PSX5Central
Non Gaming Discussions => Off-Topic => Topic started by: Mr. Kennedy on January 05, 2006, 12:55:42 PM
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Ok, so this is cool. I just got myself a new TV with some of the cash I got from Christmas... to be honest though, it\'s mostly from savings. Anyway, I got myself a nice 32" Bravia HDTV. It\'s the XBR version so it plays the HD channels.
(https://psx5central.com/community/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.amazon.com%2Fimages%2FP%2FB000BAY7IK.01-AIWHEFKG4HT6N._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg&hash=4b471b416b5ba242a2530893f54b555829a58e23)
What\'s even better, is that this thing retails for about $2700, and I bought mine off of eBay for roughly $2100. Yeah still a lot of dough, but it\'s worth it. To go along with it, I got a DVD system... yes I am joining the 21st century. It\'s a nice one that uses HDMI. Sony Platinum Dream System or something to that tune, it was one of the middle grade ones.
(https://psx5central.com/community/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fakamaipix.crutchfield.com%2Fproducts%2F2005%2F158%2Fl158DAVX1-f.jpeg&hash=7f63b8a9fbe013193638fc1f6bae0b2e2ededa07)
So that\'s it, I\'m finally set for 2006. New Computer, New TV, hopefully new job... Sweetness...
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I do have one question regarding cables....
If I connect the System to TV using an HDMI cable, does that mean that the TV will use speakers when I\'m not watching DVD\'s? Or will I need a seperate Audio-Out cable?
EDIT: I just spoke to a Customer Service rep, and HDMI does carry audio, but not surround sound, so a seperate audio cable is neccesary to achieve surround sound.
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You\'ll need an optical audio cable for surround sound. In my experience, you don\'t really need the $90 cable from Monster, I\'d just go to radio shack or get the mid-grade optical cable from best buy.
I think you can also use some sort of digital coax, but I don\'t know that I\'ve ever seen someone use one. The optical is more common.
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Personally, I consider an insult the retail price of HDTVs, considering the poor quality image they offer. I\'m fed up of watching, checking and testing different brands and models with shameful results.
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32" for 2100?
wtf?
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Personally I am not a fan of LCD and I wouldn\'t like the idea of LCD HDTV for watching video and gaming. But congrat on the purchase...
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You\'re an idiot getting ripped off.
32 inches for 2100.
HAHA.
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First of all, they do offer another 32" for about a grand less, but it\'s not HDTV. Secondly, I researched on the internet, and this brand is considered the best in its class.
In other words, you get what you pay for.
A review of the product line:
Review (http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/article.asp?section_id=3&article_id=989&page_number=4)
User\'s Take (http://www.pricegrabber.com/rating_getprodrev.php/product_id=11344090/id_type=M)
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Congrats... although I just read about a Bravia TV last night... and it was a 50" 3LCD HDTV screen that cost less than $2000.
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Originally posted by Seed_Of_Evil
Personally, I consider an insult the retail price of HDTVs, considering the poor quality image they offer. I\'m fed up of watching, checking and testing different brands and models with shameful results.
You are going to shitty stores...
Originally posted by Paul2
Personally I am not a fan of LCD and I wouldn\'t like the idea of LCD HDTV for watching video and gaming. But congrat on the purchase...
LCDs are getting a lot better. Whether this is a good one or not I haven\'t checked, but the random thought that LCDs blow isn\'t really the case any more.
Originally posted by The Hurricane
I do have one question regarding cables....
If I connect the System to TV using an HDMI cable, does that mean that the TV will use speakers when I\'m not watching DVD\'s? Or will I need a seperate Audio-Out cable?
EDIT: I just spoke to a Customer Service rep, and HDMI does carry audio, but not surround sound, so a seperate audio cable is neccesary to achieve surround sound.
Doesn\'t carry surround sound? First for me.. Your tv doesn\'t process surround, but the HDMI certainly has the bandwidth to transmit surround. So I think the guy just miss-spoke.
