Question about HDTV and Digital?

MSI Magus

MSI Magus

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Me and my fiancee have been broke for months. Now with her out of school and me having received a pell grant we actually have a little money. We figured to build our credit and because they are nice we would go and get ourselves a nice big HDTV since it seems you can pick them up for $500-$800 these days and again paying on time would build more credit for us.

Anyways.....heres the thing. I have no freaking clue about Digital or HDTV...I didnt even know there were two options. I tried asking 2 guys at best buy but well they pretty much either had a hard on for talking about TVs or were trying to hard to push product. Instead of me leaving informed I left confused.

Now im wondering which is better to buy, digital or HDTV? And do both only pick up certain channals or need a satalite dish or something? Im not the most tech wiz kid and all the terms and crap the guy talked about has me confused. I though I could just go out and buy one of these TVs and hook it up like any other....but the guy made it sound like they are on special channals of their own and you need extra crap.

So which is better and what will I need to know for hooking one of these up. O and if anyone has a reccomend store off or online to buy it great!
 
Yeah i'm looking for a hdtv for around 500-600 bucks also thats hd and ready to go for my 360. I have no answers but im guessing hd is the way to go cause I have never heard anything about getting digital.
 
Were to start First HDTV is what you want, Look for a bulit in ATSC tuner this will allow to pick up "free" over the Air broadcast from the Major networks. Use this link http://www.checkhd.com/aw/Address.aspx all you have to do its your zip but if you put in your whole address it will give you info on the best antenna for your needs.

Cable and satellite are also ways to get more HD like from TNT, ESPN you know Cable stations. There will be extra cost but check with your cable co I pay 9.95 a month just to have the HD DVR box from COX. To my knowlage DirectTV is now leasing HD Boxes and they at this point have the most HD offferings of any Sat or Cable co.

I Would say get the Samsung 30" Slimfit you can pick it up for under 800 and its a damn good tv. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7716769&type=product&id=1138087675171&ref=06&loc=01
 
[quote name='Kfoster1979']Were to start First HDTV is what you want, Look for a bulit in ATSC tuner this will allow to pick up "free" over the Air broadcast from the Major networks. Use this link http://www.checkhd.com/aw/Address.aspx all you have to do its your zip but if you put in your whole address it will give you info on the best antenna for your needs.

Cable and satellite are also ways to get more HD like from TNT, ESPN you know Cable stations. There will be extra cost but check with your cable co I pay 9.95 a month just to have the HD DVR box from COX. To my knowlage DirectTV is now leasing HD Boxes and they at this point have the most HD offferings of any Sat or Cable co.

I Would say get the Samsung 30" Slimfit you can pick it up for under 800 and its a damn good tv. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7716769&type=product&id=1138087675171&ref=06&loc=01[/QUOTE]

Is it common to have to pay $10 a month like that? Id like to get HDTV but it seems paying $100s should be enough....honestly its kinda pricey and stupid to ask people to pay $100s then a monthly fee.
 
I have COMCAST for my HDTV needs. I have to pay $10 extra a month, and that is for the HD box and DVR. Well worth it, both are great. If you get one with a BUILT-IN tuner, you can get Over-The-Air (OTA) signals for free, but you will need a small HD Antenna (or any antenna I believe). I also have a Built-In LCD for another room (smaller 26"), but I got a free CableCARD for that, so I did not need to use an antenna...so I don't know much about the OTA. I'm MORE than happy with my $10 box. DVR is a GREAT thing...well worth it.

For $500-$800 you can get an adequate HDTV...what size are you looking for?
 
Ok in terms of Digital and HD let's make this clear and I'm giving this explanation not just to you but EVERYONE. First, digital is the signal not the product. HDTV's present the digital product to you full res. if you have a true HDTV. EDTV's only display 480p/1080i. Now as I was saying about the digital signal, one thing I should clarify. Just because you pick up something digitally OTA does not mean it will be HD. Digital signal is not just HD, it can also just be a cleaner signal to pick up. For instance some low budget TV stations will convert to Digital and in order to maximize their revenue they will carry 6 channels in 480i instead. Most of the networks and their affliates will usually not do this, though I do have one extra channel for my PBS. Now in terms of my advice for HD on quality, it goes OTA, then Cable, Satellite whatever. PBS HD and "The Late Show" HD are the best I can give of HD looking like it should. Also right now PBS offers the most product in HD surprisingly enough.
Now further onto the Digital signal path there are 3 standards in the world right now to my knowledge though I could be wrong and SECAM might be separate from Europe's which would make it 4, as it stands I'll cover the shit I know. Japan either has ATSC or the broadcast standards of D3(1125i) and D4(750p) and I think there might be a D2. Now Europe has one that supposedly is cheaper and picks up the reception better but I've been told to really implement Analog will have to be completely phased out.
Ok now for your HD purpose I would suggest a CRT, they're reasonably priced and offer you the best picture right now until SED's come out.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']Is it common to have to pay $10 a month like that? Id like to get HDTV but it seems paying $100s should be enough....honestly its kinda pricey and stupid to ask people to pay $100s then a monthly fee.[/QUOTE]

Yes but that fee is for leasing the box not the content. And like doubledown said the fee is worth it IMO for a HD box and DVR .
 
