What is Digg?189 Comments
- Junkyarddawg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+150I'm amazed how badly the industry has botched the technology shift wrt TV's.
They fuxxored the shift to widescreen, they fuxxored the shift to HD, and they're fuxxoring the shift to digital broadcast. The result is a jungle of "standards" and white lies which is completely unpenetrable to the average consumer.
How many consumers are watching horizontally stretched 4:3 analog transmissions on their HD LCD widescreen TV? Or wondering why movies are still displayed in letterbox when shown at 16:9?
It's a freaking joke that you need to be a tech buff to determine which TV can display your signals with decent quality, much less actually get that TV to do so.
This is *household tech*, it SHOULD be as easy to use and as standardized as a fridge! - fuzzmello, on 10/12/2007, -2/+90"I'm one of those people that don't watch that much television..."
then maybe you shouldn't be reviewing t.v. panels? - Roppongi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+67The article is right in one respect: Monster cables are a rip-off.
- mywhitenoise, on 10/12/2007, -0/+56People need to stop buying Monster, i'm glad he mentioned that.
I see douchebags that have license plate frames that read "I'm hooked up. Monster Cable." No, you're a stupid ass who supports ***** cables at a ***** price. - Jibberish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+40I recently tried explaining to a friend of mine about how digital signals (like with HDMI) are a lossless transmission technology. Even though I have a degree in Electrical Engineering, and assured my friend that this was a very straight forward answer that I was 100% certain about, my friend still bought a $100+ HDMI Monster Cable for his new TV. His obvious logic behind making the decision was of course, "Well, they wouldn't sell it for so much if it wasn't better." Ignorance is bliss I guess...
- Greyhaven7, on 10/12/2007, -1/+41WTF is a "land mind"?
- HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+38RogerStrong:
You explained that VERY poorly.
HDCP is already in full effect. PS3, for example, will not output HDMI without HDCP. HDMI TVs are required to support HDCP, it's only DVI ports that sometimes don't have it.
The thing you refer to as turning on in a few years is the Image Constraint Token (ICT), which will cause HD-DVDs and BluRay movies to be downsampled to 960x540 (instead of 1920x1080) if discs are ever made with it turned on. I doubt any ever will be made, honestly, as piracy over the analog outputs will be pointless by then anyway.
Despite this, I very much recommend getting a TV with an HDMI port with functioning HDCP (some TVs like early Westinghouses do HDCP wrong and so fail to display sometimes), because even without the ICT, you already cannot view upscaled DVDs (past 480p) or upscaled HD-DVDs/BluRay movies (1080i->1080p) over compoent video or HDMI without HDCP.
My Sony I bought in 2001 had HDCP over DVI. If you bought a TV since then without it to save a few bucks, you probably inadvertently demonstrated classic false economy. - kevin_ou, on 10/12/2007, -1/+31www.monoprice.com is the best place for cables
- kendawg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31"Or wondering why movies are still displayed in letterbox when shown at 16:9?"
"That's because movies have an aspect ratio of either 2.35:1 or 2.40:1, while your HDTV has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1."
What was the original point of switching over to 16:9? That was because movies were very close to 16:9. A lot of older movies on DVD had an aspect ratio of 1.80 or 1.84? I forgot the number, but they look great on our plasma because they fill almost the entire screen.
I hate that the studios are moving to higher and higher aspect ratios. Soon, we will see aspect ratios of around 3.00:1. I can't see why movies are getting wider and wider, can anyone explain? 16:9 is perfect for me - I can see the whole screen and I don't have to turn my head left and right too much to see the whole scene. Once we get to 3.00:1 or higher, everyone will get sore necks watching movies.
In summary, studios should shoot and print movies in 16:9 so they actually fit the screens like they should! - cliffzdude, on 10/12/2007, -5/+32You can't buy a hi def set today that isn't HDCP ready. My 3 year old panasonic is HDCP ready, no BFD..
- TheHarbinger667, on 10/12/2007, -2/+29"Never buy a projection HDTV. They'll disappear soon, they're big and the image is never as good."
