I'm looking into buying a new Samsung 50" DLP HDTV soon. I'm looking at two models which are virtually identical but the only difference is that one has the HD Tuner built in and the other does not. Both are HD ready however. I'm planning to switch over to HDTV with my satellite provider, DirecTV, with a HD receiver.

The one with the HD Tuner is about $1000 more than the one without. My question is what does the HD Tuner allow me to do, why do I need it and is it worth $1000 more? From my understanding to receive HDTV is an HD ready TV and a HD receiver so why do I need the HD tuner?

Thanks in advance...

 

If you are going to keep DTV get the one w/o the built in tuner.

The reason the tuner is more expensive is because it can process the signal way better than any set top box resulting in a better picture. But it's useless unless you use an over the air antenna or a cable card.

 

i'd go without the tuner, but make sure the TV and the sattelite box have a DVI or HDMI port for the best possible picture.

also, a cheap dvi/hdmi cable is just as good as a Monster one.

 

Yeah, I've had a Samsung DLP for two years now, and I bought my DVI cable here for $25: http://www.pacificcable.com

Just make sure you get the right one. If you do a search on www.avsforum.com you can figure it out. I forget now - it's been a while.

Also, I have Comcast cable, and the DVI port is not enabled on the Scientific Atlanta box. I'm using the DVI cable for my DVD player, and component cables for the cable box.

 

Thanks for the advice people... Yeah my research on the Samsung DLP's led me to avsforum.com where I read some positive/negative reviews. I play games frequently (xbox and PS2) so a plasma/lcd tv would be a bad choice because of potential burn-in. That leaves dlp but I've read that Samsung up-converts all signals to its native 720p resolution causing video/audio sync problems with the xbox, ps2 and some home theater components. Now I'm back to the good old CRT.

I've had great experiences with SONY TVs and Best Buy has an unbelievable deal on a widescreen 34" HDTV model for only $1500 (25% off MSRP) so I think I'm going with that one instead. From what I understand, SONY is slowly phrasing out its entire CRT line in favor of plasma and lcd so pricing is very good now on whatever is left over.

 

i have a sony 32" HDTV and it is amazing. i used digital video essentials to get the color right and it looks great. sony is one of the higher-rated tube HDTV makers.

 

I thought burn-in wasn't an issue with LCDs, only plasmas... and some plasmas come with screen savers to prevent burn-in. I was considering the highend samsung DLP but the price is just a little too much still for the 50" I was looking at, the one that has an integrated stand.

I'm probably going to opt for a plasma when I upgrade my 36" XBR tube since they are relatively cheap and delivery a great picture with rich blacks. Anyways, in your original question, I would opt for an external HD converter since it's more flexible with it's inputs/outputs and will no doubt handle the HD signal better than a built-in. IMHO.

 

This one?



This is the same one I was considering until I read about the video/audio sync problems. Too bad, I was set on buying this. Designwise, it beats everything else on the market. This TV is an art piece.

 

with LCD there are good ones, and then there are ones that are just crap. there are really no GREAT 30-37" LCDs which is unfortuante. When LCOS comes out, I will probably get one of those. LCOS sheets can be "printed" so once factories make them in volume, flat panels should be much cheaper.

 

I'm in the same fix at the moment. And I've been doing a lot of research on this recently.

It's not just LCD and DLP displays that are problematic for video game display latency. ALL digital TVs will have some display latency unless the signal you are inputting is in the native resolution of the set. There is ALWAYS a DSP conversion to the native display resolution otherwise. And that conversion takes time. It takes clock cycles on the video DSPs. It might be noticeable time, it might not be noticeable depending on the design of the display, the complexity of its conversion algorithms, the complexity of its video filters, and the raw speed of its video DSP chips.

Take the Sony CRT TV you mentioned for example. (This one?: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1077628885976 ) It claims to have a 1080i resolution. So say you plug your Xbox into it to play Halo. Xbox Halo is native 480P output. So the TV takes the digital 480P signal, processes it to 480i by interlacing it. Then step two, it processes that digital signal again to upconvert to 1080i by interpolating all the missing pixels. And that's assuming that you are using the Xbox Component kit for connection to the TV. Heaven forbid you use the Composite video or SVHS connection because then the TV has to convert the analog signal to digital first before it does anything else, adding a lot more DSP clock cycles and display latency.

So this latency affects ALL digital TVs and monitors when they do their digital processing on the video signal prior to displaying it. Some digital TVs do this processing faster than others by design. But you cannot necessarily break it down and assume for example that all DLP digital TVs will be slow and all CRT digital TVs will be fast. That