Mitchell_the_CSR

I am looking for the the best 16:9 ratio TV for my buck. In the range of 25-32 inches (any size within that limit is the same to me). Sony Wegas seem to own the scene, so which is the best and at the cheapest price. Also let me know where to buy it. Outpost.com looks to be fairly good on prices (B & M stores are OK too). Any help or info would be helpfull since this will be a major purchase.

jumbojp

I think most 16:9 ratio tube sets in the states are quite expensive. Are you talking about an actual 16:9 TV or a 4:3 TV which has a good 16:9 picture setup?

Do you live in the US?

Here is a link to a Panasonic 34" 16:9 http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_el...ics/tv/tau.htm

Sorry its late I am not at my best

Mitchell_the_CSR

I'm looking for an actual 16:9 ratio Widescreen TV so I can watch DVDs without the black bars (or very little black bars showing) and in widescreen format. I may be getting my hopes up for nothing. I have a HIfi.com magazine that has a Sony Wega KV-32FV16 32" TV which says it is 16:9 enhanced and looks like a 16:9 TV in the picture (Price 1299.99). But I can't tell for sure. it may be a 4:3 TV with 16:9 features.
http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/consumer...v-32fv16.shtml

Its from the Fv line, so you would think it has 16:9 ratio, but I still can't tell. I want frickin' black bars on the sides for a TV Format DVD, and no black bars for a Anamorphic DVD.

I don't really care if its a HDTV or not, they seem well out of my price range, and the HDTVs that are all seem to be 4:3 ratio.

horatiodude

Toshiba makes a 40" 16:9 RPTV. It's about $2400 dollars. That's about as cheep as it gets for an actual 16:9 TV. Don't even bother looking for a direct view 16:9 yet. They are very expensive.

I don't see why you just don't get a 4:3 with 16:9 capeability. They are much cheaper and give you the best of both worlds. I know you said you can't stand the black bars, but you are still going to have black bars when watching movies formatted at 2.35:1 no matter what type of TV you have. Also, non anamorphic widescreen DVDs are going to look horrible on a 16:9 screen. You'll have both verticle and horizontal black bars.

Aleve90

quote:<HR>Also, non anamorphic widescreen DVDs are going to look horrible on a 16:9 screen. You'll have both verticle and horizontal black bars. <HR>

Just want to make sure this logic does not get perpetuated. Non-anamorphic discs will not look ‘horrible' on a 16:9 set. Yes, you will not have the added resolution of an anamorphic disc, but that's it. Non-anamorphic discs do not require vertical bars on the left and right, although this is one of the modes all discs can be watched. Rather, one of the various format modes can be used to fill the screen by cutting the top and bottom off the screen.

All 16:9 sets are capable of doing this and the non-anamorphic disc look fine.

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Dave
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horatiodude

Do you actually think that zooming a 4:3 picture to fill a 16:9 is not going to decrease picture quality? Maybe "horrible" was not a good choice of words, but the picture will still look worse.

ZenDog

quote:<HR>Originally posted by horatiodude:
Do you actually think that zooming a 4:3 picture to fill a 16:9 is not going to decrease picture quality? Maybe "horrible" was not a good choice of words, but the picture will still look worse.<HR>

The picture quality is only decreased very slightly when a 4:3 picture is fitted to a 16:9 widescreen. "Worse" is just as bad a word as horrble, especially on a 40inch widescreen. The actuality is that unless it is a very large widescreen tv you will hardly notice any difference at all on a decent widescreen hdtv.

Mitchell_the_CSR

quote:<HR>Originally posted by horatiodude:
Toshiba makes a 40" 16:9 RPTV. It's about $2400 dollars. That's about as cheep as it gets for an actual 16:9 TV. Don't even bother looking for a direct view 16:9 yet. They are very expensive.

I don't see why you just don't get a 4:3 with 16:9 capeability. They are much cheaper and give you the best of both worlds. I know you said you can't stand the black bars, but you are still going to have black bars when watching movies formatted at 2.35:1 no matter what type of TV you have. Also, non anamorphic widescreen DVDs are going to look horrible on a 16:9 screen. You'll have both verticle and horizontal black bars. <HR>

I only buy Amamorphic DVDs, so thats not a problem. I just need a Widescreen TV, it doesn't have to be a HDTV or a RPTV. I'm not going for lines of resolution, I am going for ratio. I just need extra vertical lines. If none exists, then i'll just stick with my current Tv. My DVD player does an awesome job of downconverting for both NTSC and PAL.

Xytraguptorh

quote:<HR>Originally posted by horatiodude:
Do you actually think that zooming a 4:3 picture to fill a 16:9 is not going to decrease picture quality? Maybe "horrible" was not a good choice of words, but the picture will still look worse.<HR>

Part of the problem with people always ranting on about wanting anamorphic transfers (although I mostly agree) is that people assume that nonanamorphic DVDs look awful on widescreen TVs, site unseen. A great nonanamorphic transfer (such as Titanic, The Abyss, Planet of the Apes) will look better than a poor anamorphic transfer on a widescreen TV. That does *not* mean that people should wish for nonanamorphic DVDs, it just means that repeating the same old line about nonanamorphic DVDs is not too realistic.

matchpenalty

Mitchell,

CUrrently there are few options for true 16:9. The ones I have seen are RPTV, a few direct view tubes, and Plasma. RPTV is the cheapest. I did see one tube that was smaller then the 34" (think it was 30") but it too was very expensive (about 3K).

