L6AI3K

No reviews on epinions as of yet.

OK, the native resolution of that set is 1080p, so the best images it should portray (without some sort of up-scaling) will be, unless he has another device capable of outputing a 1080p signal, either from CBS or NBC (at 1080i) on his cable box. ABC and FOX broadcast at 720p

Important - his cable box must be set to output 1080i (and 1080p, if available). On the two different boxes I've used, you can set the output and you may want to check that with him.

It will take a keen eye to determine whether the output from the cable box gives a better image at 1080i or 1080p on that set, I would think.

I would check this first.

If you are sending a Standard Definition 480i signal, there is a lot of "up-converting" to do, and the image will not look as good as one would like, although if you are far enough away from the set, the "jaggies" you see won't be as clearly defined. This sounds a lot like what you are seeing.

If you are sending a Standard Definition 480i signal, there is a lot of "up-converting" to do, and the image will not look as good as one would like, although if you are far enough away from the set, the "jaggies" you see won't be as clearly defined. This sounds a lot like what you are seeing.

I noticed that, too. I was watching 480i on my HDTV and thought it was crap. The TC needs to upgrade to HDTV through your cable/satellite provider for a MUCH better picture.