What you need for surround is an optical cable to your Stereo. Or perhaps an RCA attached to your Coax input.
And yes.. You don\' tneed Monster. Especially with digital audio.
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Yeah I got a basic HDMI cable, and basic Optical cable. I think the brand was like Comprehensive or something, both were under $20.
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I bought the same set for myself for Christmas along with a 5.1 DTS system and an HDMI dvd player and I am very happy. As for the people here saying "you got ripped off" they obviously don\'t know what they\'re talking about in terms of quality. I spent 2 weeks researching the best possible LCD TV\'s for the size range and although you can get a 37" for the same price, the quality of those tv\'s are nowhere near as good. Sorry, but most people who talk about LCD\'s don\'t know what they\'re talking about let alone have actually seen them side by side with a decent HDTV setup. The Samsung and the Aquos and the LG are the only brands at that size that can even compare and side by side, they all fall short by a wide margin and some are not even HDTV out of the box.
Currently, I have the optical cable setup for my ps2 and the digital coax for my dvd movies with the HDMI cable for my dvd player and component cables for my ps2. Everything looks great up to this point. HDMI from what i\'ve read is not a audio cable by any means, you can\'t get audio from it. For regular stereo sound through the Bravia, you can hook up the HDMI cable for video and the regular red and white cables for sound to the television. For surround sound, you\'re best to go ahead and buy an optical cable or a digital coax cable if your dvd player supports it. It makes a world of difference.
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Originally posted by videoholic
You are going to shitty stores...
LCDs are getting a lot better. Whether this is a good one or not I haven\'t checked, but the random thought that LCDs blow isn\'t really the case any more.
Doesn\'t carry surround sound? First for me.. Your tv doesn\'t process surround, but the HDMI certainly has the bandwidth to transmit surround. So I think the guy just miss-spoke.
What you need for surround is an optical cable to your Stereo. Or perhaps an RCA attached to your Coax input.
And yes.. You don\' tneed Monster. Especially with digital audio.
surround seems to be getting thrown around a lot., Seems to me your talking split stereo rather then true 5.1 Which would require a reciever. RCA isn\'t good for surround Unless its rated at 75ohms. A proper toslink cable should be used if supported.
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RCA ends are used for coax out and yes, it\'s a 75 ohm cable. It transmits the same data as toslink. Bought my first Laser Disc PLayer back in 1993 that trasmitted AC3 signals through Coax out the same way it\'s done today.
HDMI is capable of transmitting 8 channels of audio plus Hi Def video. No one is "throwing around" surround sound.
It is how I stated before. The HDMI is capable of surround, his tv is not.
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It is how I stated before. The HDMI is capable of surround, his tv is not.
That\'s pretty cool, but how does that work? Is there a TV around that has 5.1 surround out of the box without a proper receiver?
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I saw the other day on a show on HDNet a speaker system built for Plasma/LCDs that hangs below the screen. It has 30 some odd speakers in it that are capable of creating a surround sound environment. (Sound is freaky)
Other than that, I dunno what TVs would have sound processors in them. There really is no reason. They may have a loop through, but why would they increase the cost of the TV a couple hundred bucks when anyone who wants a surround sound system would just have a stereo.
HDMI is great. More and more receivers are incorporating this input into their system. So much cleaner than 4 cables with RGB and Optical.
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Ryu,
I know the TV has an Optical Out/In setup, but does the TV have a coax output as well? If that\'s the case, I bought both a Coax and a Optical cable, not knowing which one to use. If it boiled down to it, which offers better in terms of sound?
Cause I\'m going to keep one and return the other. Any suggestions?
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Coax for audio wouldn\'t go to the tv, it would go to the stereo. I can\'t tell the difference on my system between coax and optical.
TV would not have a coax audio out.
