Go Green, Get a Better Picture Too: THX suggests calibrating HDTVs to save the world

The multimedia wizards with THX and Lucasfilm have offically suggested that one way to save electricity (and thus, the environment) is to calibrate your HDTV very carefully when you get it. Most TVs are set to 100% contrast right out of the box, costing you money.

Videophiles have always known about this, but we’re hoping that THX can bring this message to everyone: TVs shouldn’t double as tanning lamps and room heaters.

How about a 15 – 50% energy savings for a good reason to try this out? Simply activating the THX adjustments screens built into some DVDs is enough to save you $50-100 a year on your power bill (and get a better overall picture too), and that should be incentives enough for anyone.

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Sales: DisplaySearch shows Plasma to best LCD in some tests

The past year or so has been pretty rough on Plasma, and yet we’ve said there are times and usages that Plasma beats LCD. And now the tests of a company whose specialty is TVs has backed that up. The  “old” gas capsule technology is considered outdated in many circles, but test results don’t lie.

The lineup of 2008 top of the line LCDs from Samsung, Sharp and Sony were carefully calibrated and compared against a top-end Pansonic plasma TV.

Here’s the full details of the test, but the gist is: the plasma set beat all of the LCDs in contrast, color accuracy and black level, and in some cases, it wasn’t even close. That should be alarming for those who know that Plasma is on its way out for most companies, but it appears maybe it could be another Beta vs. VHS kind of situation (Beta was also clearly superior in sound and picture quality, but lost the cassette tape wars anyway and faded away).

Thought: Does HD need an official definition?

There’s little doubt that much of what passes for HD isn’t very HD at all (ie 720p isn’t really HD if you look at it side by side with 1080p), but it seems many throw up their hands when it comes to officially defining what makes a signal or TV HD. This is part of what makes the medium so confusing.

Older movies in Blu-Ray, for example, are not HD in our opinion, since they were not sourced in HD originally, needless to say. Some older 1080p HDTV’s also don’t look great, even though they’re true HD.  Yes, the pixels are there, but the decoder is what really matters to the naked eye and subjective appearance quality.

Many say the bitrate per second is what should be HD, or perhaps the quality of the source medium. All agree basic DVD is NOT HD at all, and we agree with that as well.

What would be HD to you, our readers?

Knowledge: How to bring HDTV content into a hotel room

Some hotel chains are finally realizing how important HDTV or HD on Demand is to a happt guest experience, but there are still a number stuck in SD/old-school hell. For those moments, Gadling’s how-to guide describes how to bring HD and high-quality content to a hotel TV with the least amount of trouble.

There are options for those unlucky hotels with ancient setups. Firstly, bring a PMP and all the different connections you can think of, wire-wise (these days, won’t take up much suitcase space). Furthermore, solutions like Slingboxen and other place-shifting gadgets allow you to pipe laptop content onto a TV, turning any set into an experience all your own.

If you’re looking for more nuggets of HD travel knowledge, read here.

“Monster HDMI” scam still going on in various stores

Yes, there are companies that still prey on ignorance and fear, and this is one of those instances…this scam was reported today on Engadget, and it’s a pretty sad one.

It shows a display of HD connected two different ways: one via composite cable, which is an SD quality and rather poor connection for an HD set, and one using HDMI monster cables, which is a whole world different quality wise. The display indicates they’re BOTH HD, just connected using different types of cable, which isn’t exactly true.

Why do companies do this? Probably to sell more (overpriced) Monster Cables, but still…if they’re going to put up a display like this, there has to be full disclosure about the specs/cables involved.

More about this scam, with pics (shown here) in the eye-opening brief article, and the comments that follow mostly confirm customers contempt for this practice.

Article: HDMI 1.3 Primer

To get the most from your HDTV, using HDMI is essential, especially for the newest and fanciest audio formats to sound their best. Much has been said about the benefits of HDMI (among them eliminating the cable clutter that commonly plagues complex home theatre setups), and now there’s an article that brings these features into focus.

Version 1.3 of HDMI was released a bit ago, and its supposed to really up the ante with sound and picture quality. The geeks at HomeTheaterMag have broken everything down: HDMI’s upside, downside, and everything in between, in exquisite detail.

Soak in the article here, which is must reading for home theatre enthusiasts.

Engadget HD Article: Best 30-35″ HDTV user survey

So you’re looking for a HDTV for your bedroom or other room where you don’t necessarily need a 55″ monster, and you want to find the best deal on a great TV?

Engadget HD has a new user comment survey with lots of informative responses regarding this question. Should you bother with a 1080p set in this type of size? What size is best for a smaller room? These questions and more are brought up in the comments.

