[mythtv-users] TV Recommendations

[Brian Wood]

On Feb 7, 2007, at 9:59 AM, Stephen Sassman wrote:

>>> Just out of curiosity... Anyone have an opinion on DLP?
>>
>> It's a T.I. technology that is useful for some things, like making
>> projectors, and not for others, like washing clothes.
>>
>> What precisely are you wanting to know, whether it is better or worse
>> than something else? For what application?
>
> How does DLP compare to plasma and lcd. I know there are lots of
> reviews, but its hard to tell who wrote the review and whether or not
> they are unfairly biased. I've been quite impressed by the DLP
> televisions that I saw at the store when compared to LCD and plasma
> (except for size). Just wondering why this technology hasn't taken off
> yet.

Be a bit careful of what you see in the stores. Some have been known  
to use video proc amps to drive the video levels higher on the sets  
they are "pushing" (ie: have higher profit margins). They can get  
away with this as long as they carefully control the video selections  
to ensure no high-level scenes.

Best if you can look at an off-air signal tuned by the set you want  
to evaluate, there are some potential problems with this but at least  
you have removed some of the things the store can "tweak".

Of course this only works if the set has a tuner, if it's a monitor  
the safest thing to do is physically move the video cable from one  
set to another so you know they are getting the same signal.

But this still doesn't prevent the unit's internal controls being  
played with.

Plus you are trying to evaluate a picture under flourescent lighting,  
probably not what you have in your home. I suppose it's better than a  
"simulated picture" on a web site though.

If the picture looks substantially better on a "bargain" set that  
*should* be inferior be suspicious.

It's not hopeless, just difficult.