El Kabong

I have a Toshiba DW65X91 HDTV (65", 16x9). I thought HDTV's were about the only ones that are 16x9 right now since only HD shows are in 16x9. My Toshiba has 4 different ways to watch movies, depending on if they're anamorphic, letterboxed, or full-frame. I'd say that for the most part, anamorphic dvds do look much better, but since I got a progressive-scan player even non-anamorphic dvds look pretty good and that's on a 65" HDTV. A letterboxed VHS tape, however, looks REALLY bad. Before the progressive-scan player, the non-anamorphic dvds looked much worse, and even the anamorphic ones would get pixelated edges on fast moving objects. Now everything looks great. Oh, I think (not sure though) that the Wegas are all 4x3, but do the anamorphic squeeze.

Aleve90

quote:<HR>Do you actually think that zooming a 4:3 picture to fill a 16:9 is not going to decrease picture quality? <HR>

Just chiming in to say that no response is needed because ZenDog and Xytraguptorh have already stated my thoughts. I will add though that I watch scaled non-anamorphic DVDs on a 10 foot 16:9 screen and have no problems with them. Sure they are not as nice as the best anamorphic transfers, but I'm the only on in the room that notices the differences.

No one should ever consider not buying a widescreen set because of non-anamorphic discs, period. Your 16:9 set will display non-anamorphic fine, period. Worry more about the transfer quality on the actual disc first and then worry about whether its anamorphic. This is a transfer issue and not a widescreen problem.

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Dave
My DVD List

bdshort

Mitchell_the_CSR: Where do you live? You mentioned both PAL and NTSC, so this sort of leads me to think you are in Australia (I've heard most TV's sold there support both NTSC and PAL formats). If this is the case, you may want to ask around at an A/V shop locally for help too.
If you are in the US, the Toshiba TW40X81 is currently the most affordable 16x9 TV available. It can be found for under $2500, and is a 40" RPTV. If this is in your budged, I'd suggest this set, since it's very popular. I have heard of some reliablity problems with some sets, so buy locally. Though most problems seem to crop up right away... if you get a good set initially, it should stay that way.

The closest sets with a size range of what you list are the 34" tube sets, in various models from Panasonic and Toshiba, but these retail for close to $4,000.

Sony has the KV32FS12 (which is similar to the FV16 you list, just cheaper), which you can find for around $1000 probably. It's a 4x3 set but it has a 16:9 mode to get the full resolution out of anamorphic DVD's. It would also end up giving you a 16:9 size of over your bottom range of 25"

Hope this helps. I too am hoping we'll see some cheaper 16x9 sets too. I plan on purchacing something in the next two years, probably in the 40-50" range hopefully.

Brian

Frank S

"I have a HIfi.com magazine that has a Sony Wega KV-32FV16 32" TV which says it is 16:9 enhanced and looks like a 16:9 TV in the picture (Price 1299.99)."


Don't be fooled by Sony's deceptive WEGA pictures! WEGA TV's are not 16x9 TV's but Sony like to take very deceptive pictures of the WEGA's that make them look like 16x9 TV's. The WEGA's are 4x3 TV's and the 16x9 enhancements they speake of our just the TV's ability to do the "Anamorphic Squeeze Trick" that allows the TV to squeeze all it resolution into the correct aspect ratio for Anamorphic DVD's.

For 16x9 TV's look at the Panasonic & Toshiba lines.

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[This message has been edited by Frank S (edited September 30, 2000).]

reverb

quote:<HR>Originally posted by Mitchell_the_CSR:
I only buy Amamorphic DVDs, so thats not a problem. I just need a Widescreen TV, it doesn't have to be a HDTV or a RPTV. I'm not going for lines of resolution, I am going for ratio. I just need extra vertical lines. If none exists, then i'll just stick with my current Tv. My DVD player does an awesome job of downconverting for both NTSC and PAL.
<HR>

Hopefully to further clarify this...

Respectfully, this comment doesn't make much sense. You only buy anamorphically enhanced DVD's but your not interested in higher resolution? A disc being anamorphically enhanced has (for all practical purposes) nothing to do with aspect ratio, yet benefits resolution as it is encoded with more vertical lines...

Also, while some DVD players appear to be better at downsampling than others, if you had two otherwise equal transfers, one anamorphically enhanced and the other not, the non-anamorphic transfer disc would (technically) look better on your current setup. However well your player handles downsampling, outputing a 16:9 image to either a 16:9 or a good 4:3 TV that features a 16:9 mode will result in a better image.

As others have suggested, I am currently inclined to also recommend a high quality 4:3 set that has a 16:9 mode.

Good luck.

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