We've always enjoyed the great picture on our 32" Sony CRT with analog sources. We've been noticing the picture on the newer flat panel TVs in bars and stores doesn't look as good as our old stuff at home. When we asked about it the answer has usually been that "that program's not in HD".

I checked out some new flat screens at the local appliance store, not a big box or chain, and they agreed that an hdtv with an SD or analog source would not look as good as a CRT with the same source. They said that we'd need an HD source to get the best picture from an HDTV. Unfortunately, I'm really not that impressed with the HD picture that they were showing from either digital cable or DirecTV. So far the only HDTV picture that I've seen that really looked better than our older setup was with a Blu-ray player.

Since we don't have any plans to upgrade our current sources in the immediate future, will we be disappointed with a new 1080/120 HDTV over our old CRT? None of the dealers have any provision for viewing any analog or SD programming. Or is there a method/setting that will improve the picture? It just seems unreasonable that these new TVs can't make a picture at least as good as the old stuff.

I feel the same way. As I have no plans on getting HD cable or HD DVDs, why spend money on an inferior product? Especially when any 25-27" color TV can be had for $50 or less today. Of course, I have a few 23"-25" consoles at the ready if the two-year-old Sansui we were given ever dies.

"Just because it is new, Does'nt always mean its' better."
Because it is "digital" and its new means everyone needs to run to it and buy it.... I'm surprised they're not pushing 3D television. I'm serious, I saw one at best buy looking for a converter box I never got there. Did it look good? No, My eyes we're straining and began to hurt, The kid working in that department tried to sell me one. I told him "I'm not intrested, I'm looking for a converter box for my '53 Packard Bell television." After he looked at me sideways for a minute he asked what it was. I tried to explain it to him and he asked how good the color was! I said it does'nt have color, Shes B/W. He told me that I need to adjust it, or buy a new set.....Told him its older than his parents probably are and still works, now where are the boxs' at?

I did look at the "plasma" sets....How do they look good? Really? LCD is not much better.

I gave a Visio plasma set to my folks recently that had an outstanding picture, it was very sharp. They also got a 32" HD WEGA set, it was very bright of course. I don't like the LCD sets, the color temperature is all wrong for some reason. Those both had a slightly better picture than my Mitsu set, but neither can beat the 65" picture size. It's a game of trade offs, if you ask me. :)

I spend most of my time over in AK, so I totally get that newer isn't necessarily better... it didn't occur to me that video had the same quandary. Duh! I'm still fuming over the DTV fiasco of last year:thumbsdn:

Maybe the reason I liked the Blu-ray setup I saw was BECAUSE it looked more analog, if that makes sense? :scratch2:

I haven't looked at any plasma sets yet... maybe I'll like those better. They do seem to be quite a bit less expensive size-for-size.

I'm starting to think that what I don't like is the digital source/HDTV combo. Since finding someplace that has any analog sources to sample on HDTV seems non-existent, I guess what I'm looking for is some one with experience using a newer TV with an older source... can analog look good on a digital tv? :scratch2:

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I'm really still happy with my four-year-old 36" Toshiba CRT set. Our cable system switched over to all digital last year and we had to get converter boxes for all our TV's. I noticed that the new digital pictures have no snowy bits that sometimes occurred before. For example, now a person shown before a dark background: the background is perfectly dark, no snow whatsoever, and plenty realistic for me. Friends have asked if it was an HD set.

Join the club! I've tried all the plasma, LCD, OLED, and big-screen LCD projection & DLP sets, and always go back to the Sony HD CRT. The flat display sets are improving, and supposedly the Sharp with the yellow pixels is pretty good, but the fact remains that I like CRTs best. I'm sure it's mainly propaganda which has promoted the flat display sets, more than picture quality. "The Jones' have a flat screen; so must we all".

Charles

My 27" Sony KV-27EXR35, built in 1991, and has a new kine that was only used from 1992-1994 installed, lives on with a very good image, considering it's running on a dish network system with lots of digital artifacts that I can see when close to the screen.

My 1993 Sony KV-27TS32 is all original, and looks great too. Why mess with a good thing?

Why move down to HD when I can expect it to die in a few years? Believe me, around here, I see alot of dead flat panel sets on garbage days.