Do you plan to watch high def broadcast TV, DVDs and play video games on it? If so, keep in mind that you may need component video cables for all of these devices if you want the high def quality. And if your TV only has one component video cable input, you'll need to buy a selector device or else manually switch out the cables every time you change devices.

I had no idea about this stuff when I bought my HDTV a year ago but have since learned that it's more than just the TV you need worry about.
 
[quote name='woobacca']Do you plan to watch high def broadcast TV, DVDs and play video games on it? If so, keep in mind that you may need component video cables for all of these devices if you want the high def quality. And if your TV only has one component video cable input, you'll need to buy a selector device or else manually switch out the cables every time you change devices.

I had no idea about this stuff when I bought my HDTV a year ago but have since learned that it's more than just the TV you need worry about.[/QUOTE]

Ya...I thought I could jst buy a TV and now I find out there are 10,000 things to consider.
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']Ya...I thought I could jst buy a TV and now I find out there are 10,000 things to consider.[/QUOTE]
Nah if I can learn about it anyone can. So here are a couple of things I've picked up -
  • Not every broadcast or cable channel is offered in high def. I have digital cable but don't subscribe to their high def service, cuz I don't want to pay extra for stuff I don't usually watch anyway. Basically if you're into CBS, NBC, ABC, Discovery, ESPN and the movie channels like HBO, then it'll be worth paying your cable company the little extra for it. I've got a two year old kid, so the only thing I wind up watching off of cable nowadays is Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer anyway.
  • The PS2 and Xbox support high def. But to take advantage of it, you need to buy those special component video cables. Madcatz makes generic ones, so you don't need the official Sony or Microsoft ones.
  • Gamecube does not support high def and in fact looks crappy on a plasma TV. The crappiness is partly because you can only run regular composite video cables from the cube to the TV. (Look up the difference between component and composite video cables on Wikipedia. I did.) I think the TV just ends up magnifying the imperfections or something.
  • If you're going to buy a selector to switch between multiple component video devices (say, your Xbox and cable tuner), I do NOT recommend buying the Pelican System Selector Pro. I've found that connecting my Xbox to the TV through the Pelican causes the picture quality to suffer a bit compared to the direction connection to the TV. Don't get me wrong, it's not horrible. It's just gone from "holy frickin' amazing" to just "really great". I saw a $20 selector at Target the other day. I wish it had been available a year ago or that I had known about it back then, cuz I'll bet it works just as well.
  • Regular TVs have a 4 x 3 aspect ratio. Widescreen HDTVs are 16 x 9. Not all DVDs automagically look great on a widescreen TV. The ones that say "Anamorphic widescreen" on the covers are the ones that do. Some of the older DVDs may only say "Letterbox widescreen" or just 4 x 3. Not sure how the "letterbox" would look, but the 4 x 3 will be stretched out unless you set the TV display to 4 x 3 for that viewing. For that matter, I think most cable channels broadcast in 4 x 3 anyway. I've personally gotten used to seeing people with wide faces. Others I know can't stand that effect and change it every time.
  • I had bought myself an HD plasma TV from costco for cheap, but I would probably have been just as happy with an ED TV.

That's all I can think of for now. Hope it helps.
 
[quote name='woobacca']
[*]The PS2 and Xbox support high def. But to take advantage of it, you need to buy those special component video cables. Madcatz makes generic ones, so you don't need the official Sony or Microsoft ones.
[*]Gamecube does not support high def and in fact looks crappy on a plasma TV. The crappiness is partly because you can only run regular composite video cables from the cube to the TV. (Look up the difference between component and composite video cables on Wikipedia. I did.) I think the TV just ends up magnifying the imperfections or something.
[/QUOTE]

PS2 is only HD for 2 games and XBOX is HD for about 30. Most XBOX games support ED, while less than half of PS2 games even support that. About half of all Gamecube games supports ED if your Gamecube has a digital out port, but the component cables are expensive and hard to find. You should at least be using S-Video though (much better than composite, but much worse than component).

This site will tell you which games support HD and ED:

http://www.hdtvarcade.com/hdtvforum/index.php?autocom=custom&page=hdlists
 
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