Alright, I'll give you that they're bigger than an LCD or Plasma, but image never as good? Sony's SXRD series is one of the best TVs to date, including LCDs and Plasmas. For the money, it's easily the best picture quality you can get. - HAKdragon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Why not? You can use HDTVs for more than just watching TV. You can use them as giant computer monitors (like he mentions in his article) or you could use them for video games and movies.
- blumer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20What the hell is a "land mind"? Is it anything like a "land mine," which doesn't need navigation, but might be found in a mine field, which does?
- zioxide, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20"Or wondering why movies are still displayed in letterbox when shown at 16:9?"
That's because movies have an aspect ratio of either 2.35:1 or 2.40:1, while your HDTV has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. - elcidcannon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17touche!
- deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15SED is dead in the water. OLED is interesting but has some pretty serious problems that need to be worked out. Modern LCD's have excellent response times (4-6ms) so I think they're the best solution for most people. (just stay away from the crappy brands with poor response times)
- pyite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16There are so many problems with the switch to HDTV that it is hard to know where to begin.
Personally, I am disappointed that they didn't get rid of interlacing altogether. - QuidnuncQuixot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14@kendawg - "I hate that the studios are moving to higher and higher aspect ratios. Soon, we will see aspect ratios of around 3.00:1."
Actually, aspect ratios have gotten less wide in the past 30ish years (for the most part). The reason you have black bars on a widescreen TV is that there is no single film industry standard for a wide screen format. European films generally (again, this isn't a universal rule) shoot at 1.66:1. American films often shoot at 1.85:1, but not always. If a film uses an anamorphic lens (which will squeeze the image onto a 35mm strip), it's shooting in a 2.40:1 ratio (since 1970 at least). The lenses, though, are insanely expensive and there aren't very many of them around. That's why you'll usually only see a true anamorphic ratio on a pricier "prestige" film.
A few epic films made use of a 70mm format (really 65mm when you account for the optical sound), which came in at 2.21:1 for some early films and 2.76:1 for the really high profile films (Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, etc.). If you've ever seen a 70mm film projected, you'll see why they use that ratio. It's such a clear, beautiful print, it really sucks you into the film. That's pretty much the widest aspect ratio that you or even your grandparents have likely seen (even then, the last film to use 70mm was Ken Brannaugh's Hamlet and that was shot at 2.20. 2.76 hasn't really been used since the 1970s). The only big film to use something wider was Abel Gance's Napoleon from the 1920s. It used three projectors side-by-side to create a 4:1 image.
So how do you reconcile all of these formats while recognizing that HD video cameras for television need an efficient aspect ratio to produce high quality images while reducing sensor costs? You settle at 16:9. - kevinmoore, on 06/13/2009, -15/+29Buried as inaccurate for "The only place monster cables have any use is for the transmission of analog signals such as the connection between your amplifier and your speakers."
There's no use for Monster Cable for speaker wires either. Lamp cord will work fine, unless you believe the hogwash that high and low frequency sounds move at different speeds through the wire. If you do, have I got a bridge for you! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18You do realize that it is not SOUND that travels through a wire, but an electric signal...
And yes, there are very good reasons to use quality wire for anything that is analog.
The losses of your "lamp cord" are very easily measurable using a simple multimeter. - berfmurret, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13not just that. have you heard about the ***** lawsuits they have filed against other companies with the word 'monster' in their name? as if they ***** invented the word?....
from wiki -- "Some of the items they are sueing about are: Monster Garage, Monster House, Monster Energy Drink, MonsterHTPC, Snow Monsters (a kid's skiing group), MonsterVintage (small used clothing store), Monsters Inc., Monsters of the Midway (Chicago Bears), Fenway Park's Monster seats, and the Monster.com employment website."
O_____o wtf.
boycott monster cable. - breakneckridge, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15"You can easily find 32" LCD models with 1366×768 in the $500 to $800 range."
