I never knew gaming could look this beautiful

[Izulde]

So with my graduation money from undergrad this last May, I bought a Samsung 32 inch HDTV that was on sale at Best Buy. (I forget the model number just now, but I remember FOFC praising Samsung HDTVs)

Spent the money for the HDMI cable for the PS3, took it and the TV down with me to Arkansas where I finally got a chance to hook everything up.

Popped in NCAA '09 and was absolutely floored with how stunning the graphics looked and how much clearer, larger and more vivid the games and text appeared.

I was so amazed I wasn't upset when my 6-0 Razorbacks lost 37-31 to 5-1 Kentucky in Campus Legend mode. I was just agape at how gorgeous and crisp everything looked.

Just wish I had a little extra money each month to be able to afford renting an HD cable box but that's okay.

I also picked up my first Blu-Ray DVD today (Vantage Point, which I really enjoyed in the theatre and which I'd held off on getting on DVD until the price dropped).

I haven't watched it yet as that'll be tomorrow night's entertainment, but wow.

One thing I did notice: My regular TV broadcast with the coaxial cable looked fuzzy to me at certain points and certain channels. Any ideas on what to do about that?

[Schmidty]

My advice?


The Muppets Take Manhattan in HD

[Kodos]

Perhaps the Samsung LN32A450? I'm looking at that one right now on the interwebs.

[Radii]

hah, I'm totally with you man. My 37" from Samsung just arrived a few days ago and I'm in heaven(Amazon.com: Samsung LN37A550 37-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV: Electronics, I'd recommend it for sure). I was mainly getting it for console gaming and was debating whether to get HD reception for the TV now, or whether to wait until January when basketball season kicks into high gear. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, I'm making sure I get my football in HD too

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Perhaps the Samsung LN32A450? I'm looking at that one right now on the interwebs.

A buddy of mine that knows electronics real well was pushing Samsung(and some of the current sales/shipping deals on Amazon) pretty hard. If I had decided to go with 720p 32" instead of blowing some extra cash, the one you mentioned is coming highly recommended.

[Big Fo]

I bought a Samsung LN32A550 a month or two ago and am very happy with it. If you think NCAA looks great on it play Madden 09 or Metal Gear Solid 4 sometime. I still need to check out some Blu-Rays on it.

[Raiders Army]

I don't think there's anything you can do about the TV broadcast. It is what it is. You could get satellite which will be better, but it will still come in via coax to the receiver and then either HDMI or component.

[samifan24]

My buddy bought the 52" Samsung model a few months ago and playing his PS3 on it is amazing. I'll definitely go with a Samsung when I buy a HDTV.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Izulde

One thing I did notice: My regular TV broadcast with the coaxial cable looked fuzzy to me at certain points and certain channels. Any ideas on what to do about that?

Play around with the TV settings - when I first got my HDTV watching 'normal' television was bleeding awful (very fuzzy almost superimposed) however after a little bit of play with the settings I found I got things back to normal.

PS - Worst comes to worst you'll probably find your TV has a 'picture box' mode where it doesn't scale and only uses a subset of the screen for SDTV.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Perhaps the Samsung LN32A450? I'm looking at that one right now on the interwebs.

Yep, that's exactly the one. I love it.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

Play around with the TV settings - when I first got my HDTV watching 'normal' television was bleeding awful (very fuzzy almost superimposed) however after a little bit of play with the settings I found I got things back to normal.

PS - Worst comes to worst you'll probably find your TV has a 'picture box' mode where it doesn't scale and only uses a subset of the screen for SDTV.

Thanks. I'll fiddle around with it and see.

[Grammaticus]

If it has gaming mode, make sure you use it on the xbox / playstation games. It helps make the darker areas easier to see.

[kingnebwsu]

Congrats on the purchase man! I bought a 32" Magnavox 1080i in November 2006. I use it exclusively in my gaming room. I plan on buying an uber-large TV for the living (along with HD cable) sometime in 2009. Can't wait for HD sports (druel).

It's hard to imagine going back to standard. I wish I had 1080p though

[Pyser]

return the hdmi cable you bought, and order one from monoprice.com instead. same quality, so much cheaper

and welcome to the hd world

[Kodos]

Yeah. Get a 2 dollar HDMI cable instead. The expensive cables aren't any better. They just extract money from the uninformed masses.

[Bad-example]

A little surprised we haven't had a "I never knew gay men could look this beautiful" parody thread yet.

