One of the things I've noticed looking at a lot of name brand HDTVs in stores from CostCo to Best Buy is that the overal resolution I see is no where similar to what I get at home, often even with SD material. In the latter case, it looks like scaling artifact and MPEG issues, but not the kinds I'm used to seeing from an HTPC or some DVD players.
Well, Gary Merson shed a lot of light on that in the March issue of "Home Theater" magazine, with an article titled "Are you getting all the HDTV resolution you expected? I can't find it yet at their online site, though I hope it will show up their evenutally.
In a nutshell, the problem is that a LOT of displays have front end processing chips that don't handle 1080i correctly- many of them treat it as 540P, and do a simple line doubling of a 540P frame, then downscale as necessary to to hit the panel resolution of 720 or 768. This is called Bobbing de-interlacing, and it wreaks havoc with the vertical resolution of the image as you can imagine.
Now, you might expect some el cheapo off brand chinese display at Wally World to suffer from this, but the problem is much more endemic than that. Out of 54 name brand displays Gary Merson recently tested, 26 failed. These included Mitsubishi DLP and LCD RPTVs, Panasonic LCD RPTVs, Philips LCD FPTVs, Philips Plasma panels, RCA DLP RPTVs, Samsung DLP RPTVs, Sharp LCD FPs, and some Sony LCD RPTV models. The newest generations of scaler chips for some of these TV's correct this problem, but good luck getting info from the manufacturer with what they use.
Caveat emptor...
Well, Gary Merson shed a lot of light on that in the March issue of "Home Theater" magazine, with an article titled "Are you getting all the HDTV resolution you expected? I can't find it yet at their online site, though I hope it will show up their evenutally.
In a nutshell, the problem is that a LOT of displays have front end processing chips that don't handle 1080i correctly- many of them treat it as 540P, and do a simple line doubling of a 540P frame, then downscale as necessary to to hit the panel resolution of 720 or 768. This is called Bobbing de-interlacing, and it wreaks havoc with the vertical resolution of the image as you can imagine.
Now, you might expect some el cheapo off brand chinese display at Wally World to suffer from this, but the problem is much more endemic than that. Out of 54 name brand displays Gary Merson recently tested, 26 failed. These included Mitsubishi DLP and LCD RPTVs, Panasonic LCD RPTVs, Philips LCD FPTVs, Philips Plasma panels, RCA DLP RPTVs, Samsung DLP RPTVs, Sharp LCD FPs, and some Sony LCD RPTV models. The newest generations of scaler chips for some of these TV's correct this problem, but good luck getting info from the manufacturer with what they use.
Caveat emptor...
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