Updated 11/23/2008 - HDTV and Surround Sound Recommendations!

[matchstick]

cool, wasnt sure, i know my roommate had a prob once with his speakers and his crt, but didnt know about plasmas.

and jizzy youll be happy to know the stickers are now off...lol

[Et3rn4l5il3nc3]

What's the advantage of the 360 monster cables vs the ones that came with the 360? Also, can I found HDMI w/ Fiber Optic for the 360?

[Deathwish238]

Originally Posted by Et3rn4l5il3nc3

What's the advantage of the 360 monster cables vs the ones that came with the 360? Also, can I found HDMI w/ Fiber Optic for the 360?

Well the Monster ones have better shielding, that's about it. I noticed a slight difference in sharpness on about a 100" image. Worth it? Perhaps if you have a huge image.


If you want an HDMI cable or an optical cable, I recommend only monoprice.com. You cannot beat their prices and their quality is top notch.

[WRHSFootball63]

what does the DVE or AVIA do to help your t.v. or is it even worth it?

[Deathwish238]

They teach you how to calibrate your TV and then let you do it. It makes a night and day difference as you're able to get your TV's image to be much much more natural and life like. Without calibrating a TV it's pretty much impossible to get the best picture out of a TV.

I remember calibrating an 8 year old Sony CRT and it looked amazing afterwards, some that saw it said it looked like a new TV...better than I coudl have expected. After calibrating my Panny plasma I have one of the most natural pictures I've ever seen.


That's the short version. Here's the long version if you want more info.

When you go to a store and look at TVs, you'll noticed they all look a bit different. To achieve that difference manufacturers mess with settings in hopes of making their TV look better to you. In reality, they're just ruining the picture...problem is most have never seen a calibrated picture and like the overly bright and contrasty image with huge color issues. Samsungs and Sonys for example tend to be much too red out of the box while Sharps are too Green.

However, the point of any TV is to display the material as close to its original form as possible. You want the TV to be as close to the standard in which the movie was recorded in, in our case NTSC. So using reference screens and a blue color filter you change your settings until the screens look correct. My Panny was a little too green even in the cinema mode. The brightness was too low as well. Obviously getting the colors right makes skin tones most importantly look real. I absolutely hate TVs where everyone looks sunburned...drives me crazy. You can also see a TV that's too red have pink clouds instead of white ones, quite annoying.

By setting brightness you're messing with the black levels of the TV. Too dark and you're going to lose black detail as well as vividness, too bright and you'll end up with a washed out image as you lose colors. Black levels are the most important aspect of a TV imo so setting the brightness properly is absolutely vital. It is the reason CRTs can still give you one of the best pictures possible, they have the darkest blacks.

Contrast controls white level. Too high and you lose white detail, too low and it won't be vivid enough. Setting contrast with a DVD is the hardest part as it is pretty much impossibly to get perfect without professional equipment. However, you can get it close and it makes a huge impact on the picture. Everyone likes a vivid image, so you want to get the image as vivid as possible without crushing white detail. Contrast and brightness are often linked, so you should always double check the other when changing one of them.

lol, I've started to ramble...hoped it helped






I use DVE as it's cheaper. AVIA is a bit easier to use, but they both do the same thing in the end. I highly recommend it, $20 well worth it.

[Deathwish238]

New Vizios are out, they look nice.

Updated the sticky. Can't seem to find Kuros in store anymore...or online...

[ViPeR5679]

Say i want to calibrate my TV for 2 inputs, 1 input for my Direct TV HD receiver and input 2 for my Playstation 3 BD player. Do i need both of these to calibrate each input?
Digital Video Essentials-Hd Basics (Hd) (2007) For input 1
Digital Video Essentials-HD Basics (Blu-Ray) For input 2


Also if i do need both of those for those inputs can i just connect the PS3 into input 1 to calibrate the TV for HD receiver input using the HD DVE?

Or just buy the BD disc and use same settings on TV for both inputs after calibrated on 1 input?


Thanks

[LilJayV10]

Originally Posted by Deathwish238

New Vizios are out, they look nice.

Updated the sticky. Can't seem to find Kuros in store anymore...or online...

I know I bought the last Kuro 5080 at my local Best Buy. They put them on clearance. I think they are getting rid of them like they did the 4280.

The manager was trying to talk me into the a newer Pioneer which was 5 grand. I couldn't swing that.

I love the 5080! Obviously it's the same as the 4280. The eight inches makes a difference.............

[Deathwish238]

They must be clearing them all out for the new Pioneer plasmas

Originally Posted by ViPeR5679

Say i want to calibrate my TV for 2 inputs, 1 input for my Direct TV HD receiver and input 2 for my Playstation 3 BD player. Do i need both of these to calibrate each input?
Digital Video Essentials-Hd Basics (Hd) (2007) For input 1
Digital Video Essentials-HD Basics (Blu-Ray) For input 2


Also if i do need both of those for those inputs can i just connect the PS3 into input 1 to calibrate the TV for HD receiver input using the HD DVE?

Or just buy the BD disc and use same settings on TV for both inputs after calibrated on 1 input?


Thanks

I think the HD one you're referring to is the HD-DVD version.

All you need is the BluRay version. You can't directly calibrate the HD receiver's settings as it doesn't read discs. Just use the settings you get for the PS3, it'll be a lot closer than using the TV's presets. You could tweak it from there if you wanted as well.

[LilJayV10]

I can't imagine how the next generations are going to look better. I don't even want to see one. I will want one then.