Poor standard TV

[oneoldude]

I need to replace an old Pioneer 4:3 RPTV that died.

I have checked out modern 16:9 HDTV RPTV's that my friends own and they uniformly have terrible pictures when viewing standard 4:3 non-HDTV programs. The pictures are fuzzy, ill-defined, and almost not watchable. I don't know why but the pictures are much worse than on standard direct view or RPTV sets.

Since most programming is still 4:3 non-HDTV I must ask what can be done to get modern HDTV sets to show standard programming as well as my old RPTV?

I am thinking of getting the Mits Diamond 65" with 9" tubes. Can that set produce really good pictures from standard programming? Or will it only get good to excellent results with HDTV sources?

BTW I do not expect to get standard programming to look like HDTV but would like it to look as good as when on a standard TV.

Also, is there anything I should know about the Mits Diamond 65" with 9" tubes. Good or bad. Any info is helpful.

[aud19]

I've moved this to RPTV's

First, yes the Mits Diamond 65" with 9" tubes is likely one of the best RPTV's out there of any technology in regards to PQ so I HIGHLY (and jealously) recommend it :T

As for SD signals, as you eluded to it is SD and being that's it's such a low quality signal, it's not going to look as good as HD. Especially when you blow it up to 60" diagonal Having said that, there are things most people don't do that will help it look as good as it can. (This can varry a lot with the quality of signal from your SP however.)

First the easiest, though most expensive, thing to do is to have the set calibrated by an ISF tech with the aid of some pretty cool and expensive gear (colour analyzers etc). They can optimize each input for their respective signal and your TV will look as good as it ever will on any input. I HIGHLY recommend this

The much less expensive, though more involved (for you) and less accurate, step is to calibrate the set yourself with the help of either Digital Video Essentials or AVIA setup DVD's. (They can also help you optimize your audio system) They'll allow you to set your contrast, brightness, colour and tint as accurately as possible by eye. Now here's where cleaning up any signal, especially noisy SD, comes in. Turn the sharpness to off or it's lowest setting and turn of any Velocity Scan Modulation. These two things will do more than just about anything else to clean up all your inputs, ESPECIALLY noisy SD.

[Drewbert]

Remember standard programing is 480i... so when you get a tv that can double or triple that source it will look like crap as its filling in the "blanks"
FWIW HD is growing, its just a matter of time.

So have you looked into the DLPs? And even the newer sony SXRDs?

[oneoldude]

Sorry for so many points in one post. But I would like to get input on each point.

So the Mits is one of the best out there huh? What other crt units compare to the Mits 9"? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the competitive brands?

I was hoping that there was some HDTV method of de-noising the standard signal and doing some kind of scaling that would bring standard signals close to DVD quality. After all scaling a DVD signal produces a pretty good picture. But no hope for broadcast huh?

It is a shame but the bottom line seems to be that if you get a high quality HDTV you will get really bad PQ on any broadcast other than HDTV signals which means that 90% of your viewing will be crap.

I really do not consider it an option to use my direct view standard Sony 33" for 90% and a big screen Mits or equivalent for 10% of my viewing. There must be a way out.

Talk to me guys. Help me out. I need the help.

BTW, I am a tweaker and was able to tweak my old 4:3 Panny to really great PQ for what it was. It really bugs me to go to a higher technology and get worse results for most programming.

[aud19]

I think you missed some of the points I made Sure it's only SD and can only look so good but as I said, removing VSM and Sharpness on top of properly calibrating the colour/brightness/contrast etc will have a HUGE effect on SD material. My Hitachi 50" RPTV looked like complete crap out of the box on SD but with those adjustments is downright watchable The clearer of the SD channels DO infact come about 85%-90% of the way to 480p as you eluded to. (Unfortunately there's only a few of those stations :evil: ) All but the absolute worst channels are in general, pleasing and quite watchable if not DVD or HD quality :T Also most sets now come with some sort of noise reduction feature for EXTREME cases of bad signals. I'd try to avoid it if possible though as it can cause minor lip-sync issues especially if you go through external audio play back (receiver or pre/pro-amp) for TV viewing.

As for competition with the 9" Mits... IMO there isn't any :P If you were talking about CRT RPTV's with 7" guns I'd recommend Mits and Hitachi equally. Then Sony (good quality but you pay for the name IMO) and Toshiba and Panasonic next, they're slightlly lower quality/reliabilty but quite the bargains and still better quality than the "cheap" brands (I won't bother mentioning them). Faroudja and Sim2 used to make CRT RPTV's that would rival and possibly even beat the Mits in a few areas but they were prohibitively expensive and I don't believe they're available anymore. That Mits REALLY is about as good as it gets for PQ

[oneoldude]

Thanks for the explanation. Things might be better than I thought.

[aud19]

:yesnod:

[Snap]

As for competition with the 9" Mits... IMO there isn't any :P If you were talking about CRT RPTV's with 7" guns I'd recommend Mits and Hitachi equally. Then Sony (good quality but you pay for the name IMO) and Toshiba and Panasonic next, they're slightlly lower quality/reliabilty but quite the bargains and still better quality than the "cheap" brands (I won't bother mentioning them). Faroudja and Sim2 used to make CRT RPTV's that would rival and possibly even beat the Mits in a few areas but they were prohibitively expensive and I don't believe they're available anymore. That Mits REALLY is about as good as it gets for PQ

For CRT's I will agree....

How much money do you have to play with? Aside from the CRT, what about other types of displays? DLP, LCD, RP LCD.

The HP 65 inch DLP was just compaired by Sound and Vision to the Sony 13,999 Quailia! 8O

The Sony 60 SXRD is an awesome display that blows the doors off almost every display that I have seen.

[aud19]

Just cus it's newer tech and fixed pixel doesn't make it better Snap! :