But at what quality picture? - TheKorn2, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15This guy really is a moron; he can't differentiate between rear projection ("projector in a box") and front projection (think movie theater) rigs.
I completely agree with him that rear projection blows chunks. But front projection is the cat's ass, and has a far FAR wider viewing angle than LCD could ever DREAM about!
Besides, unless your wall is made out of steel, good luck hanging a 120" LCD panel on it! - Kniggit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13The quality is getting better in the low end, but it still has a way to go. I was involved in the recent past with integrated DTV chips, and everything but the high-end of the DTV range (i.e. TVs > $3000) has some quality problems. Most of this is due to 1080i deinterlacing (since all flat panels these days are progressive displays and you notice the jagged edges and comb artifacts) as well as poor scalers that blur upscaled images (especially since 90% of content is still SD resolution) and generally bad color management.
Noise reduction is a whole other matter since Gaussian (random), MPEG block and MPEG mosquito noise are still pretty big problems in the HDTV world. All of the low-end chips that are coming out this year for TV manufacturer evaluation don't have integrated MPEG noise reduction and usually very poor Gaussian noise reduction. Only this year are the high-end DTV chips launching with these noise reduction capabilities.
Then there's what's coming in the next 2-3 years. Motion compensated deinterlacing, wavelet-based scaling that really approximates HD from SD (but with enormous computational consequences) and motion compensated frame rate conversion to eliminate motion blur and judder. Those won't be in most high-end DTVs for another 4-5 years since it takes at least a year after the chips come out for the manufacturers to get them and design them in for the classic spring and fall retailer refresh cycles.
There's the even bigger problem of ATSC reception. Many DTVs have very poor equalizers that can't deal with distance and multi-path reflection issues. There was one well-known brand that sold in grocery stores that managed to have zero reception when it was tested. People expect better and yet will still use their old UHF loop antenna in their garage because they don't want to spend the proper money on them. They're getting a lot better, but there's a lot of crap out there.
And that comment about "any old HDMI cable" in the article is *****! I've tested many HDMI cables in the lab, and many of them are NOT CERTIFIABLE because they're constructed poorly and destroy the signal. They're usually made of 28 gauge twisted pair fly wire, but the length of the wires in each pair can vary greatly. One cable we tested had a pair of wires that was one long straight wire and another twisted around the long straight wire. What does that do to the signal? It attenuates (reduces) that signal, to the point where you may have snow or even loss of an entire color or picture on even some short 3 ft cables. Most HDMI receivers have equalizers that compensate for this, but some TVs don't have very good ones. Even Silicon Image's equalizers are poor compared to some of the competitors and can't compensate for these bad cables at the de-facto 15ft maximum length. Never mind the fact that some people will use DVI cables with DVI-to-HDMI dongles. Complete disaster. I'll tell you that people will return their $5000 TV before they return their $5 cable. HOWEVER...do NOT buy Monster. It is truly not worth the money. Monster uses the same Chinese manufacturer of "premium" HDMI cable (a 24 gauge bonded-in-parallel pair with silver coating) as Belkin. Belkin's are certainly a lot cheaper, but even those are overpriced. Even in the lowest quantity, the premium HDMI cable should cost no more than $1.50 per foot because that's what the cable manufacturers themselves get them for. Remember that when you go out and buy cables - neither the cheapest nor the most expensive. Tough to say who makes what, but cheapest is not the best.
To wrap it all up, WXGA resolution (1366x768) is indistinguishable from full HD (1920x1080) at normal viewing distances on all screen sizes up to 37" unless you are viewing a computer desktop at 1920x1080 (and that's not many people). The full HD panels are only about $50 more than the WXGA, but that market is VERY pressed for cost. The whole electronics bill of materials for a "low-end" DTV is under US$50. The raw panels are falling 30% per year, so in two years the component that's 90% of the cost of the DTV will likely be half the price. By that time, the electronics will still only have caught up to the low end I described above, and that'll still be disappointing to a lot of customers. And even THEN, people will still be using composite cables to hook up their HD cable boxes...
