This is about me trying to catch up on a subject that I used to know a bit about. When I did me City&Guilds in the 50s, we all looked forward to a world with a common standard. Maybe in my next life. If I need to know about current technology, I ask me grandson. But this is what I have gleaned in the last while.
A year or so back, SIL in Texas got the 60" Sony LCD. [there is a 42 and a 50] It's okay, and it's certainly big, but as I said at the time it had a screen surface that was fine in fixed frame, then showed up when the image was panning. It looked like the old anti-reflect coating on the surface of a PC's monitor.
At that time I deemed it the best buy cos of the problems with flat screens. The bulb on the LCDs seemed the only issue. [claimed 10,000 hrs $c350]
Then came the new model.
I have looked at T/Vs for 55 years, a lot of the time with a professional eye. The new 50 or 60 was stunning. Non interlaced 60HZ [here] and 6m pixels. With some clever 3 dimensional configuration. I had never seen anything like it. No sign of a pixel from 2 ft away, and every hair of some blond guy's head was a clearly defined thread.
I was standing next to a middle-aged couple in a Sear's store in Austin. They guy said, in a British north country accent, ‘that it looks more real than the real scene....if you were there, it wouldn't look that real.' LOL, but I knew what he meant.
Yesterday, I was offered the 60" old tech one at $2,000, about half what SIL paid. But then the salesman threw a new die. "There is a new one coming out soon, this is why we can offer the current 50" NI 1080 6mpix at $2,500 ish. I threw away my plan for the new Yamaha digital piano...well, my playing is crap anyway, let's have the telly. But what will I feed it with?
Camera. Colchester last summer, £c1,250 blew away the pix from my old [broadcast quality] Sony BVP200 ..[.today's money would be about £45,000.] but........I read above that it does not process the panned image quickly enough. Interesting comment, I will be forearmed. But still, it was stunning.
DVD player. Okay, there are some cheap players that will simulate HD. They do this by a clever algorithm filling in the missing lines. Eeeech! Like the old drop-out correction. Sony on sale at $119. It's a way of filling a big screen. It needs the single cable mentioned [with a plug a bit like a wide USB] or the T/V switches back to DVD standard.
HD players are there, and not all that costly, but the movies to put in them???????
HD DVDs not offered by Net flix and the like yet, but it will happen. For me, science/nature and the latest films in HD will hack it, everything else can be at DVD quality.
Most cable companies offer a few HD progs...but how do you record them? And do you want to see them anyway? HD Tivo-type machines are expensive and the clued-up will use computers, but several companies will offer a recording service as part of a [not cheap] package.