I did not like LCD sets and hated the idea of retiring my 1987 year model 30" NEC CT-3000 CRT set. That's until I bought my Sony 40V4100 a couple of years ago. Once I properly adjusted it, brightness, contrast, color temperature, back light level etc., I am still impressed how good it is.
I worked in high quality 4 color printing, (worked on things like preparing the color separations, color matching and proofing Neiman Marcus Christmas catalogs among many other things, back in '71-'74) and later on Panasonic Industrial color cameras and monitors, so I think I have a pretty good "eye". Select one of the factory presets and it goes to the overdriven cartoonish looking picture. Fortunately the Sony has plenty of custom user adjustments.

A few samples taken off the screen..

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p72/tblazed/hdtv-21gospelsunday-1.jpg

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p72/tblazed/HDTV-dallassky.jpg

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p72/tblazed/hdtv-nascaraerial.jpg

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p72/tblazed/hdtv-nascar-18.jpg

"Just because it is new, Does'nt always mean its' better."
Because it is "digital" and its new means everyone needs to run to it and buy it.... I'm surprised they're not pushing 3D television. I'm serious, I saw one at best buy looking for a converter box I never got there. Did it look good? No, My eyes we're straining and began to hurt, The kid working in that department tried to sell me one. I told him "I'm not intrested, I'm looking for a converter box for my '53 Packard Bell television." After he looked at me sideways for a minute he asked what it was. I tried to explain it to him and he asked how good the color was! I said it does'nt have color, Shes B/W. He told me that I need to adjust it, or buy a new set.....Told him its older than his parents probably are and still works, now where are the boxs' at?

I did look at the "plasma" sets....How do they look good? Really? LCD is not much better.

It really annoys me that employees at Best Buy pretty much obligate you to buy a new LCD. They think that a flat-screen set manufactured this year is perfect for everyone. If the very old TV works, why not keep it? It's your hobby/interest, not theirs. Who are they to tell you what set you "should" be watching?

I think the picture quality of a flat-panel is great for the most part. Don't get me wrong. I watch a Samsung LCD from 2006, and it works fine. But nothing's better than a nice old RCA or Zenith.

I wouldn't base my opinion on picture quality on HDTVs in bars are Best Buy. I can guarantee they are just set to the factory defaults, and probably receiving a lousy signal. Flat panels have less room for being over driven by excess brightness and contrast than a CRT. When they are set up to be as vivid as possible, they lose detail and look like a cartoon. Try to look at a properly adjusted plasma before you write off HDTV flat panels.

The store in question isn't a big box store... just a local appliance dealer that's been there forever. They have their own electronics service guy who sets them all up, and will do the same when they deliver it... so I'd think they are adjusted at least fairly well. Customers don't get to mess with anything there either. :no: They don't and never have sold BOTL equipment, but it's not high-end either. To me a 46" 1080/120 Toshiba & Mitsubishi looked fuzzy at a distance of 6-12'. The 40" looked a bit better @ 60hz though. :scratch2:

The one setup that I thought really looked good was at Meijers, where it was just set on an end cap with a BRay player connected. No one even works in that dept, let alone knows anything about setting them up... yet it looked excellent to me at a distance of just 2-3'.

The saleslady said she can't watch the 120 or 240 hz sets because it makes her dizzy. Is it possible that these 'motion-flow" features are what's annoying me?

I noticed at a chain hotel where I was supervising, that their flat screen was pixelating in the mid sections of the faces on the news casters, when I changed the channel it made no difference I never saw one so distorted but only in the faces regardless of where they were located on the screen.

I did not like LCD sets and hated the idea of retiring my 1987 year model 30" NEC CT-3000 CRT set. That's until I bought my Sony 40V4100 a couple of years ago. Once I properly adjusted it, brightness, contrast, color temperature, back light level etc., I am still impressed how good it is.
I worked in high quality 4 color printing, (worked on things like preparing the color separations, color matching and proofing Neiman Marcus Christmas catalogs among many other things, back in '71-'74) and later on Panasonic Industrial color cameras and monitors, so I think I have a pretty good "eye". Select one of the factory presets and it goes to the overdriven cartoonish looking picture. Fortunately the Sony has plenty of custom user adjustments.

A few samples taken off the screen..


Hmmm... the Sony I liked was a similar model... 40*5100 as near as I remember. Maybe that's just a good set for me. :scratch2:

Maybe I need to clarify what I don't like about the HD sets I've seen... don't see any problems with color, blackness, brightness, and such... it's the details. They either look fuzzy, or they look fake, like overly detailed. Grass looks like a bunch of green worms waving around. The program I saw yesterday was on HD Theatre about Jay Leno disassembling a car for restoration. The car was white with some spray-painted areas in red. Those areas would go in and out of focus, as did the faces of the guys working. Nothing fast or high-speed, just random fuzzyness. This seemed to be the same regardless of which tv I was looking at. I'm not used to this... is this from the HD source, or the tv?