My advice: unless you truly have access to HD content through a cable box, need HD output from your next-gen game console, or have an HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player, AND you have the money for a high-end DTV, buy a regular analog TV with a cable box and an external ATSC tuner with a real UHF antenna and wait at least 2-3 more years. Otherwise, you'll likely be disappointed. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14@mrfreeze
Reminds me of the Bash.org classic....
{tatclass} YOU ALL SUCK DICK
{tatclass} er.
{tatclass} hi.
{andy} A common typo.
{tatclass} the keys are like right next to each other. - Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Everything's better when it's gold-plated. It's GOLD!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11"WTF is a "land mind"?"
Seriously! What are the E and D keys right next to eachother or wh... oh. Nevermind.
You wanna see a bad typo? Saw this on bash years ago:
"[randomguy] I didn't know you slept with women, I thought you only slept with me.
[randomguy] MEN. God that was a bad typo. - briantech, on 10/15/2007, -1/+11I find it hilarious that he says 720p is obselete --- despite the fact that ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, FOX, and several others are broadcasting in it. The only other thing the other networks are broadcasting in is 1080i, and we all know 720p > 1080i when it comes to high resolution, fast moving images (ie, sports).
There is not a single broadcast network in the country putting out a full 1080p signal. Yet he says 720p is OBSOLETE? What a joke. - theblooms, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10In Speaker wire, it's all about gauge. A 14 ga copper lamp cord (be aware, some ultra cheap crap is actually aluminum wire, NOT GOOD!) will preform nearly identically to 14 ga Monster Cable. The big difference is when people use the speaker wire that comes in the box of el cheapo speakers, (18 ga or even smaller), vs the 14 or 12 ga Monster Cable. There is a HUGE difference there.
As far as patch cords, on long runs, (which is NOT typical in a HT setup), a higher quality cables *can* be worth the price. I use inexpensive (not cheap!) Dayton cables from partsexpress.com and am VERY happy with the performance. Most of the time, home theater patch cords are 1 meter or even less, negating any benefits of the extremely expensive cables.
In a car, where the electrical environment is extremely noisy, and the cable longs can be very, very long, sometimes 6 meters or more, good patch cords can ABSOLUTELY make a difference. It seems like it was a million years ago (actually about 15 years), but I was fighting, fighting, fighting getting rid of noise in my car. I finally broke down and bought some StreetWires Musica 500 cables. $70 each for 6 meter patch cables. I was shelling out $140 for 2 pair of RCA patch cords and kicking myself for being a dumbass. But guess what? The noise disappeared completely. And the cable I had replaced were the Scosche EFX 'clear' ones with gold ends. Not the most expensive ones out there ($15 for 6 m), but not barrel scrapings either. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11@Kniggit:
Let's not go overboard.
1. The article is right about HDMI cables. A cheap cable isn't going to "kind of" work for you, it's either going to deliver the signal with few enough errors that your TV doesn't care or it isn't. Cables that are so defective you lose signal are pretty rare, even at the cheap end of the price spectrum. People should just buy the cheapest piece of worthless crap cable they can find, and if it's defective return it and get another one. It doesn't make any sense to shell out extra money to avoid the very slight chance of having to return a defective cable.
2. Maybe it's because you do some kind of testing professionally, but you seem to have some odd ideas about picture quality. First you bemoan the state of noise reduction, motion compensation, and other quality issues; and then you acknowledge that screen size and viewing distance are factors when talking about resolution. Dude, guess what? Screen size and viewing distance are *always* factors, even when considering noise and blur. If you're willing to deal with WXGA resolutions, you're probably willing to put up with some tiny amount of noise and blur. (Incidentally, my TV's native resolution is WXGA, and I don't notice noise or blur on 720p or 1080i sources. Hell, I don't notice them on my better 480p DVDs.)
