What's the Best General Purpose Display? 24
Who Man asks: "There are many options when buying a display today: Direct-View CRT, CRT-Based Rear Projection, CRT-Based Front Projection, Direct-View LCD, LCD-Based Rear Projection, LCD-based Front Projection, DLP-based Rear Projection, DLP-based Front Projection, Plasma, lcos-based front projection, and lcos-based rear projection. Did I leave anything out? Each of these seems to have a distinct trade-off, and it gets especially confusing when the display is intended for multiple purposes--watching analog 4:3 video, watching hi-def 16:9 video, watching DVDs (in several different aspect ratios), playing PC games, and playing console games. A particularly sticky area seems to be getting a display that handles analog and digital signals equally well. Seems that the newer digital displays are great at displaying hi-def signals but make an analog TV show look horrible. Is there a display that's adept at handling multiple inputs? Has anyone had specific experience, good or bad, with any particular displays? What about using an external processor with a digital display?"
My experience with HT displays (Score:5, Informative)
In short, an XGA or WXGA DLP projector will probably suit your needs. For digital viewing, an HDTV tuner that can scale to 1024x768p (or 1365x768p) will be fine (I recommend the MyHD PCI card), and for analog viewing, Dscaler does a great job. For Linux, there's tvtime, but tvtime seems to delay the video more than Dscaler, so you might need to add a delay to the audio to compensate. For DVD, Ogle or Xine is best for NTSC titles.
Re:My experience with HT displays (Score:2, Insightful)
Direct-View CRT is the Benchmark (Score:5, Informative)
Other displays may be larger (direct-view CRTs drop off at a size considered modest for home theater), but none beat the quality.
Re:Direct-View CRT is the Benchmark (Score:2)
If you mean the Loewe Aconda as being the standard, then yes, you can't buy a better CRT.
However, these Plasma owners beg to differ:
If plasmas were not available, which set would you own? [avsforum.com]
Cheers
Re:Not much to offer. (Score:2)
I personally reccomend a large flat screen crt television. Get picture in picture for two tuners and extra inputs (sounds like you'll need them). Make sure it has S-Video, RCA, Coax, and Component. Also make sure it is a progressive scan HDTV. You can plug your pc into it via S-Video out on the video card. You can plug your console in by component (the 3 plug one) and your old console by RCA. Your DVD player on the other tuner via component a
Plasma? Oled? (Score:1)
Re:Plasma? Oled? (Score:1)
I had to sit clear across the room from those bad boys...it was nice :o)
Re:Plasma? Oled? (Score:1)
Eh? A 42" can be found for less then $3300, which is a bargain. A far cry from last year's $5K !
Re:Plasma? Oled? (Score:2)
Remember that the bargain $3.3K screens are just EDTV (852x480) whereas last year's (and this year's too for that matter) $5K screens are HDTV (1280x1280, 1280x1024, 1280x768, or 1080x853).
Re:Plasma? Oled? (Score:1)
Correct. The reason I have one, is because they match up the best with DVDs resolution of 720x480.
> $5K screens are HDTV (1280x1280)
Which you should avoid like the plague, or any other same-size resolutions. Although 1366x768 is a good aspect ratio.
Re:Plasma? Oled? (Score:2)
I would disagree that same-size resolutions are inherently bad - at first it sounds kind of silly, but any good digital processor (which all the expensive screens have) can map the image such that having extra pixels won't hurt anything. Of course a 16:9
What about LEDs? (Score:1)
You're correct. There are tradeoffs. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:You're correct. There are tradeoffs. (Score:1)
The KF-50XBR800, or GWII as it is more commonly called, is an excellent TV. Almost picked one up, but went the Plasma route.
> as I've been too busy re-watching my entire DVD collection
Yeap, I hear ya!
> , but LCDs are prone to pixels getting "stuck", and you have to worry about image burn-in.
I believe you're misinformed. LCD's don't have image burn-in, at least to my knowledge.
Plasma's can have burn-in issues (and usually did a f
My favorite (Score:3, Funny)
Dell 2000FP (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dell 2000FP (Score:2)
Bottom line: since it's my boss's money, I love the 2000FP. If it were my money, I would only buy one if
Re:Dell 2000FP (and recent TV shopping) (Score:2)
They are definitely really nice monitors. I got one at work, and then ended up buying one for my home machine.
They don't make great TVs, though, although they are workable if you're desperate. I had the monitor a couple of weeks before I got the new computer, so we put it next to our real TV for comparison, using its S-video input. We weren't that impressed, because it showed significant ghosting.
Then our real TV died and we used the 2000FP again while we were trying to find a replacement. It's fin
No such thing (Score:4, Informative)
Right now I'm really anxious for my monitor to wear out because LCDs have fallen into my price range. But have they worked out the latency kinks yet? Well, I don't care, 'cause I'm not a gamer. YMMV!
New RCA rear projection (Score:1)
Tuning Capability: NTSC/ATSC
Digital Cable Capatibility: IEEE1394DTV-LINK/DVI/YPrPb
That is for the HD65W140.
My all time favorite general purpose display, (Score:3, Funny)