[Pyser]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Yeah. Get a 2 dollar HDMI cable instead. The expensive cables aren't any better. They just extract money from the uninformed masses.

ah, the internet.

ive re-read this like 10 times, and honestly cannot tell if this is sarcasm or not.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally Posted by Pyser

ah, the internet.

ive re-read this like 10 times, and honestly cannot tell if this is sarcasm or not.

I'd bet large sums of money that he was not being sarcastic.

[stevew]

They are the same cables, about 90% cheaper.
No real point in buying an expensive HDMI wire, you're just throwing money away.

Samsung 450 series is highly recommended.

[Pyser]

thats what i was trying to say. i think the smiley threw me off

[stevew]

Unless you bought the 120 hz special edition platinum tipped HDMI wires at Best Buy. Those things are worth the 150 bucks for a 2m cable.

[stevew]

dola-
Make sure you actually run the 20-30m channel setup for cable, as you might pick up some digital QAM channels.

My parents got 60 some analog channels and 80 some digital ones(and a few HD as well) with just regular cable.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Raiders Army

I don't think there's anything you can do about the TV broadcast. It is what it is. You could get satellite which will be better, but it will still come in via coax to the receiver and then either HDMI or component.

And why would satellite be better?

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

And why would satellite be better?

Probably from a competition standpoint, at the least. Many cable providers have monopolies in their areas, whereas there's actually some semblance of competition between DirecTV and Dish.

Which should mean lower prices, better offerings as far as the channel packages go, etc.

But he could be referring to something else entirely.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Probably from a competition standpoint, at the least. Many cable providers have monopolies in their areas, whereas there's actually some semblance of competition between DirecTV and Dish.

Which should mean lower prices, better offerings as far as the channel packages go, etc.

But he could be referring to something else entirely.

I perceive his comment that the picture on Satellite looks better, since that was the problem that Izulde mentioned. From a competition standpoint, satellite companies are the competition. Cable companies don't require a contract, don't impose cancellation penalties, and aren't affected by the weather as satellite can be at times.

I could mention other points, but I only know the specifics for Time Warner Cable in LA, since there are different factors in different areas.

[lordscarlet]

I have always heard the picture is better on satellite. I can tell you for sure that antenna picture is better than cable.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by lordscarlet

I have always heard the picture is better on satellite. I can tell you for sure that antenna picture is better than cable.

Actually in most areas the cable picture is far superior to antenna especially since the only people that get good pictures with antenna are within a certain # of miles to the broadcast antenna.

I'd say both pictures are about the same be it satellite or cable. But honestly you have to look at it this way. Both formats use pretty much the same compression technology M-PEG4 (Although there may be some older cable plants that still use M-PEG2).

Just like with lossy audio formats (MP3, OGG, AC3, etc) and different compression rates, most untrained people can not tell the difference between them. The picture is only better if you can tell it is.

[DanGarion]

Oh by the way Izulde, you might want to look into leasing a Cable Card, over here they are only 1.75 a month and depending on your carrier you might get some more channels and less expensive service (I know we TWC sell digital cable for less then cable without a box...).

[Subby]

Any standard def signal is going to look shitty on an HD TV. Shell out the extra money for an HD box. It's absolutely worth it.

[Anthony]

i fail to see how someone could buy an HDTV and not pay the minimal money necessary to get an HD box. that's like buying a nice HDTV to play Atari on it.

[lordscarlet]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Actually in most areas the cable picture is far superior to antenna especially since the only people that get good pictures with antenna are within a certain # of miles to the broadcast antenna.

That is by far not my experience nor what I have ever read. The antenna signal is pure an uncompressed. In addition, with a digital signal you either get the picture or you don't. There is not the situation you have with analog where there is "fuzziness". If you do not have a sufficient signal there's just no picture. it's gigantic blocks of color. If you have a picture, it is crisp and clear. And that picture is far superior to what I have ever seen on cable. In addition, our cable provider (and I don't believe there is much competition) often has a non-signal (pixelation) when watching. But cable also compresses that signal and some quality is lost in the process; at least, that is my understanding. What I know for sure is that the picture looks worse.

[Passacaglia]

While we're on the subject of buying TVs, we're looking to buy a nice one, but are thinking we might wait until Black Friday. Do you guys think it's worth it?