Hmmm... the Sony I liked was a similar model... 40*5100 as near as I remember. Maybe that's just a good set for me. :scratch2:

The 5100 series replaced the 4100. I've not looked at one but have read a few opinions that owners of both thought the older 4100 sets looked better, a more natural picture. Probably over on AVS forum. I would have to get one and do some tweaking on it before I would believe that.

Maybe I need to clarify what I don't like about the HD sets I've seen... don't see any problems with color, blackness, brightness, and such... it's the details. They either look fuzzy, or they look fake, like overly detailed. Grass looks like a bunch of green worms waving around. The program I saw yesterday was on HD Theatre about Jay Leno disassembling a car for restoration. The car was white with some spray-painted areas in red. Those areas would go in and out of focus, as did the faces of the guys working. Nothing fast or high-speed, just random fuzzyness. This seemed to be the same regardless of which tv I was looking at. I'm not used to this... is this from the HD source, or the tv? Was this fed with an OTA antenna signal or cable/satellite? Also some broadcast stations compress their main HD channel to run sub-channels so compression artifacts can vary. That's what I like about my V4100 Sony which btw is a 60 Hz refresh set, is the minimum blurring with details in motion, although there is some, at any normal viewing distance I don't notice it and I see the same thing when I go in the bedroom and look close at my low hours 1994 Sony KV-27V10 Trinitron with a Zenith DTV box so I think a lot of that is just the nature of DTV.

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It was the HD Theatre channel on cable... seemed to me to be more of an HD demo program...`same 10 min. stuff over and over... :dunno:

So, can an HDTV be optimized for SD sources? Everything we have now is SD... DVD player/recorder/DVR, VHS, C-band satellite, OTA through a CECB (although that could be replaced with the built-in ATSC tuner.

Hmm, random fuzzyness sounds like you're seeing video compression artifacts. Satellite would be the worst for this... Heh... artifacts...! :D

Here's a sample I took just now off of a Dish HD channel (FNC) from the new Amazon Kindle ad..

So, can an HDTV be optimized for SD sources? Everything we have now is SD... DVD player/recorder/DVR, VHS, C-band satellite, OTA through a CECB (although that could be replaced with the built-in ATSC tuner. Probably depends on the set. My Sony memorizes the custom settings for each input, so yes I optimize each input - Tuner, S-Video, composite, and HDMI each individually. What I did was get it set up optimized for one input (tuner), and copied those settings over to the others, then tweaked each one as needed. Also they way the TV handles converting analog video can vary a lot between brands and models. My Sony is pretty good with composite or S-video but I suspect there's better. And yes you'd have no need for a CECB and all that converting with a built-in tuner.

Another possible reason why LCD HDTV sets don't look as good as CRTs is that the backlighting on LCDs is from florescent tubes (CCFL) or "white" LEDs (which are just blue and yellow mixed to look white, but have little red or green light to give the red and green pixels the right color).
http://www.pcmonitors.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/colour-gamut.jpg
"NTSC" triangle shows the old CRT phosphor gamut.

I still use CRT VGA monitors on my PCs and even use a CRT VGA monitor on a DirecTV HD box I use for over-the-air DTV.

Another possible reason why LCD HDTV sets don't look as good as CRTs is that the backlighting on LCDs is from florescent tubes (CCFL) or "white" LEDs (which are just blue and yellow mixed to look white, but have little red or green light to give the red and green pixels the right color).
I think that depends very much on the type of CCFL or LED backlighting used. There are wide gamut CCFL and LED panels with more range than CRTs.

For example, from Sony... " Sony's TRILUMINOS LED backlight is used to create a pure white light by emitting pure red, green and blue light allowing for the creation of a wider spectrum of color (102% of the NTSC color gamut) and produces colors like you see them in the real world - inviting, vivid and natural."

True but alot of sets I see are still using that first gen LED Backlight that has alot of "Hyper white". Like my laptop. It's an LED backlit display. Very blue IMHO.

I would take a CRT over Plasma or LCD anyday but if I had to choose a flatscreen, I would get a plasma. You guys are spot on about the LCD color gamut issues. Just too unnatural for my taste. Looks kind of like a background that someone painted in some watercolor effects.

Well, I've done some research and will be checking out plasma sets this week. From what I've read, they may be the solution to my objection to LCDs.

So far it looks like Samsung may be the only plasma maker that has PIP feature, which we use a lot.