3. You conclude that it's only worth buying an HDTV now if you get your signal from a particular handful of sources and you're willing to shell out for an expensive one. That's nuts. Last year I bought a dumb-as-a-brick Dell 32" LCD HDTV for $1000. My only, *only* HD content comes from OTA DTV and torrents. The best I get otherwise is 480p, from DVDs or my one game console. For those applications alone-- no Blu-Ray, no HD-DVD, no HD cable-- my crapass little digital TV from last year so completely blows analog SDTV out of the water it's not even funny, and I'm happy as a pig in *****. Why the hell should I have stuck with analog SDTV for three more years? - bolerobell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9SED got caught up in Patent Hell. It will never see the light of day. They didn't even show it at the last CES.
- Elranzer, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Article is inaccurate (as most of these HDTV articles tend to be). The author does not mention CRT-HDTV, which has the undisputed best picture quality of all HDTVs on the market. Samsung and Sony currently sell high-quality and reasonably priced CRT-HDTV models, I don't see why anyone would buy anything else. Form over function maybe? (They prefer a thin TV they can mount on the wall rather than good picture quality).
- sl4x0r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@dkovaley you can get the same or superior quality for way cheaper on the web. monoprice or bluejacket
- mplex, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Don't forget 120hz refresh rates, wide color gamuts and of course 1080p. Oh, and who could live without upscaling DVD players that do absolutely nothing unless your TV sucks to begin with. I also hear HDMI's replacement is right around the corner, and anyone who doesn't wait for that will be sorry.
- Smuikas, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Not only that, but he constructs sentences like an eight year old that hasn't learned the difference between a run-on sentence and a regular sentence and maybe even doesn't know what a comma splice is, I think you know what I mean.
(note: errors for comedic value) - inactive, on 10/15/2007, -0/+8Ok I love responding to these articles:
First of all I have been in the electronics industry for near 10 years and so I have seen this whole HDTV/Plasma/LCD/DLP/Death of CRT thing happen from the beginning. I remember talking to a TI engineer about 9 years ago about the prototype DMDs they were working on and how DLP worked, the only problem they had was how to keep the little mirrors from breaking off.
So, let me start by addressing everybody's opinion of cables. I find it amusing that the great marketer of cables, Monster has penetrated the market so deeply with their spin that their brand has now become an adjective, "monster cables". There is a difference in digital cables, believe it or not. With HDMI 1.3 here now we have to add to the spec that already includes digital video up to 1920x1080, Dolby Digital, DTS, DVD-Audio, SACD, and CTC Deep Color (24-, 30-, 36- and 48-bit), Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio and automatic lip sync correction. This requires more bandwidth ad higher quality (and more expensive) HDMI cables have a higher AWG wire inside of them as well as better shielding. As you shove more bit though the wire which manifest themselves as current pulses you have to push them closer together. ANY electromagnetic and radio frequency interference can disrupt this digital signal and cause such things as HDCP losing sync and color artifacting. HDMI is a pain in the ass anyway and there is no "standard" for its implementation. It is perfectly "legal" to call a device HDMI 1.3 and not do Deep Color or Dolby TrueHD Audio for instance.
1080p is just bogus marketing speak. Dot count is not as important as contrast. Let me repeat that: Dot count is not as important as contrast. Notice I don't say contrast ratio which is a misleading and usless measurement anyway. At normal viewing distances which is usually a minimum of 3x the veritcal height of the screen the human eye cannot see the pixel structure anymore and at that point the picture quality is determined by the dynamic range between the brightest whites and the darkest blacks.
That being said, as far as flat panels go plasma looks better in a light controlled environment. LCDs look better in a bright environment. Your choice of monitor should be made based on where it is going to be used. A plasma display will always have a better contrast ratio because each pixel in the display element can be turned "off" faster an be made much. much darker than a LCD because each pixel is like a little flourescent light. A LCD on the other hand has a constant light source behind the entire display element, and since each pixel creates its color by changing the polarization of the light behind it, it cannot be as dark as a plasma pixel. And don't forget that LCDs have a slower refresh rate than plasma. 120Hz refresh rates are only used in LCD and that is only a band-aid on an inherent problem of that technology.