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Yah, Coax is usually for one component in your home theatre to the surround sound receiver, typically the dvd player itself. I tried both the coaxial and the optical on my dvd player and I couldn\'t tell what the difference was -- if there was any difference at all. With that in mind, I now have my PS2 hooked up via the optical and the DVD player hooked up via the coax and I save on cable switching that way (as there\'s only one optical port on the receiver - not many for many devices that take advantage of it). It\'s the best of both worlds really. Convenient and easy.
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Originally posted by videoholic
It transmits the same data as toslink.
Toslink is far better then Coax on long distances simply because it doesn\'t have rmi/efi interference. Coax is meant to hold more bandwidth but it\'s unused in AC3 anyway. So i prefer Toslink simply because of the amount of crap in my room. Generally it\'s pretty hard to notice the difference. Some people say they can, others not. I can\'t personally. I have my ps2 running via toslink and the pc on coax.
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That TV is worth 2100. You could have gotten it new from Circuit city for like 2300 though. Sony makes a non-xbr bravia for 1699 thats 32 inches. The XBR is much brighter is takes cable card, and decodes all form of HD. A truely beautiful LCD.
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P.S. Coax is a dying cable. Digital Optical is taking over.
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I was lurking around technology shops yesterday and I was able to check this model of Sony with a DVD player. Again, I must say that the quality/price of this kinda tvs is not fair, IMO. I will never pay 2000€ for a TV that shows blurry images.
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I kind of agree that MSRP of $2,700 for 32" TV is kind of pricey.
And for critical viewers like me, LCD still leave much to be desire in the viewing angle and black level. But for those that aren\'t so pickyy about picture quality, then LCD does looks pretty. Its just that I still couldn\'t really justified the $2,700 MSRP for 32"...it\'s not 1080p display, just 768p...built in hdtuner and cablecard slot still shouldn\'t make the set cost that much, especially it\'s 2006 already...
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Originally posted by Paul2
I kind of agree that MSRP of $2,700 for 32" TV is kind of pricey.
And for critical viewers like me, LCD still leave much to be desire in the viewing angle and black level. But for those that aren\'t so pickyy about picture quality, then LCD does looks pretty. Its just that I still couldn\'t really justified the $2,700 MSRP for 32"...it\'s not 1080p display, just 768p...built in hdtuner and cablecard slot still shouldn\'t make the set cost that much, especially it\'s 2006 already...
The XBR model is 1080
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I\'m upgrading my system early next week... I\'m so excited, I just can\'t hide it...
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The XBR model is 1080
1080i not 1080p. There\'s a considerable difference. 1080p won\'t even become sought after until HD-DVD or blu-ray becomes the new well-established digital medium standard. Were looking at something like four years tops.
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Originally posted by Ryu
1080i not 1080p. There\'s a considerable difference. 1080p won\'t even become sought after until HD-DVD or blu-ray becomes the new well-established digital medium standard. Were looking at something like four years tops.
You think it will be 4 years till you will want or be able to had an HD DVD? Seriously? I\'m guessing you aren\'t buying a PS3.
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I said when it is the well-established digital medium standard. I don\'t see them phasing out dvd\'s right away pretty much the same way dvd didn\'t phase out casettes right away. It takes time before stores really move over and adopt the medium and when there\'s plenty of titles on the medium to really make a large library. I don\'t see all the current movies out now hitting blu-ray for quite some time. Certainly took us an awful long time for us to get Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and many other great movies we all wanted for a long time on DVD.
How old is the DVD medium currently? I know the players were like 1000 bucks at one point. 97 was it? Little later? Little earlier? It\'s 2006 now. DVD\'s weren\'t the full on accepted medium until 2000 at the earliest.
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DVDs were the fastest adopted electronic appliance in history.
1080p will become the norm. At CES all th companies now are touting their 1080p screens. I know the next set I buy will certainly be 1080p. Although my next set will be front projection anyway.