Pleasantly surprised that they cost considerably less for the same size too! :thmbsp: And, the wife has been adamant that we get a LARGER screen than the current 32"! :banana:

Well if you do pick up a plasma, be advised that they are easily suseptable to screen burn. And images that stay on these for a period of time, ex. an ESPN logo on the bottom of the screen, if you watch it alot, it will ghost in the background and if you are lucky whitewashing the picture will fix it. I have a 50" Toshiba here that is like that and damaged indefinatly. But hard to notice unless you are really looking for it.

Supposedly the newer plasmas aren't as susceptible to burn... after the first 200 hrs. We'll see if the motion works for me first before I worry about that... but thanks for the notice.

the main reason hdtv's often look soft or fuzzy/blurry is that all content must be rescaled to the native resolution of the panel.many of the scaler chips suck at this esp cheap sets and sd content.crt sets do not suffer from this as they simply change scan rates for each mode.a crt does not care about this.
this is also the reason your lcd pc monitor looks best at the native panel resolution.many will let you know what mode to use if you are not in its native res.

I haven't seen any SD content on an HDTV yet... every place claims to be showing HD. So should SD look better on a 720 set vs 1080?

I think its hard to dispute that HD pictures have greater detail, but we've pretty much all have encountered compression artifacts that ruin the net result. I pair this with the trash that was passed off to the consumer during the end of the CRT era that made consumers (sheeple) think that a chinese made HD flatpanel was a step up.

HD is supposed to have a larger color gamut, but as the chart shows, like most NTSC sets, seldom is the benefit actually received by the consumer.

Now that they're pushing 3D, I'm thinking of someone holding up a rabbit and saying "come on, look at the rabbit, look at the rabbit". How about giving me what the standards are capable of, and more so what I paid for?

Somehow, I'm just (loathing) expecting pan-sony-tosh-sung-star-hua to come up with a "new" marketing gimick. Is the Sharp quattron even able to deliver a larger gamut given its backlight? The one I saw had a really course dot pitch and was fed the same crap analog feed all that B***B** pushes all their tvs which didn't make it stand out.

Join the club! I've tried all the plasma, LCD, OLED, and big-screen LCD projection & DLP sets, and always go back to the Sony HD CRT. The flat display sets are improving, and supposedly the Sharp with the yellow pixels is pretty good, but the fact remains that I like CRTs best. I'm sure it's mainly propaganda which has promoted the flat display sets, more than picture quality. "The Jones' have a flat screen; so must we all".

Charles

I agree completely. It amazes me that MOST people like the newer stuff. It seems most truly cannot see the difference. I just appreciate a picture that looks as close to "being there" as possible. I am constantly distracted by the imperfections in the obviously inferior new sets. I have been with many that don't care and clearly don't realize they are watching an out of proportion picture as well with that optional picture stretchin an squashin that happpens so much with these new sets. I guess it is all part of the de-evolution process that most people seem to be into.

I learned a few things this week... except for the sets that were hooked to a BR player, NONE of the retailer's displays were connected to a 1080 source. The best was 3 cable RGB, and one was single yellow cable. Sort of explains why I couldn't see any difference in the 1080 sets.

I found I preferred the plasma picture to the LCD/LED picture, so I ordered a 42" Samsung 720 plasma set for < $500. Couldn't get used to that bright computerized-billboard effect on the LCDs.

Think I might keep my eye on CL for a HD CRT.

with as much plasma and LCD junk i see hauled into our shop all the time, i think ill stick to my CRT RPTV. its still running.

BEWARE if your getting a plasma. prepare to open the wallet during service time.

friggen parts cost more than the damn set is worth anymore. Y sustain, Z sustain, Y buffer drivers, blah blah blah. blow all the time.

Just seen a sanyo 37" LCD that came in today, damn thing has a short in the LCD panel buffers. part of the panel, congrads, the set is now junk. First time ive seen that though, first time for everything i guess.

friggen parts cost more than the damn set is worth anymore.

It seems that applies to my Sony CRT also!:tears:

It seems that applies to my Sony CRT also!:tears:

Well at least with a CRT set, you dont have to "shotgun" boards till you find out which one is bad. lol.

Picked up the plasma set on Friday... what I like about it is that it doesn't 'wow' me... it just looks like a tv should. I watched the Dracula marathon on TCM Friday in SD and it looked very nice, much like the old Sony, only larger, and the colors aren't going bad.

I do miss the PIP feature though as we used it a lot... Sony's the only one I found that still features it, but they don't make a plasma set.