So in summary: cables do matter, both analog and digital. It's your money to spend but I would recommend getting the best you can afford. Plasma looks better in light-controlled environments, LCD looks better in bright, high ambient light areas. Contrast is more important than resolution. - tastypastry, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12I trust Robert Heron when it comes to HDTV advice. His special is a little outdated now but I'm sure he'll do another special on them in the future.
http://dl.tv/hdtv_special/ - Hardcase, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12@jibberish: Did you tell your friend about reflection induced jitter, about crosstalk induced jitter, about impedance matching, about dielectric losses? There's a lot more to reconstructing a high speed digital signal than just collecting a bunch of ones and zeros and the transmission medium has a huge impact on the signal. I've got a degree in electrical engineering and 10 years of signal analysis experience. Believe me, there are digital cables out there that can wreak absolute havoc on that signal. I'm not saying that Monster Cable is the solution (I agree that they're overpriced), but it's not correct to simply say that it's a lossless digital transmission medium and leave it at that. Cables are not lossless and some are much worse than others. A cable with properly terminated connectors that match the characteristic impedance of the cable, with a consistent dielectric material, with a characteristic impedance that is properly matched to the input and output impedance of the system and with proper shielding will minimize the noise and attenuation that the signal is subjected to.
- username9000, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9horrible editorial. the guy is an idiot. a properly calibrated LCOS tv has MUCH better PQ than a plasma or lcd flat panel. The only thing he was right about is that the viewing angle isn't as good with rptv.
the only thing you need to know about HDTV is what looks best to you. Go to stores, put BLURAY and HDDVD on them, watch SDTV on them, watch DVD's, etc. Whichever one has the best combination of inputs and picture quality....get that one.
All these specs mean nothing compared to how the picture looks to YOUR eye. - roxics, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@kendawg
Movie studios have been shooting widescreen (wider then your TV) for nearly half a century. It all started when TV hit the market in the first place and movie theaters were looking for a way to get people back in theater seats. If anyone messed it up it's the TV companies for not conforming new TV's to an already established cinema standard.
They literally pulled 16:9 out of their butts. And even then they haven't done a very good job of conforming it. Look at all the 16:10 computer screens out there.
But at least new video cameras shoot 16:9. - dhughes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@ urusai goooooold! Shmoke and a pancake?
- Linh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7good luck finding a 120" LCD first... all we have is sharp's 108"er and it's about 80 grand :)
- CamperBob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@hardcase: "I've got a degree in electrical engineering and 10 years of signal analysis experience."
Then you know that the cable either works, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, throw it away and try spending $10 at Monoprice instead of $5.
There is absolutely no benefit to going beyond the "just barely good enough" level when it comes to HDMI cables. - kevinmoore, on 06/13/2009, -0/+5Xeocube and Onlyclave are the reason Monster Cable is still in business. Monster Cable speaker wire will give you no better performance than copper lamp cord.
Please note that I'm not talking about patch cords. Quality patch cords for analog signals are very important. For speakers, you're wasting your money on "premium" speaker wire. - michaelb1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5agreed with some diggers comments about the confusion in the TV industry.
I just bought a home theater system and it took me many months to find all the components I need.
I had to fin the best mix of price, quality, and compatibility. It was a total pain in the ass plus I had to take a gamble on Blu-ray vs HD DVD. (glad to see it looks like I made the right choice but why should we have to gamble on a standard?)
In the end I got a pretty sweet HD system for about $3800.
TV- Sony 50in SXRD 1080p much cheaper and better picture quality than comparable LCD or plasma.
($2099 @ Amazon compared to $2300 @ bestbuy/circuit city)
Receiver- Onkyo 674 HDMI with 1080p pass through.
$499 at accessoriesforless.com compared to $680 at circuit city)
Games: PS3 with blu-ray and HDMI. Wii with component cables
Speakers: infinity 750 5.1 plus 2 extra surround rear for 7.1
($250 @ costco + $200 more for 2 extra speakers compared to $899 at for all speakers at amazon.