Our own stance has been: buy the best and biggest TV you can afford on your budget, and go 1080p if you can (assuming the TV is 32″ or more; smaller than that, it doesn’t make much difference). Samsung TV’s seem to capture the majority of the commenter’s hearts in this size range, it seems.

Read more here.

Tip: Turn down the brightness, save some money too

Many TV experts (including us) have said before: turning down the ultra-brightness mode of your HDTV can extend the life of it, and save you money on your power bill too. Many people don’t seem to be following that advice however.

A recent study presented at the Ergonomics Symposium on Flat Panels indicated almost 80% of users ended up keeping their TV in extremely high brightness modes, and 81% had the ambient light adjustment features disabled.

That’s evil for picture quality, but more sinister for energy usage – the study stated that 4 factors determine proper brightness: those are viewing angle, age of the user, content luminance and ambient lighting in the room) are used to help decide how bright the TV should be, and “dynamic” mode doesn’t care about what’s correct, it’s used to sell TV’s.

Moving back display brightness just a bit can save up 20-30% on your electric usage of the TV. Bear in mind this from a sample of 83 homes, but based on my own experience, with far too many homes i’ve visited having the mode set to glowing eye-searing whites and reds around everything, it sounds fairly accurate.

720p vs. 1080p: What’s the big deal these days?

You’ve heard the terms mentioned on here a hundred times: 720p, 1080p, etc. Is there really a big difference thes days? If you’re shopping for a TV, should you care about whether your TV has either one?

CNET has a new article that carefully explains the differences between the two. Mainly, the difference is sharpness/detail, and it also depends on what kind of media you’re going to play on the TV. If you’re going to go high-end HD or Blu-Ray, 1080p will look a lot better. If you just watch a few basic satellite HD channels and DVDs and SD programming, 720p is plenty for you. The number indicates the number of pixels able to be displayed on the screen at once.

Here’s the full read for those in the dark about what these numbers mean these days.

HD Primer: Why are there black bars on my new HDTV?

You just bought a new HDTV with widescreen, and expect all of your content to fill all of the screen, right? You get it home, and see most of the content has black bars or is centered in the middle with bars on the side. What is this?

Here is one of the most detailed and interesting explanations of all the differing reasons and types of screen types present on HDTV’s, presented by Engadget HD. It comes with screenshots of each type of screen you may encounter, with full technical explanations of each.

The gist is: most shows are still presented in 4:3 mode, which is typical old-fashioned tube TV dimensions, and only carry enough info to fill this space. You can set it to “stretch”, but depending on the TV, it may look “stretched out” and unnatural. This is slowly changing as more and more shows are shot in widescreen.

Here’s the article: Link

HDTV Q&A with Screen Sleuth

Every once in a while, we’ll answer basic HDTV and related questions in detail here on the site. Below is one such question that was posed elsewhere on another site, and i’ve heard the question many times myself:

Q: Since the analog sets are 4:3 aspect ratio and the HD signal is 16:9, something will change. Will the converted HD signal provided by Time Warner (or other provider) fill the width of the analog screen with black space at the top and bottom to give the HD aspect ratio? Or will the converted HD signal fill the height of the screen with the extra HD width discarded?

The aspect ratio of shows will not change at all. Some shows are shot and created in widescreen (16:9), while some are still more normal and square (commonly known as 4:3 ratio). An HDTV signal will not change the way a show was created.

Also, the conversion to digital will not mean all shows will be broadcast in high definition (HD) by default. A show must shot in HD to be capable of being viewed in HD on a TV. All over-the-air channels will be digitally broadcast over the air, which will make shows more capable of better picture and sound. The cable service itself won’t change.

HD shows (ones shot in HD) are traditionally widescreen, and will be broadcast in 16:9 ratio. Shows that aren’t will be broadcast as before (with possible minor quality improvements because of the digital broadcasting).

We’re always glad to be here to clear up the common misconceptions of HD for our readers.

Best Buy and the value of consumer education

Best Buy (and other companies too on occasion) will sometimes resort to slightly unsavory tactics to upsell certain services that aren’t always necessary for customers who wish to educate themselves a little bit. In this case, the service involved is a HDTV calibration service that costs a fair bit that Best Buy (at least some of them anyway) are using rather sneaky tactics to sell the service to unsuspecting, uninformed consumers.

A tipster and a report on Gizmodo caught a local Best Buy running a side-by side comparison display which showed the difference between a calibrated and an non-calibrated HDTV. No big deal, right?

