2008 March

Monthly Archives: March 2008

What Is the LCD HDTV Clouding Effect?

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Almost all LCD owners will notice some degree of clouding effect on their HDTVs during dark or completely black scenes. What is the clouding effect? It’s a varying degree of brightness visible across the screen. It can be caused by different sources, most often from uneven backlighting or flaws in the LCD’s matrix of thin-film transistors. Clouding is most noticeable when a single dark color is shown on the screen, eg, black or dark blue. Other terms for the effect are backlight bleed, flashlight effect, cloud effect, and mura or the mura effect. Mura is a Japanese word meaning an unevenness, blemish, or inconsistency. The clouding effect is generally limited to LCDs because plasmas have a different back light technology.

One way to combat this effect is to avoid watching your television in completely dark rooms. Turn on a lamp with a low light setting to keep a small amount of ambient light in the room. Some LCD manufacters offer ambient light built in to their television, most notably Philips Ambilight.

Filed in Clouding, Clouding Effect, HDTV Buying Tips, LCD, Mura, Plasma, backlight, backlight bleed, backlighting | Comments (1)

Buying an HDTV at Costco: A Review

Saturday, March 29, 2008

When you set out to buy an HDTV, it’s unlikely you’ll start by researching the store you’ll buy it from. But buying from the right store can be important, especially for getting fair price or returning the TV in case something goes wrong.

When I eventually settled on the Vizio GV47LF for my HDTV, I noted it was available at Costco. As I began to work out the mechanics of purchasing the TV, I realized that you had to have a membership to shop there. $50 for the right to buy my HDTV? Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure that was the television I wanted.

However, with a little research, I realized the HDTV was too good a bargain to pass up. In the end, I was very happy buying the TV from Costco, as Costco offers many advantages over other big box stores, the biggest being their liberal 90-day return policy and 2-year extended warranty.

Membership

Yes, you need to have a membership to shop at a Costco retail store. When I bought my television last year, I found that the bargain cost of the television justified paying the membership fee. But there were bonus ways to save some money. Costco offers 2% cash back for “executive members.”

There are two tiers of membership. Regular membership costs $50 and you get no cash back. Executive is $100, and you get 2% cash back. If you buy a $2,000 television, you will get $40 cash back, which essentially pays for the upgrade to Executive. Plus, the 2% continues for future purchases. I did not know about this policy and had the regular membership at checkout, but the Costco cashier was paying attention and helped me upgrade.

I just got my check from Costco from the 2% cash back and was happy enough to renew my membership for another year.

Filed in Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco, Extended Warranty, GV47LF, HDTV, HDTV Buying Tips, HDTV Return Policy, Price Guarantee, Vizio | Comments (1)

CNET’s Review of the Vizio VO47L

Sunday, March 23, 2008

CNET’s HD guru David Katzmaier has published a thorough review of the Vizio VO47L, giving it a score of 6.2 out of 10. Positives for the television include a bargain price, good color reproduction, 4 HDMI inputs, good screen uniformity, good-looking all-black bezel and speakers, and a comfortable remote control. The cons are poor black levels, the need to adjust the color settings out of the box, and only two aspect ratios for viewing HD content.

“[The VO47L’s] image quality stands solidly in the middle of the road, with those lighter black levels and subpar off-angle viewing characteristics seen on many other budget LCDs, but balanced by good color accuracy, at least after adjustment. You can still find numerous larger, 50-inch plasmas available for around the same price, but if you must have LCD and want a big screen for smaller money, the VO47LF deserves strong consideration.”

The score Katzmaier assigns the VO47L, 6.2, seems surprisingly low, as the Vizio GV47LF, 47-inch Vizio LCD the VO47L replaced (and is essentially the same as), is rated at 6.6. Perhaps the low score is an indication of the scales tipping in favor of plasma televisions, which, on average, offer a must better viewing experience than LCDs. Just browsing through CNET’s scores shows lower scores on average for most LCDs compared with plasmas. The main justification for the VO47L’s low score seems to be poor black levels, which have tended to be a strength for plasma technology.