[BrianD]

Originally Posted by lordscarlet

That is by far not my experience nor what I have ever read. The antenna signal is pure an uncompressed. In addition, with a digital signal you either get the picture or you don't. There is not the situation you have with analog where there is "fuzziness". If you do not have a sufficient signal there's just no picture. it's gigantic blocks of color. If you have a picture, it is crisp and clear. And that picture is far superior to what I have ever seen on cable. In addition, our cable provider (and I don't believe there is much competition) often has a non-signal (pixelation) when watching. But cable also compresses that signal and some quality is lost in the process; at least, that is my understanding. What I know for sure is that the picture looks worse.

This is my experience as well. Our cable HD through Time Warner is quite good, but watching the other TV with an antenna is even better. Naturally this difference depends on the network and what they provide to the cable company. There are noticeable differences there too.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

While we're on the subject of buying TVs, we're looking to buy a nice one, but are thinking we might wait until Black Friday. Do you guys think it's worth it?

Depends on what you want and how much you want to spend. There are already some really good deals right now. Not sure how much lower stuff can actually go. Typically most BF doorbusters tend to be shittier tvs.

I mean, right now we're running a 1299 samsung 40A550 with a 550 dollar home theatre system and a 400 blu ray player and the whole package is like 1599(or even less if you use a store card). I know you can piece together the shit and buy it online, but some people don't like to to do that

Amazon always runs amazing prices too.

[stevew]

And Dan, maybe it was just my Time Warner but it looked like shit compared to the picture i get with dish. Dish is digital and the difference was extremely noticeable on SD stuff. The "digital cable" is pretty bad, at least in my area.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by lordscarlet

That is by far not my experience nor what I have ever read. The antenna signal is pure an uncompressed. In addition, with a digital signal you either get the picture or you don't. There is not the situation you have with analog where there is "fuzziness". If you do not have a sufficient signal there's just no picture. it's gigantic blocks of color. If you have a picture, it is crisp and clear. And that picture is far superior to what I have ever seen on cable. In addition, our cable provider (and I don't believe there is much competition) often has a non-signal (pixelation) when watching. But cable also compresses that signal and some quality is lost in the process; at least, that is my understanding. What I know for sure is that the picture looks worse.

Alright, it all depends on what you are talking about. In the analog world (not Digital, not HDTV) you get fuzzy picture, or what I called my entire life snowy picture, the further you are away the worse it is. In the digital or HDTV world you get pixelation and then plain old blank/black picture.

If a cable provider has non-signal, then you need to have the cable company repair the problem, that's unacceptable no matter what company it is.

Regardless if cable compresses the signal cable companies have a much larger footprint then the broadcaster does over the air, thus my statement that the picture is better with cable compared to over the air antenna.

Compression shouldn't make the signal obviously worse, in fact analog cable that is the signal you receive without a cable box to a regular analog TV shouldn't have any compression whatsoever. There is no compression of analog signals in the cable world, unless they are converted to digital signals, which means your analog TV / turner isn't going to see them anyway.

As for HDTV Time Warner, at least here in Los Angeles provides a free from compression feed of all HD channels that they provide. That's 1080i format. Why 1080i? Because no broadcaster utilizes 1080p, not ABC, not Discovery, and not HBO. I can go into explaining the differences of 1080i and 1080p if someone whats me too. I love talking about this stuff.

And yes I work for a cable company but I'm explaining it the way I understand it as a techie, I've always been interested in technology regardless if it has anything to do with my field.

[lordscarlet]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Alright, it all depends on what you are talking about. In the analog world (not Digital, not HDTV) you get fuzzy picture, or what I called my entire life snowy picture, the further you are away the worse it is. In the digital or HDTV world you get pixelation and then plain old blank/black picture.

Regardless if cable compresses the signal cable companies have a much larger footprint then the broadcaster does over the air, thus my statement that the picture is better with cable compared to over the air antenna.

I'm sorry, but that is a total cop-out, B.S. statement. The fact that it has more coverage means it has a better picture? No. As I said, if you get the signal, it is better. If you don't get the signal, you don't get it. Your statement merely goes to show that cable has better coverage, not a better picture.

As for having the company come out and repair it, I have not had cable in my adult life, but many, many people I know have horror stories about having the cable company attempt to fix signal problems. A good friend of mine has fought for two years and they have yet to actually fix his signal problems. I realize this is not TW in LA, but it is symptomatic of all cable providers I have ever known of.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by lordscarlet

I'm sorry, but that is a total cop-out, B.S. statement. The fact that it has more coverage means it has a better picture? No. As I said, if you get the signal, it is better. If you don't get the signal, you don't get it. Your statement merely goes to show that cable has better coverage, not a better picture.