After further examination, it was discovered one was hooked up with component cables while the clearer TV had HDMI. The big deal about this is, component cable is analog and won’t display 1080p in some cases due to copy protection; you need HDMI to display this resolution. It could have explained the difference in image quality, and comparing systems set up the same way is the best and most honest way to show th differences with a purely internal calibration service like this.

To defend yourself against this sort of thing, get educated. This article off Gizmodo that we profiled earlier shows you how to calibrate your TV yourself, and it only takes 5-10 minutes to do. This is a practice that (at those stores anyway) probably won’t change, so make sure you go in and be informed about your choices and what you need to do to get the best out of your HDTV.

Yahoo’s handy tips for setting up your new HDTV

Many dream of the day they get their new HDTV beauty home, hook it up, and be prepared to be wowed by amazing, sharp clear picture they only dreamed possible previously. But what if it doesn’t look quite right, or as good as it could be, perhaps? Yahoo has a new article out that covers the possibilities, and what to do should this happen. There’s a bit to remember if you’re new to it, and this article may help a lot.

The basics are: make sure you have HDMI or composite cables to hook your TV up with, make sure you have an HD stream ready to go from your satellite or cable carrier and that the box you use is an HD box, make sure you’re on the “HD” channels (commonly high up in the cable list number wise) and make sure your set is calibrated properly (many aren’t out of the box). All of these will assure the best possible picture on your HDTV.

See this article for more details: Link

Battle of the under $900 HDTVs

Gizmodo has posted an interesting and detailed story comparing various HDTV’s under $900 against each other, complete with screenshots and lots of juicy details.

The battles include: The Toshiba Regza vs. Vizio (the Toshiba was judged superior), the close race between the Westinghouse and the Vizio (judged a tie, for a backlight issue dragged down the Westinghouse a bit), and the big loser was the Insignia, which scored very poorly against the Vizio. The Regza also (barely) beat the Vizio Plasma TV.

The details given are very interesting, and it points up the real difference between the different models and companies. Also given a little text was the fact that calibrating your TV (we had an article here about this not too long ago) makes nearly any set better than it would be out of the box.

Here’s the article: Link

The HDTV Buying Guide Primer

Here’s something we discovered in our endless search finding more information to help you find great deals for the holidays, and all year long: a 5-page article, giving lots of detail about how to select an HDTV, with lots of great info and details, courtesy of the Washington Post.

Included topics: the difference between LCD and Plasma, the different specs and what they really mean, the differen resolutions and how they translate into real-world performance, and lots of other great stuff. It’s one of the more detailed articles we’ve seen on the subject.

If you’re new to the world of HDTV, this article is a must-read before you go shopping this holiday season. It’ll keep you from making any mistakes when selecting the big screen HDTV of your dreams.

Here’s the link to the article: Link

10 things about Blu-Ray you always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask

Have a big HDTV and want the best in movie picture quality? Bought a 1080p and really want to see it in all its glory? Everyone agrees that Blu-Ray is the way to go, if this is your desire. But there’s a lot of misinformation in the marketplace about Blu-Ray, and this article from USA Today tends to answer the top 10 questions that people ask when considering a blu-ray player.

For example, why is a blu-ray player called blu-ray? Pretty simple: the ray that reads the disc is blue. There’s some technical reasons why this is, too: a blue ray can be focused more, resulting in more info fitting on a disc. The storage capacity is roughly 5x that of a traditional DVD disc.

See more questions here.

Six common showroom mistakes when buying an HDTV

There will be many people going out shopping for a loved one (or themselves) for the holiday season, and grabbing an HDTV may appeal to many shoppers this year with the price drops. Here are 6 tips to help you make the best choice:

1. Make sure of what kind of content each set is playing in the showroom. 1080p, blu-ray, standard def, DVD, whatever. Some store draw you to the more expensive sets by playing different (and better-looking) content on them. Ask if you aren’t sure.

2. Ask how the sets are hooked up, or look yourself. Some stores vary the way they’re connected; composite-cable connections tend to not look as good as HDMI connections.

3. In bright stores, LCDs tend to look brighter (and more attractive) than plasma sets do–especially since most manufacturers ship them with brightness at its highest setting. Ask to adjust the brightness settings in the store.

See this article for even more tips on choosing the best TV.

Top 10 Tips to getting the best deal on Black Friday

TVpredictions.com has posted a very solid Top 10 list of tips about getting the most out of Black Friday, and getting the very best deal on an HDTV this holiday season.

Much of it is common sense (do your research, both in stores and online, make sure the special prices are actually good deals, buy quality models, show up early, etc), but some if it isn’t totally obvious (get a gift receipt, use the right credit card with the best incentives).

Deals will be hopping with the economic woes of people and companies, so these tips should give you a smart leg up going into the shopping season, including D-Day, Nov. 28th.

