vinny-b wrote:anyone have an opinion on this set (for a bedroom/gaming tv)? Is $700 (shipping included) at Compusa. Contemplating on placing an order, this week. http://reviews.cnet.com/Syntax_Olevia_L ... ml?tag=tab
It's not a bad set, you can get better for the price. You can only go as high as 720p, which is fine for HD gaming. But for Pete's sake, never buy anything from CompUsa...they have the worst return policy. Fry's has or had the same set for $599. Syntax makes the poor mans LCD sets, but there not to bad at all.
As for opinions on the Sony...it's a Sony, nuff said.
"If I didn't want 50 percent of my income and wanted the government to regulate every aspect of my life, I'd live in California."
I have the 60" WF-655 model Sony rear projection LCD HDTV. Bought it right before Christmas, and have loved watching every minute of it. Especially this weekend watching The PGA Championship in HD.
Well, the tv came yesterday and after 2 days with it I am in love. All I can say to accurately express how I feel when I watch tv in HD or play a game on the thing is Holy-F#%#ing-Sh!t.
I am a patient boy.
I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait.
My time is water down a drain.
ScoopBrady wrote:Well, the tv came yesterday and after 2 days with it I am in love. All I can say to accurately express how I feel when I watch tv in HD or play a game on the thing is Holy-F#%#ing-Sh!t.
Awesome Scoop. Go get The Incredible Hulk game and show of some really cool graphics in 720p.
You got the 42" or 50"? A co-worker of mine just got the 42" and loves it!
ScoopBrady wrote:The 50". In the store it didn't look that big but now that it's in the house the thing looks freakin' huge.
That is a major illusion. I'll never forget when I got a 65" rear projection CRT delivered...I thought it was a mistake. I could not believe how damn big it looked compared to the way it was in the store.
Same thing with my current 55" LCD. I almost exchanged it becasue it looked a bit too big. Your eyes will adjust. In 2 weeks you will think the set looks a bit small. Trust me.
dbdynsty25 wrote:I'm telling you Brando...that set is sweet. My girlfriend's dad has one and it's freakin' beautiful.
Just bought that exact set yesterday. Very impressed so far, the football game on ESPN last night looked really good in HD. Far Cry looked really good too. I need to calibrate the color a little, any suggestions on the best dvd to use?
The sad part is, I mostly bought it so I could take advantage of the 360 immediately. The Circuit City deal of no interest until 2008 didn't hurt either, well within the budget.
dbdynsty25 wrote:I'm telling you Brando...that set is sweet. My girlfriend's dad has one and it's freakin' beautiful.
Just bought that exact set yesterday. Very impressed so far, the football game on ESPN last night looked really good in HD. Far Cry looked really good too. I need to calibrate the color a little, any suggestions on the best dvd to use?
The sad part is, I mostly bought it so I could take advantage of the 360 immediately. The Circuit City deal of no interest until 2008 didn't hurt either, well within the budget.
Congrats man...I freakin' love mine still. Probably the best 1500 I've ever spent.
I wound up getting a plasma -- the Panasonic 42 inch TH42PX50U. I hadn't really planned on it when I started shopping, but the more I compared pictures, the more I kept going back to it, and the price reached a point where I didn't feel ridiculous buying the set. I did a lot of reading about burn in and decided that, as long as you were careful with not playing a lot of games or watching a lot of DVDs the first 100 hours, burn in isn't really a problem. The picture is just stunning -- sports in particular look unbelievable. Now I'm gaming on it quite a bit and haven't even seen any ghosting.
In my case, I had to stay around 42 inches -- anything bigger would overwhelm my room. That kept me away from the Mitsubishi DLPs, which I liked very much. The Sony LCDs projections are great, especially for the money, but I get a lot of sunlight in my living room and didn't think the picture would hold up well during the day.
The really nice thing is that the 42" plasma takes up so much less room than my 35" Trinitron did. I found a nice TV stand that matches the wood of my living room, and the whole thing blends much better than the previous set-up did.