As for having the company come out and repair it, I have not had cable in my adult life, but many, many people I know have horror stories about having the cable company attempt to fix signal problems. A good friend of mine has fought for two years and they have yet to actually fix his signal problems. I realize this is not TW in LA, but it is symptomatic of all cable providers I have ever known of.

I live in Orange County, which is about 30 miles as the crow flies from the main transmit towers in LA, and all analog broadcast channels come in fuzzy, snowy, grainy with anything other then a rooftop antenna.

I'm not trying to convert anyone to thinking cable is superior, so I'll just concede to your second comment, but from my experience for every 1 person that says all they have are problems with cable, I can pretty much guarantee you there are another 20 that rarely if ever have problems. Same goes for Direct TV, Dish, Verizon FiOS, and AT&T U-verse. I honestly wish there was better competition, because it would make all the companies shape up and provide better service.

[samifan24]

Did any of you guys have reservations about buying a HDTV online as opposed to a brick and mortar retailer? I mean worries about defects/damages or necessary exchanges, that sort of thing. I buy a lot of stuff online but I'm hesitant to buy a HDTV or even a PS3 online because of the "what if something's wrong with it, wouldn't it be an even bigger hassle?" factor.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by samifan24

Did any of you guys have reservations about buying a HDTV online as opposed to a brick and mortar retailer? I mean worries about defects/damages or necessary exchanges, that sort of thing. I buy a lot of stuff online but I'm hesitant to buy a HDTV or even a PS3 online because of the "what if something's wrong with it, wouldn't it be an even bigger hassle?" factor.

That is the exact reason I got my HDTV from Circuit City. The price wasn't much different either.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by samifan24

Did any of you guys have reservations about buying a HDTV online as opposed to a brick and mortar retailer? I mean worries about defects/damages or necessary exchanges, that sort of thing. I buy a lot of stuff online but I'm hesitant to buy a HDTV or even a PS3 online because of the "what if something's wrong with it, wouldn't it be an even bigger hassle?" factor.

stuff like that - i want it right now. if something's wrong i wanna get right back in my car and bring it back. case in point, i bought a 20 inch Samsung HDTV to be my PC monitor and video game tv. i brought it home and took it out of the box and my wife said "that seems kinda small, why don't you buy a bigger one?" and i was like "ummmmm, you're right". took it back and got a 23 inch and i'm much happier. this wouldn't have been possible buying online from like amazon/newegg, to have to ship it back woulda sucked. i want what i want when i want it.

[Big Fo]

I definitely thought about that but decided I'd rather save a few hundred bucks in the end, plus there's just more TVs to choose from online.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

That is the exact reason I got my HDTV from Circuit City. The price wasn't much different either.

+1


As for the Cable company argument.

Dan - you have to be blinded by your company affiliation. Among people I know the cable haters far outweigh, well, everyone. I am one of the few Cable subscribers that I know. Almost everyone else I know has switched to DirecTV or gone the antennae route.

Many of those people that switched to DirecTv switched not because of cost, not because of channel selection, not because of Sunday Ticket, but because they had such signal issues with Cable and after fighting with the company for awhile they just gave up and switched.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by wade moore

Many of those people that switched to DirecTv switched not because of cost, not because of channel selection, not because of Sunday Ticket, but because they had such signal issues with Cable and after fighting with the company for awhile they just gave up and switched.

The 2 bolded words is basically the crux of what most people experience.

A couple of things to clear up that I've seen in this thread:

1) CATV(or Cable TV) companies only deliver MPEG-2 digital video at this time. MPEG-4 for CATV co's is likely a few years off...although you may see the single small startup co. decide to try something new(which would be smart, since they arent supporting a legacy platform in the field).

2) Digital picture which shows up on your TV has already been compressed by somebody, somewhere. DirecTV, Cable co's, Verizon, AT&T, and the rest of them all attempt to do the SAME thing with the picture they recieve...pipe it to the customer without degrading it. They really have no feasible way to "fix" poor quality picture recieved from the broadcaster...they can only really make it worse, or less worse than the others.

3) CATV companies do not actually "compress" the picture further beyond what the broadcaster originally sends, in 90% of the systems today. In some CATV systems, there is some degree of "rate-shapping" or "rate-limiting" of some services, but this is not done in every system, or even in most systems(though it will happen more frequently in the coming years), and rarely is of a noticeable amount of reduction.

