Hd Tv's

[nc211]

Well my friends....NC's in the 21st century of HDTV now...and all I've got to say is HOLY SNOT ROCKETS OF FREAKIN' LOVE!! I bought the 42in Plasma Panasonic, and of course all the HDMI cables, optical sound cables and a HDMI DVD player..all-in=$1,935 bucks. And I've gotta' tell ya'....coming from a 8 year old 27in Panasonic regular TV to this thing is like a religious experience! 1st thing I put on, Talladega Nights of course, and sat on the sofa with a stunned look on my face, for two hours. My beer went warm, because I forgot I had one in my hand. I had it scan the channels, and came to find that I have NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox all in HD 1080i already. So I sat up until 2:30 watching Leno, Conan and Carson, in 1080i clarity. I've got some pictures of it in my living room that I'll post up a little later. This TV is amazing, no doubt about it. But, not just this TV, but this whole HDTV thing in general, is absolutely, bar none, over the top, increadible. I can't wait for some football this weekend. Even the SD signals are coming in at 480i, and they look kick-!Removed! as well. We've got a very strong signal in our neighborhood, of which you would figure since most of my neighborhood works for IBM, SAS and the IT field in general. Scan the area for wireless connections, and it comes up with 21. I checked out the Phillips and the Hitachi again last night, but the Philips wasn't working right, the Hitachi looked fantastic, but wasn't thrilled about having to upgrade it straight out of the box. Didn't see any negative reviews of Panasonic, so I reverted back to my wisdom when I bought my pioneer subwoofer 10 years ago, which is "a million rednecks can't be wrong". Boy, they weren't wrong about this Panasonic, that's for sure.

Got a couple questions about how this HD universe works in general, but will have to ask later. But the main one is that I was watching Talladega Nights on the new DVD last night, with the HDMI cable, and it was only coming in at 480i? Is that normal for standard DVD playback?

Want to thank you guys for all the guidance over the life of this thread. Took me a couple months on the learning curve, but feel like I understand this stuff pretty well now. So thanks fella's, I owe ya'll one!

[SW03ES]

Congrats! They really are worth the money.

As for the DVD, yes standard DVD playback is 480p. What you need is an upconverting DVD player at least, or obviously better yet an HD/DVD or BluRay. Upconverting DVD players are cheap though. HD/DVD and BluRay players are 1080i (your plasma is actually incapable of displaying 1080i, only 720p), and they'll upconvert standard DVDs to almost HD quality.

[nc211]

I think the DVD player upgrade will have to be next year, becuase I gotta tell ya', 480i looks perfect to me already, I can't imagine how they could improve on that even more. It's just nice to be able to sit back and actually watch a movie now, instead of having to lay on the floor right infront of the tv to see it, thank to the letterboxing on all the DVD's now. Steve, I've got Time Warner coming out next weekend to hook up the digital cable, and a cable box. But, since I'm already receiving 480i and it says on the tv 1080i signal on the HD channels from my normal feed, do you think it's worth the extra money for the digital package from the cable company? I was expecting the picture to look like crap until they installed the digital stuff, but it looks great as is. Will thier equipment make it even that much better? Or am I just buying 200 more channels of stuff I probably won't ever watch in the first place?

[SW03ES]

If you're just on your normal cable then you shouldn't be getting HD anything at all. I'm trying to remember if the Panasonic has a built in HD tuner...

If you are getting HD feed, the box is just going to add channels. They are however good channels, and at least on mine theres lots of HD content.

As for the DVD player, I'd upgrade it now. I was shocked by how much the upconversion helps, and upconverting DVD players are only $100 or so. I'd just take the one you bought back and buy an upconverting one. Although, if yours has an HDMI cable it may be upconverting already.

When the cable man comes remember to go buy another HDMI cable to hook the cable box up with.

[nc211]

Oh this HD stuff is cool.... My love life has tanked, thanks to the Military Channel though. :whistles:

The tv does have a HD tuner, and I was pulling in the main networks in HD, on channels like 5-1 and 17-1 type settings. Now, it's just straight numbers, all the way up to like 1400! I don't get all 1400, as many are pay per views and such, but I do get like 350 or so. My only complaint, of which I'm sure is a setting somewhere, is having to adjust the aspect ratio all the time inorder to fill the screen. Some HD channels in the 1080i frequency come through in the 4:3 ratio, even with the tv set to "full" mode. I have to tell it to show in "just" mode to fill the screen. I wish I knew how to set it in "just" mode by default on all 4:3 signals. It adjusts to full mode automatically, just can't figure out how to make it do it for just mode as well.

Wife is hooked on HGTV now, and my weekends are booked solid for what appears to be eternity! Damn HGTV network!

I"m gonna have to figure out how to hack into the 10 channels of Spice, and not get caught by the wife..:whistles:

The DVD doesn't say it upconverts, but it was only $100 bucks, so I figure it doesn't. I'm going to wait and see who wins the blueray / hddvd race before buying another one, and wait for the prices to drop a bit. Might be next year's Christmas gift. the 480i signal from the dvd player is perfect to me, for now anyway...

[SW03ES]

The reason for that is on HD channels when the program is in 4:3 they broadcast it imbedded in a 16:9 image with the black bars on either side, the TV doesn't know its not 16:9 content. SD channels are just broadcast in 4:3 so the TV knows to swap to fill the screen. There's no way around it, you've got to set the setting yourself.