Oh, and for calibration, I got the Avia disc. IMO it's overpriced and somewhat outdated for LCD/Plasma/DLP sets. It had me cranking the contrast settings, which seemed completely wrong, although the color calibration was good. Digital Video Essentials is supposedly better for current TVs, and it's cheaper, but I've heard it's a lot less user friendly than Avia.
a lot depends on your viewing arena. Is the room a separate media room with a light controlled environment. If so, your best best is probably a CRT. Nothing beats a old school CRT for black levels and PQ. These run about $1400-1700. Don't worry about burn in b/c you can set the contrast to about 30% and still have plenty of brightness.
Otherwise I recommend a DLP or LCD for about $2500 - $3000. DLP has better black levels.
If form factor (thinness and coolness) are of most importance, go w/ plasma.
anchester wrote:a lot depends on your viewing arena. Is the room a separate media room with a light controlled environment. If so, your best best is probably a CRT. Nothing beats a old school CRT for black levels and PQ. These run about $1400-1700. Don't worry about burn in b/c you can set the contrast to about 30% and still have plenty of brightness.
Otherwise I recommend a DLP or LCD for about $2500 - $3000. DLP has better black levels.
If form factor (thinness and coolness) are of most importance, go w/ plasma.
Honestly, the form had little to do with it for me. It was all picture. DLP is great but they start at 50", too big for the space where I could put my TV (I have an old 1912 house, not exactly optimized for television). Comparing LCD, LCD projection, and plasma, I just liked the plasma picture the best and think it was the best choice for my room. If I had a controlled lighting room and more space to work with, I would have probably done something different.
I will say this -- the best picture I saw by far was the Sony LCoS television, can't remember the model, but they just came out. Absolutely stunning, both in picture quality and price tag.
I'm looking to get the 42" version of the Sony A10 LCD RPTV line. It's either that or the 46" Sammy DLP, but I am wary of the dread 'gaming lag' with those Sammy DLPs, so I'm gonna try this Sony out and see if I can deal with the so-called screen door effect and the weird iris thing they do to increase the relative contrast ratio. We'll see. I definitely want the small profile and light weight of the new RP technologies, even though bang-for-the-buck would indicate the CRT RPTVs are better. But I have very limited space, so I need that under-the-set space for all the components. And supposedly, this A10 line with the 3 LCD chips give a much brigher overall picture, which I guess is an issue with the RPTVs.
Scoop, how's that A10 treating you with the gaming? Have you had issues with the Xbox dashboard only being in 480i? I noticed that on a Sammy DLP, with the one component input that took 480p, 720p, and 1080i, it won't take 480i; makes it a real drag for the dashboard to have switch the green cable to a component input just to see a monochromatic version of the dashboard.
Zeppo wrote:Scoop, how's that A10 treating you with the gaming? Have you had issues with the Xbox dashboard only being in 480i? I noticed that on a Sammy DLP, with the one component input that took 480p, 720p, and 1080i, it won't take 480i; makes it a real drag for the dashboard to have switch the green cable to a component input just to see a monochromatic version of the dashboard.
I couldn't be happier Zep. I have had no problems with it at all and games look fantastic on it. The Italian track in the Extreme Circuit of Moto GP 3 makes my jaw drop. I haven't had to change any cables, all I did was change the display settings of my Xbox so it knew my tv could handle all 3 settings.
A deal on the Mitsubishi DLP's got my wife and I in the store but once there we weren't too thrilled with the picture quality and then we saw the Sony. It was over after that.
I am a patient boy.
I wait, I wait, I wait, I wait.
My time is water down a drain.
Zeppo wrote:It's either that or the 46" Sammy DLP, but I am wary of the dread 'gaming lag' with those Sammy DLPs
I noticed that on a Sammy DLP, with the one component input that took 480p, 720p, and 1080i, it won't take 480i; makes it a real drag for the dashboard to have switch the green cable to a component input just to see a monochromatic version of the dashboard.
I have a 46" Sammy DLP. I've never noticed any gaming lag on my Xbox. I read about it before I purchased, but was told it only applied to PS2's. I don't know if that's even true, but I can assure you it's not true on an Xbox.
Regarding your second question, I'm not entirely sure what you mean. The dashboard shows up fine (connected to component 2). There's also a button sequence on the Xbox controller that will allow the Dashboard to be viewed in widescreen. Something with holding right/left triggers and pressing in both sticks. I did this a while ago so my memory is fuzzy.
