Digital Lifestyles Reference Guide

Aug 27, 2004

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Before you race out to buy a big screen prior to this year's Super Bowl, there are a few important considerations in making your decision. While price plays a major factor in everyone's final decision, avoiding corner cutting that leads to buyer's remorse will leave you happy with your purchase decision for a time period rivaling your most recent standard definition purchase.

How Black is Black?

Even with all the rich color in television images, white and black tones make up the greatest percentage of all television image color. CRT screens still narrowly outperform Plasma, DLP and LCD in the ability to display black colors, although it's arguably imperceptible in top-of-the-line hardware. When shopping for an HDTV, the contrast ratio may be one of the most overlooked features. This ratio represents the margin between the whitest whites on screen and the darkest blacks, often determining a great level of detail in your HDTV picture. Lower contrast screens (below 1000:1) are often cheaper than high contrast screens, but the viewing experience also suffers as a result. For great image quality, look for contrast ratios starting in the 2000:1 range.

It says HDTV, but is it?

All HDTV is not created equal. True HDTV starts at 720p resolution, with both 1080i and 1080p resolutions representing the higher-end of available screen quality. At the low end of the price range for higher-end televisions, a number of companies are passing off Enhanced Definition TV (EDTV) screens as being HDTV. EDTV is limited to 480p, or the screen resolution of most DVDs. These EDTV screens can play 720p and 1080i content by down-sampling the image from HDTV sources to 480p. While the image looks superior to standard definition television, it's not on par with the experience of watching 720p or 1080i content at native resolutions on a truly compatible screen.

HDTV Ready or Not?

Additional confusion surrounds the concept of HDTV-ready screens. What this means is the screen is capable of playing back HDTV content at 720p, 1080i or in a few cases 1080p. The missing component is an HDTV tuner of some kind capable of sending an HDTV signal to the screen. In general, this is a minor problem since most of the cable companies now offer either a cable box or CableCard with HDTV support. You can also buy an HDTV tuner from the local electronics store, capable of tuning in over-the-air HDTV from the local network stations. The advantage to HDTV-ready screens is a slightly lower cost to the consumer because the additional cost of a tuner is separate from the screen cost.

Wide Screen with Narrow Video

Aside from the new range of shows broadcasting in HD, the majority of television content — both new and old — is optimized for playback on the 4:3 aspect ratio of standard definition television. HDTV screens are almost all 16:9 aspect ratio. There are two ways to deal with this display problem. One way to watch 4:3 video on a HDTV screen is to maintain the shape natural shape, framing the content with black bars on either side. The second way to view these 4:3 videos is to stretch them to fill your 16:9 screen. This second option sounds attractive; after all you did pay for the full screen. But stretch often distorts the image. Many low end HDTV screens only stretch the image horizontally, resulting in picture distortion. If you want to watch stretched 4:3 content, verify the HDTV you purchase supports both horizontal and vertical stretching to avoid image distortion.

SDTV on your HD Screen

In combination with the aspect ratio problem in choosing how to view standard definition television (SDTV), there's the problem of having lower quality video look great on your swanky new screen. Most video is still standard definition, which translates to 480i (or 480p if your digital cable box isn't converting the video to 480i). To accommodate this lower resolution video, HDTV manufacturers attempt to upsample or upconvert the content to a higher resolution. If you've ever watched a small web video on your PC screen in full screen mode, you have seen the worst case of this idea failing miserably. Like other components, the chip that handles the upconversion from 480i to 480p is a place where manufacturers cut costs. A company called Faroudja, which also packages its technology on boards from Genesis Microchip, is the leader in this space. Look for DCDi and TrueLife de-interlacing to make sure the HDTV you purchase offers the best performance for standard definition video.

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