HDMI cables and 200ft of 14 gauge speaker wire $50 at monoprice.com vs $150+ at bestbuy/circuitcity.
anyway, if this post saves anyone the trouble I went through then my life is complete. I can die now knowing that my suffering in piecing together this system helped someone else get their system with little headache. - Jibberish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5A multimeter will not determine the frequency response curve of a transmission wire very well. You would need either a network analyzer, or a signal generator coupled with a spectrum analyzer.
The losses you should be concerned about in a transmission wire are high frequencies. Every transmission wire has the characteristic of a low pass filter. Pass the lows, cuts-off the high's. In analog transmission of audio signals, high quality shielded cables, without kinks (yes kinks can create electrical reflections which technically will screw with the sounds fidelity), with the appropriately matched impedance value, with a known (or measured) frequency response, and with soldered connections at the ends will provide the best transmission possible. - afwjam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5This guy is obviously writing this from a PC perspective and doesn't have a clue when it comes to spending a couple thousand on a TV for a home theater. LCD is only good for PCs or Gaming, The picture doesn't come anywhere close to that of a good plasma or RPTV. LCD has crap colors, Crap black levels, and crap motion. Plasma, if you buy a good one(Pio,Fujitsu,NEC,Runco,Sammy,Panny?) Have fantastic eye popping color and 3d image. Like looking through a window, good black levels and motion. However they do suffer from some IR(Image retention), when gaming or using a PC. This can be minimized or eliminated with proper break in and picture settings. RPTV, not including LCD. Is great if you can get over the silk screen effect of a RPTV, I can't. A good RPTV, usually LCOS or SXRD has the sharpest picture, with the most accurate color, and good black levels. However for many people the silk screen effect and poor viewing angle are not acceptable. LCD is fine for a PC or for a 20" kitchen TV, However for a proper home Theater it is getting better(and cheaper) but still not an acceptable option. I am partial to Plasma, nothing short of a CRT projector( G90, 9500LC), looks as good as a properly calibrated plasma displaying HD content(HD DVD, Bluray), like looking through a window.
- caliguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4what about CRT HDTVs ? They have better picture quality than any LCD on the market and cost half as much. Screen life is at least twice that of any other technology on the market. So it cant sit on the wall, big deal. If you aren't concerned with appearances and you don't like paying through the nose for things, I don't see how you couldn't buy a CRT. Also, you can't tell me 1080p is that much better than 1080i either. Any decent 1080i box is gonna have a good comb filter, which takes care of any digitizing issues 99% of the time and makes the cost of upgrading to 1080p conspicuous....
- Jibberish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Your right in saying that the electrical signal will suffer some distortion and be "lossy", but the data or information, being in a digital form is lossless. 100% of the data that is sent is completely reconstructed on the other side from it's digital representation, thus digital transmission is a lossless "data" transmission scheme; that's why it was invented ;) Maybe I should have clarified/emphasized that it was the data aspect that was lossless not the electrical.
- Jibberish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"@jibberish: Did you tell your friend about reflection induced jitter, about crosstalk induced jitter, about impedance matching, about dielectric losses? There's a lot more to reconstructing a high speed digital signal than just collecting a bunch of ones and zeros and the transmission medium has a huge impact on the signal. I've got a degree in electrical engineering and 10 years of signal analysis experience."
No, why would I tell my friend who is a car mechanic about a bunch of stuff that he doesn't at all care about? He hates it when I whip out my books and lecture him on this sort of stuff. He asked my opinion about something I know a lot about, and then completely disregarded it. If it would have been the other way around, I would take his opinion over mine when having work done on my car.
All of the stuff you mentioned is perfectly valid, but as long as the cable meets the HDMI 2.1 specifications (or whatever revision your referencing), then all of your information that is sent will be able to be reconstructed on the other side. The arriving waveform may be very distorted, but it should still be within the specifications set forth by IEEE or whoever wrote the specification, for whatever max length of cable you are using.
If you get a cable and that is not the case, then the cable is bad; so you should take it back. -
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