What most people think of as being "overly compressed" or "pixelated" is actually poor quality RF signal, or poor C/N(Carrier-to-noise). The problem is that the CATV OSP(outside plant) architecture is a fairly difficult system to maintain at top quality, everywhere, at all times. In theory, it should work and perform equal to any other tranport medium(i.e. Satellite, OTA, etc.), but the fact is that it relies on a number of different people(techs), properly identifying and fixing problems when they see it in the field. Typically, these would be properly diagnosed by maintenance techs, installaers, etc. who are able to properly identify, troubleshoot, and measure signal issues when they appear. Unfortunatley, this is not always the case and the number bandaid fixes, one-off setups in the field, and the like creates a setting for propagated issues...especially in larger systems. There are many systems that run very well as they have well-trained and diligent techs/engineers maintaining them, but they "tend" to be much smaller in overall system size(i.e. homes passed & mileage) as it is easier to mitigate the effects of 1-5 incompetant techs, than to mitigate 20-30.

[stevew]

I will knock time Warner for their inability to fix a common HDMI handshake issue between the scientific Atlanta 8300 hd dvr box and samsung TVs. People will have to periodically reboot and unplug their box. I dunno who is at fault but telling people to use component is not an acceptable answer. Even if the picture quality is pretty similar.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by wade moore

Dan - you have to be blinded by your company affiliation. Among people I know the cable haters far outweigh, well, everyone. I am one of the few Cable subscribers that I know. Almost everyone else I know has switched to DirecTV or gone the antennae route.

Many of those people that switched to DirecTv switched not because of cost, not because of channel selection, not because of Sunday Ticket, but because they had such signal issues with Cable and after fighting with the company for awhile they just gave up and switched.

Well I actually know and see the numbers, weekly. Cable companies aren't in the business of losing customers, trust me.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by stevew

I will knock time Warner for their inability to fix a common HDMI handshake issue between the scientific Atlanta 8300 hd dvr box and samsung TVs. People will have to periodically reboot and unplug their box. I dunno who is at fault but telling people to use component is not an acceptable answer. Even if the picture quality is pretty similar.

Of course both SA and Samsung should also be to blame as well...

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by SteveMax58

The 2 bolded words is basically the crux of what most people experience.

A couple of things to clear up that I've seen in this thread:

1) CATV(or Cable TV) companies only deliver MPEG-2 digital video at this time. MPEG-4 for CATV co's is likely a few years off...although you may see the single small startup co. decide to try something new(which would be smart, since they arent supporting a legacy platform in the field).

I wasn't 100% sure on the MPEG-2/MPEG-4 one, but I was pretty sure we were using MPEG-4 here, I could have swore I saw some projects saying we were implementing it.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

Of course both SA and Samsung should also be to blame as well...

Shame on people for buying the official TV of the NFL and then not being able to get the NFL Network with their cable box that requires a periodic hard reset when they use the most highest quality connection!

[stevew]

dola

Since we're talking about cable I have a pretty big issue. Right now, the local TW cable subscribers are given access to both the Pittsburgh and Youngstown local channels via cable service. However any satellite subscriber can only receive the youngstown stations.

Why this matters, is because the local youngstown CBS affiliate is a Browns station. Now obviously none of you care that I can't get the Steelers with Dish Network. But this is like some sort of equal protection under the law monopoly type bullshit. At least in my bored and uneducated mind, anyways.

Basically my options would be the following:

1. Install an unsightly antenna on my house, with probably a 30% chance of getting Pittsburgh locals. That's being extremely generous, as Antennaweb basically states there's no chance I can draw them in. Other people in the area seemingly can, however

2. Subscribing to some basic TW package merely for this Pittsburgh CBS station, and encouraging their monopoly on providing access to Steelers games. And I might add it's amazingly awful SD quality.

3. Going to a bar and watching the game.

4. Switching to Direct TV, and getting the NFL Ticket. Unlike RendeR, I don't have a 3 income family and this would be kind of expensive.

5. Start a one man picket protesting Time Warner's access to these channels.

6. "Moving" my Dish service address to my brothers Pittsburgh addy(Strong Consideration here).

7. Rooting for the Browns.

8. Petition my local congressman so he can laugh at me.

And the whole salt in the wound issue is that the Powers that Be determine that I should get Fox Sports Pittsburgh, instead of Fox Sports Ohio. So I miss out on free cavs games too.