Read the article more in depth here.

The DTV/HDTV Transition – How messy will it be?

The Federal Communications Commission has now publicly stated that despite numerous ads littering the airwaves, people are still not totally sure what it means, and what they need to do.

The statement comes three weeks after Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, warned that the next administration may have a “communications crisis” on their hands because of the DTV conversion.

Broadcasters, the party he identified as having the most to lose in the transition, were urged to step up their informational campaigns and to tailor the info to local markets in the months leading up to the transition (something this writer’s area, Sacramento, has done a lot of already, including a soft test of a DTV only signal during a recent newscast). As an example, he said that differences technically between local markets may require campaigns that urge consumers to also purchase a new antenna to get their DTV converter boxes to work properly.

To understand McDowell’s statement, he’s referring to the fact that, even if consumers buy a converter box and hook it up to their existing antenna, they may get fewer channels after the transition. Digital TV signals use a completely different transmission method from analog, and people need to be aware of the differences.

The following is food for thought: The conversion to DTV must be done, period. It will make existing HDTV look even better than it does now (the link and why this story is relevant to the HDTV scene). People need to climb out of the dark ages and realize that its 2008, and its the broadcasters and local market stations responsibility to get the message out to their viewers and make sure they can still receive stations after the transition.

There are many programs that hand out certificates for free or discounted digital converter boxes that (for the most part) can just hook up and receive all the same channels with little to no tech knowledge.

The 6 Basic Steps to shopping for an HDTV

Buying an HDTV in the near future? Even if you’re planning to purchase it online, you should still go and see sets in the store in person. Only by checking out the types of content that you watch most–movies, sports events, standard-def shows, or video games–can you evaluate subtle differences in picture quality. Brands can differ widely to some eyes.

Here are some simple, time-tested tips on prepping for shopping and evaluating sets in the store.

1. Shop, Compare, Repeat: Get a handle on what the current prices are before shopping retail, be sure to check online pricing. Compare similar models and their prices with various stores. Sometimes great deals can be found if you look hard enough. Know what features you want, and what you can live without, and determine what screen size you want. Go first to specialty home theater shops that stock the sets you like, if you have some in your area. They tend to have quiet, dimly lit areas much like real living rooms, while the noisy showrooms at the big stores make comparisons difficult.

2. Check your video sources: If you don’t already have high-def video sources–an HD digital cable or satellite box, a DVR, Cable, Blu-Ray player–at least investigate them beforehand to determine the number and types of inputs and cables you’ll need. If you buy your HD gear first, an installer will be able to hook it all up to your new set and troubleshoot problems.

3. Bring test movies with you: They should be on both DVD and high-definition media (Blu-ray or HD DVD); rent if necessary. Last year’s remake of Casino Royale has plenty of fast action and night scenes for comparing smooth motion and black quality. Not a necessity, but this way you know what you’ll be getting at an ideal quality level.

4. Look at two sources: Ask to see both standard-def and high-def sources (including live broadcast TV) on the sets you like. If possible, watch the same input simultaneously on two models you’re considering. Make sure that the salesperson uses the same standard DVD player for all your tests, to eliminate quality differences in the players from your appraisals. The difference between HD and standard def TV signals on some sets may be quite jarring.

5. Tweak the settings: Ask the salesperson to set each TV to similar levels of color temperature (the optimum is 6500 Kelvin), brightness, and other picture variables, or play with them yourself. In store displays, TVs often have amped-up brightness and sharpness settings. Use movie, sports, and gaming presets (if available) as starting points for those content types. These often show off the clarity of a set very well. Check image quality when viewing from several distances, look for variations in picture quality at wide angles,  smoothness in action scenes and video games (LCDs with fast response times and 120-Hz refresh rates should rival the smoother look of plasma sets), color accuracy, contrast, deep blacks, etc. Be informed and take notes.

6. Drive a bargain: Ask store salespeople to match online prices; many will gladly do so. Local delivery is better; large TV sets can easily be damaged in transit, and good luck getting a replacement from most discount outlets. Ask if the seller will sweeten the deal with free cables, mounting hardware, or professional installation. Some will do this. Also, check return policies, such as restocking fees. Don’t fall for extended warranties (and note that some credit cards double already-generous warranty periods from the manufacturer); most of these never get used and only line the merchant’s pocket.

One final reminder: Go and purchase the cables you’ll need before the set arrives, and shop for these for best prices too, ideally online. You don’t want to have to dash out to buy an overpriced cable just to enjoy your new HDTV.

These step should ensure you get the best quality HDTV for your hard-earned cash. An uninformed decision often ends up being a bad decision.

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