I'll be glad to answer any other questions about the Sammy DLP. I've been very happy with it so far.
It may have been mentioned before, but which brand and model it's recommended for a 1080p TV? Looking for an LCD where I don't want anything bigger than 42 ".
Zeppo wrote:I'm looking to get the 42" version of the Sony A10 LCD RPTV line. It's either that or the 46" Sammy DLP, but I am wary of the dread 'gaming lag' with those Sammy DLPs, so I'm gonna try this Sony out and see if I can deal with the so-called screen door effect and the weird iris thing they do to increase the relative contrast ratio. We'll see. I definitely want the small profile and light weight of the new RP technologies, even though bang-for-the-buck would indicate the CRT RPTVs are better. But I have very limited space, so I need that under-the-set space for all the components. And supposedly, this A10 line with the 3 LCD chips give a much brigher overall picture, which I guess is an issue with the RPTVs.
Scoop, how's that A10 treating you with the gaming? Have you had issues with the Xbox dashboard only being in 480i? I noticed that on a Sammy DLP, with the one component input that took 480p, 720p, and 1080i, it won't take 480i; makes it a real drag for the dashboard to have switch the green cable to a component input just to see a monochromatic version of the dashboard.
Sony A-10 TV's have isuses concerning video gaming. If you own a 42-A10 or 50-A10, you will NOT be able to play 480p games in 16:9, you can play the games in 480p 4:3 in stretch wide zoom mode which looks pretty good. But you lose a true 16:9 picture and in sports/driving games you lose some field of vision. You can play games in 16:9 if you set the xbox to 480i, 480p disabled...but why would you want PS2 visuals? What a disappointment because this TV is very good other wise. Xbox360 should not be a problem and xbox games in 720p, 1080i display properly. My personal opinion...look elsewhere, Sony screwed this one up!
Ohh...you can turn off the iris, which I did because it got on my nerves. I bought 2 of the 42-A10 sets for my game room. Best Buy had them on sale for $1599 plus 10% off with the coupon they sent me. I sold each of the sets for $1750, so I'm happy.
"If I didn't want 50 percent of my income and wanted the government to regulate every aspect of my life, I'd live in California."
dbdynsty25 wrote:I'm telling you Brando...that set is sweet. My girlfriend's dad has one and it's freakin' beautiful.
Just bought that exact set yesterday. Very impressed so far, the football game on ESPN last night looked really good in HD. Far Cry looked really good too. I need to calibrate the color a little, any suggestions on the best dvd to use?
The sad part is, I mostly bought it so I could take advantage of the 360 immediately. The Circuit City deal of no interest until 2008 didn't hurt either, well within the budget.
Congrats man...I freakin' love mine still. Probably the best 1500 I've ever spent.
My Hitachi 57S715 is the best $1600 I have ever spent too. I calibrated this set and there is nothing that can beat it PQ wise...it's fooking amazing!
"If I didn't want 50 percent of my income and wanted the government to regulate every aspect of my life, I'd live in California."
I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on the Sony A-10(42") and since I'm rather a newby to the HDTV experience,I'm looking for some help. I will have to upgrade my Direct TV dish,and my 1st question is do I need the DirTV reciever,since the tv already has the tuner?
Also for gaming ,I'll be hooking up an Xbox(360 hopefully isn't too far down the road), and ps2,and my computer(I'm curious too see MVP 05,the modded version on this). What type of cables should I be thinking about for these 3 machines?
And finally, until I get the DirTv upgrade,whats the story on those little over the air antennas that are supposed to pick up the HD signal? All of our local stations are about 30 to 40 miles away.
Scoop,hows that 50" treating you after a few months?
Thanks guys for any help you can throw my way.
snaz16 wrote:I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on the Sony A-10(42") and since I'm rather a newby to the HDTV experience,I'm looking for some help. I will have to upgrade my Direct TV dish,and my 1st question is do I need the DirTV reciever,since the tv already has the tuner?
