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My brother was kind enough to give my parents a nice HD TV and a fancy DVD player with a name I have never heard of for Christmas (oppo?). He even convinced them to get Digital Cable because you can get PBS in High Def! Like my parents can tell the difference! Of course since he lives on the other side of the country, they called me to come hook it all up. I think I am pretty cool with my DLP projector and DD surround system from 2001. All this HD poo poo and HDMI cables are out of my price range. I don't watch TV and don't have cable, and I certainly don't know jack about HD cable channels. I just have a few questions about hooking this all together. The cable guy seems to have hooked the new cable box to the TV with YPbPr component cables, it's a five wire setup. I switched to the HD PBS channel and things were certainly better than normal TV, but it didn't look spectacular. Really I would say it just looked like watching an SVCD or something, certainly no where near DVD quality. The show at the time was the News Hour, so maybe they don't broadcast that in such high quality? Basically what I am asking is would they get a better picture with an HDMI cable? The show was in widescreen but the TV didn't automagically switch. Is that just not something that happens? Would it happen with an HDMI cable? I am just trying to limit how many buttons my parents have to remember to push! The DVD player they have does 720p and 1080i/p. The TV can only handle 720p and 1080i. I am just guessing 720p is the better option? My friends told me about their experience trying to buy an HDMI cable, and that Circuit City had cables for $100. I personally would never buy a cable from a place like that. I know they love selling gold plated usb cables and Monster crap that no one needs to people who don't know any better. But I really didn't know where else to tell them to go and I honestly didn't know what they should be paying in the first place.
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Jan 15, 2008 08:39
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Associate Christ
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| # ¿ Dec 7, 2025 02:49 |
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Vaporware posted:Not all programs are shot in HD even though they are on a HD channel, comcast has a little HD icon in the channel guide to tell you what's being broadcast in HD. I don't know about other systems. Thank you Vaporware and fahrvergnugen, that cleared a lot of things up. When I was flipping through 720p, 1080i, and 1080p on the DVD Player the TV always scaled it to something like 1300x768, so I suppose that means it is a 720p native. It was a Samsung TV, 40 inches or so. I have no idea what the model number is. Back to the HDMI cables again, I am looking at Monoprice, and they of course have a gazillion HDMI cables. I see that HDMI 1.3 is for newer devices that support 48 bit colour or something. They don't seem to cost much more than the 1.0 stuff, I assume they are backwards compatable? I hate to be a baby here but can someone point out a specific cable on there that would be good? I want to get one for my friends who are trying to spend $100 at circuit city. Thanks again!
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Jan 15, 2008 18:59
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Vaporware posted:Here's a specific 6ft cable that is in stock. There's no need to worry about 1.0 vs 1.3, just buy the latest revision unless it's way more expensive for some reason. Haha that is perfect! And for $8.45 shipped to my door! fahrvergnugen posted:Any cable there is good. They will all work just fine. The $100 cable thing is a myth. If it'll make you feel better to spend another $3/cable at monoprice to get the fancy sheath, then go for it, but it's totally unnecessary. A myth in that you don't need it or a myth that they exist? Circuit City's web site is full of them! For PURE HD!!!
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Jan 15, 2008 21:13
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I would like a new tv. We want a 32" 1080p that is as slim/thin as possible and if it can play netflix that is cool, too. Samsung has a 32" smart tv (amazon) for $328, but not super slim. To get a slim one we seem to have to jump to a $598 "3D" model (amazon. That is a bit much, especially considering I have no depth perception and that 3D poo poo will be lost on me. Is there a middle ground or something more suitable someone can recommend? We are not huge TV people, so we don't want anything bigger than 32" in our tiny living room, and the more minimal it is, the better. Also, not that I really care, but can some one tell me if we should want an LED vs an LCD or even plasma? LED isn't mentioned in the OP, which seems a bit outdated. And at 32" is demanding 1080p silly? The tv we have right now is 25", but even it is 1080p (it is a HISENSE that I won at an office party, lol)!
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Nov 23, 2012 01:18
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Is it standard for a new tv to have analog RCA audio output? If a device is connected to the tv via hdmi, will the tv still output the audio to RCA? Or would gay hdmi copy protection ruin that?
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Nov 24, 2012 20:06
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Well, the wife wanted to see these things IRL, which backfired a bit because a 32" TV looks tiny in a place like Best Buy when surrounded by 70" behemoths. They had a Toshiba 40" that was thin and had a small bezel for $499. Even better, was Amazon had the same thing for $450 (and no tax). So in a few days this thing will be at our door: 40L5200U kuddles is right though, none of the TVs I looked at had analog audio output. Not a bit deal in the end, but hopefully I can find a cheap adaptor.
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Nov 25, 2012 00:42
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kuddles posted:If you don't find anything in your local Radio Shack or whatever, it looks like as usual Monoprice has a solution if you're willing to wait a few days for shipping. I bought the same thing on amazon, but now I am looking at the manual for the TV (here) and on page 20/21 Item #3 seems to be an analog audio output. There is no other mention of it in the manual, but it looks like a female 3.5mm stereo jack. I think that ought to work!
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Nov 25, 2012 15:09
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New Toshiba 40L5200U hooked up just now. It looks great, but the antenna reception is terrible. We have an antenna that we used up until now with a tiny HISENSE tv. It received a lot of channels. This Toshiba "finds" about a dozen channels, but honestly not a single one is watchable without a lot of static. Is something wrong, or does the Toshiba just suck at tuning? It is kind of a deal breaker for us  .
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Nov 28, 2012 02:07
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| # ¿ Dec 7, 2025 02:49 |
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Kaluza-Klein posted:New Toshiba 40L5200U hooked up just now. It looks great, but the antenna reception is terrible. We have an antenna that we used up until now with a tiny HISENSE tv. It received a lot of channels. I hate to quote my own post, but I just wanted to say that the Toshiba seems to have though about its behaviour over night and is now receiving more channels with less static than the old HISENSE ever did. I have no idea what prompted this but I am sticking with it.
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Nov 29, 2012 14:55
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