Can you help me decide on an HDTV?

Question

I'm looking to buy an HDTV. How much difference is there between 1080i and 720i, 1500:1 and 5000:1 contrast ratios? What is the contrast ration on the SDTV I already have? I'm not picky, but I don't want to get hosed and pay for stuff I don't really need. I don't want to pay for the latest advances if I can't really see the difference on the screen. My budget calls for no more than about $1200 and I'm going for a 37 or 42 inch. I've seen them at Best Buy and Circuit City, but honestly, I don't know what the heck I'm looking for. They all seem to look pretty good to me as long the viewing angle is 170 degrees or better.

Answer 1

Contrast ration- A better contrast ratio will mace certain things look a tiny bit better than a similar screen with a worse ratio. Movies like Batman Begins, Sleepy Hollow and similar have particular lighting styles that present better with a better contrast. Generally speaking a set with particularly good contrast (like Panasonic or any of the many brands of TVs like JVC and Toshiba that actually ARE panasonics but in a diferent frame) are not as exceptional as far as brightness and color trueness, where Samsung and LG/Zenith (and the many brands out there , for example SONY, that are actually Samsungs or LGs in a diferent frame) have better colors that present animation, sporting events, and some action movies better, with contrast levels that are not exceptinal.
To make it worse, ther actually is no scientific standard for measuring the contrast ratio. What that ratio is, is the ammount of light that comes off the screen from a light color pixel (say 1500 ANSI-lumens) in relation to a daek color pixel (say 1 ANSI-lumen). That would be a 1500:1 ratio. However, if you did that measurement immediately after the TV was turned on, you will get one reading. If you wait an hour you will get another reading. If you do the reading with a plain black and white split screen, and measure the black and whote spots that are the farthest possible from each other, you will get an diferent reading than if you measure a black and a white pixel that are relatively close to each other. You will also get a diferent reading if you are displaying a technicolor screen like a test pattern.
So when it says it has a 10,000-1 contrast, that says about as much as me saying I have 23 bills in my wallet of some various denominations. I could have 23 dollars, 2300 dollars or somewhere in teh middle.

As far as resolution goes, that is largely a crock of bull too, but at least it is a QUANTIFIABE crock. Panasonic is a fairly popular brand, so I will use them as an example.
Let's say you got a 720p 42" Panasonic plasma for your living room. ANd lets say you got the same tv in teh 480 model for your bedroom. For the sake of arguement, lets say that your bedroom is upstairs and down the hall, so it takes you about 4 minutes at a leisurely pace to get from the living room to the bedroom.
Let us also assume that you have digital cable service, high definition swevice with HD box, and a progressive scan DVD player in both rooms.
If you are watching standard cable stations in your living room, and then go to watch the same station in your bedroom. Both pictures will look the SAME (assuming you are looking at both TVs from teh recommended 8-12 foot distance). Now you put in a DVD in the living room and watch it for a few minutes. You now take that same DVD up to your bedroom and watch the same sceens. The picture quality will again look the SAME.
Now you swithch your downstairs TV to a HD station, watching a movie, baseball game, the Tonight Show...whatever. Now you go up to your bedroom and put on the same show. How do the pictures stack up? Well, I did a very informal and admittedly pretty unscientific test over a few months working at a few places selling TVs. About 3 out of 20 people could correctly identify what HD and ED pictures look like in cases where the two TVs were not right next to each other. Oddly enough, when asked, roughly the same number of people thought that the ED set was the HD one as were able to properlyidentify the HD set.
I will confuse you some more. Let's say you had a 40-ish 720 or 1080 screen in your living room of any popular brand. Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, LG, Hitachi, even Pioneer .... whatever. Then you had a 42 inch Fujitsu 480 screen up in your bedroom. Let's say that you were watching a regular digital cable station. If you were watching in in the living room, and then you turned it on in the bedroom, you would think that it looked as good or better than a DVD quality in the bedroom. Definately a better picture then what you see on the "better" TV in the living room. The first thing I tell my customers is to ignore every single one of the specs that you have ever read about any and all TVs.
If you are looking for a good deal onmost brands of plasmas and or LCVDs. Let me know, I will find you a price.

Answer 2

I am in the same boat as you. I saw a very good price on a Phillips but it only had contast ratio of 800:1. People told me not good enough.
Here is one that everyone is saying good things about: Olevia either 37" or 42". The Olevia will fit your budget. Go to http://www.newegg.com and read the reviews on the Olevia 537 LCD HDTV (37"). I will probably get that one. I also hear that Panasonic and LG are good ones. I think the recommendation about the blacker black is a good one too, but you have to actually look at the color. Avoid the "washed out" look. The stores tend to turn the colors up very bright and the inputs signals are split to so many sets it isn't really accurate. When I looked I compared everything against the Sony which I thought the best but out of my price range. Good luck. Bottom line is YOU gotta like the picture (versus the "ratings"). Also, once you get it home there won't be a "better" one to compare against and you will probably be happy. Check out the Olevia 537

Answer 3

At 37" or 42" there is no much difference between 1080i/720p and 1080p, so stick to 720p.
A 1,500:1 true contrast may actually be better than 5,000:1 of dynamic contrast; so make sure you compare apples to apples.
Congrats for actually going to a store. Look for good "blacks" and colors you like. If you can have access to a remote in the store, put the screen in 4:3 mode and look at the side bars; The darker, the better blacks you may get.

Answer 4

Go with a lcd in this size. For 1200 dollars you can get lot of hdtvs from decent brands if you dont look for 1080p (latest number is the ever confusing technical jargon). Most hdtvs are now carrying upto 1080i which is pretty good in itself.
You should be able to get 1080i resolution for this price in samsung or toshiba or panasonic for around 1200 dollars.

Answer 5

CNET has the best independent reviews.

For $1200 a Panasonic 42 inch plasma is a near-consensus pick. Start here and keep looking.

Answer 6

LG 32' 1080pi LCD HDTV!