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God I hope its at least 4 years before it becomes the norm. I just got this TV. Geez, technology can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
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Originally posted by The Hurricane
The XBR model is 1080
Your Bravia XBR LCD is actually 1366 x 768p, not 1920 x 1080p. But don\'t sweat it as my 34" CRT is only like around 900 x 1080i. There is more to picture quality than just resolution like black level and contrast ratio. Hence, the reasons why Toshiba 42" SED with 1280 x 720p resolution were being highly praised even against 1080p plasma at CES. Thanks to it high contrast ratio and black level.
And that\'s the thing about your LCD TV is that the contrast ratio is still lacking. I bet that your LCD TV reach no more than 2,000:1 at its highest compare to CRT with a contrast ratio of 50,000:1 or maybe even higher than that.
But again, a contrast ratio of 2,000:1 is quite an improvement compare to LCD years ago where it\'s only around 300:1...
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Originally posted by Ryu
I said when it is the well-established digital medium standard. I don\'t see them phasing out dvd\'s right away pretty much the same way dvd didn\'t phase out casettes right away. It takes time before stores really move over and adopt the medium and when there\'s plenty of titles on the medium to really make a large library. I don\'t see all the current movies out now hitting blu-ray for quite some time. Certainly took us an awful long time for us to get Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and many other great movies we all wanted for a long time on DVD.
How old is the DVD medium currently? I know the players were like 1000 bucks at one point. 97 was it? Little later? Little earlier? It\'s 2006 now. DVD\'s weren\'t the full on accepted medium until 2000 at the earliest.
It was funny going into the rental stores and seeing one small rack of DVDs. Then it slowly started getting bigger. And bigger... Then they finally took over.
They national launch was mid/late-Sept 1997, though certain cities could get it before that. I remember every best buy had a demo of Twister going on.
Good news about getting classics on hd-dvd/blu-ray is the old movies you mentioned above were digitally mastered from film in 1080p. Meaning the source is already there, and the hard part is finished. It\'ll just take some nudging to the studios to re-release in hi-def.
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speaking of digitally mastered 1080p, I can imagine the bandwidth it require for that uncompressed is nearly 1 Gbits to 1.5 Gbits per second depending if it\'s 1080p/24 or 1080p/30 and if it\'s using 4:2:2 Y Cb Cr sampling or 4:4:4 Y Cb Cr...or going full 24 bits RGB...
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1080P will be awesome, but yeah... it\'s not like it\'s gonna be widely adopted within the year. It\'s gonna take a while.
And I know I don\'t want to buy the first 1080P sets. I\'ll wait for them to work out the kinks and get one when price and quality is better matched. But it\'s certainly an exciting time for home cinema. :)
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It was funny going into the rental stores and seeing one small rack of DVDs. Then it slowly started getting bigger. And bigger... Then they finally took over.
Yeah, it took quite awhile, but I think the PS2 played a very large part in making that possible. 299 at launch, at that time, was a VERY affordable DVD player -- not to mention gaming system.
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So true and Sony is bankin\' on that happening with Blu-Ray. Will it? Most likely, but that will be the only way a Blu-Ray player will sell.
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Well, the thing that comes to my attention is that blu-ray is not a player that\'s already out and known about. It\'s not like movies are being made in that format at this very second like they were in DVD before the PS2 came out. Sony will basically be launching this new medium with the console. People can continue to ignore the movies on blu ray primarily because the benefits aren\'t seen unless someone owns and uses an HDTV -- a market that is growing, but still hardly as wide spread as say DVD players in homes. At least the prices are coming down into the range of affordability.
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I\'d like to think the TV I got is somewhat exceptional, but from what I reading, it\'s not. However, it\'s a lot better than my non-HD 19" CRT TV. It\'s hard to believe that a product Sony launched in August could barely be considered top of the line.
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Sony make great CRT sets, and I owned two Sony CRTs, one 20" NTSC and one 34" HDTV. And they are fabulous.
It\'s not about Sony that I am don\'t like LCD, it\'s just that it\'s LCD that I am not a fan of LCD and seeing 32" costing $2,700, that\'s a bit pricey compares to their competitors imo.
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yes... yes, I can...