Also for gaming ,I'll be hooking up an Xbox(360 hopefully isn't too far down the road), and ps2,and my computer(I'm curious too see MVP 05,the modded version on this). What type of cables should I be thinking about for these 3 machines?
And finally, until I get the DirTv upgrade,whats the story on those little over the air antennas that are supposed to pick up the HD signal? All of our local stations are about 30 to 40 miles away.
Scoop,hows that 50" treating you after a few months?
Thanks guys for any help you can throw my way.
Yes, you need DirecTV's receiver because their signal is encoded so that you HAVE to. The built in tuner would be used for HD Over the Air programming (by antenna). I am not sure how good of reception you'll get if they are 30 or 40 miles away...that's significant.
As for cables...it's going to depend on what you want to do with each system. I assume that if you're going to run your computer on it, you'll end up using HDMI (also assuming your video card supports that) because of the resolution. But then again, you may be using that cable from your HD DirecTV receiver. It really all depends on what other inputs you are going to be using for your DVD player/Tivo/Receivers/etc. Then you have to make due with whatever is left. There aren't enough HD inputs on the TV's to cover all of them. You'll probably end up getting an HD switch box someday, allowing you to connect a lot of different HD components.
snaz16 wrote:I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on the Sony A-10(42") and since I'm rather a newby to the HDTV experience,I'm looking for some help. I will have to upgrade my Direct TV dish,and my 1st question is do I need the DirTV reciever,since the tv already has the tuner?
Also for gaming ,I'll be hooking up an Xbox(360 hopefully isn't too far down the road), and ps2,and my computer(I'm curious too see MVP 05,the modded version on this). What type of cables should I be thinking about for these 3 machines?
And finally, until I get the DirTv upgrade,whats the story on those little over the air antennas that are supposed to pick up the HD signal? All of our local stations are about 30 to 40 miles away.
Scoop,hows that 50" treating you after a few months?
Thanks guys for any help you can throw my way.
Yes, you need DirecTV's receiver because their signal is encoded so that you HAVE to. The built in tuner would be used for HD Over the Air programming (by antenna). I am not sure how good of reception you'll get if they are 30 or 40 miles away...that's significant.
As for cables...it's going to depend on what you want to do with each system. I assume that if you're going to run your computer on it, you'll end up using HDMI (also assuming your video card supports that) because of the resolution. But then again, you may be using that cable from your HD DirecTV receiver. It really all depends on what other inputs you are going to be using for your DVD player/Tivo/Receivers/etc. Then you have to make due with whatever is left. There aren't enough HD inputs on the TV's to cover all of them. You'll probably end up getting an HD switch box someday, allowing you to connect a lot of different HD components.
Thanks db,...yes my video card supports even higher than the A10. MVP looks really sweet on my little 17' wide screen monitor,to the point if I'm dissapointed with that on the Sony,then I might have to look at a bigger monitor.
Just what I posted above is what I'll be hooking up to it(until the 360 that is ). I've heard monster cables are expensive,and overated....are there better options....just tryin to get a feel for what is going to optimize my systems and tv.
You can check antennaweb.org for a ballpark idea about what kind of antenna you would need. It's color-coded.
It's not so much the distance as the terrain. That distance wouldn't prevent digital reception per se. It would be whether there are obstacles between you and the transmitter(s). Some areas have most of the stations on one big tower while other areas have stations setting up their transmitters all over the place.
Direct TV may offer you HD locals now or will in the next year. That will affect the type of dish and receiver you need to get.
The existing design uses the oval with triple LNB and MPEG2 receivers to transmit HD channels like ESPN and HBO-HD.
But Direct TV started deploying HD local channels, starting with the 12 biggest markets in the US late last year. These channels use MPEG4 encoding so you need another type of receiver as well as a bigger dish.
So you can go directly to an MPEG4 setup if your area is served. Or you may have to go with MPEG2 and then in the next year or two go to MPEG4, if you want local channels from them.
Right now, OTA is considered the best signal source because Direct TV is using lower bitrates to squeeze in more channels. However, reception is subject to a lot of problems. You hear about audio being cut out and maybe even a passing bus cutting your reception for a second.
Of course if you want ESPN HD and other cable channels in HD, you're going to have to get those channels through cable or satellite.
It was over after that.