Katzmaier’s mention of the VO47L’s better than average screen uniformity comes as a surprise, as Vizios (and most LCDs, in fact) are notorius for a clouding effect on dark screens. The VO47L’s good screen uniformity should come as a big plus for those thinking about buying the television, as it’s a rare attribute for bargain televisions. However, Katzmaier does mention noticing one corner of the screen is brighter than the rest. I’ve had a similar experience with my Vizio GV47LF, but it’s interesting to note that my screen uniformity has improved over time.

Link to review.

Also checkout our collection of VO47L customer reviews.

Filed in 1080p, CNET, Clouding Effect, David Katzmaier, Full High Definition, HDTV, High Definition, LCD, V047L, V047L Review, V047LF Customer Reviews, VO47L, VO47LF, Vizio | Comments (2)

How to Find All the HD Channels in Your Area: WhereIsHD.com

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Ever wonder how much HD is available in your zip code? Where Is HD.com is a website that has the answers. You type in your zip code, and the site lists all the digital channels available in your area. The info is broken up by individual cable companies, which is useful for comparison shopping when choosing a cable provider, or by local broadcast channels (the over the air channels picked up by antenna). The site also shows what percentage of each channel’s content comes in HD. An example screenshot of the site showing a Chicago zip code is featured below.

Filed in Antennas, Cable TV, Cable Television, HDTV, High Definition, OTA, OTA HD, Terrestrial television broadcasts, over the air | Comments (0)

Record Over-the-Air HD With Series 3 HD TiVO

Saturday, March 15, 2008

You don’t need to have HD cable television in order to record high def content with an HD TiVO. The Series 3 HD TiVO is capable of recording local HD broadcasts picked up from an antenna. In fact, local over-the-air HD might be the only HD version of some television shows or sporting events available to viewers. This can be the case when the local cable provider has not upgraded their infrastructure to supply the channel in HD. Many people could not watch the last Super Bowl in HD for this reason.

The wide availability and abundance of over-the-air HD content , and the fact that it’s free, is one reason for the recent surge in antenna sales, as noted in a recent Newsweek article. Over-the-air HD broadcasts also have less compression than cable HD content, which can be important when suffering the double whammy of the broadcaster’s compression and the TiVO’s compression.

If you don’t have cable television but receive enough local digital broadcast channels, the Series 3 TiVO is still a great purchase. It can increase the amount of HD content available to you whenever you want it. If you compare the long-term savings of dropping cable television against the cost of an HD TiVO along with a Blu-ray player and Netflix and an XBOX 360 or Apple TV, you’ll save money by going for a pay-per-content model rather than cable television’s subscription model. The HD TiVo also allows you to download some digital content as well when combined with an Internet connection.

Filed in OTA, OTA HD, Series 3 TiVO HD, Terrestrial television broadcasts, over the air, over the air HD | Comments (0)

Tip for New HDTV Owners: Adjust Settings of Peripherals

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Philips DVD Player Video Settings

If you are upgrading from a standard definition TV to an HDTV, it’s important to remember that your peripheral devices (like your DVD player) will need to be adjusted from the 4:3 aspect ratio of your standard def TV to the 16:9 aspect of your new widescreen HDTV. If you do not do this, you maybe get some strange visual effects such as a stretching effects on widescreen movies that makes the picture look like a fish eye lens. To adjust your settings, go into your DVD player’s (not your television’s) menu system. The picture above is the video settings menu for my Philips DVD player.

Filed in DVD, GV47L, GV47LF, GV52LF, Vizio GV47LF Picture Settings | Comments (0)

Tip for Vizio GV47LF Picture Settings

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Once you’ve found your optimized picture settings for the Vizio GV47LF, it’s important to note that those settings are not replicated for all inputs. For instance, if you adjust the color temperature while watching broadcast TV, the settings are not replicated for the component input (DVD player, etc). So, you must go to each input using your remote and adjust the settings manually. It does appear, however, that the “Advanced Picture Settings” stay consistent across all inputs.

I just found this out after having the Vizio for 7 months. The menu system gives no indication the settings are different between input and does not label the input settings when you access them. The television’s instruction booklet is kind of vague about this fact as well.

Check out my previous on calibrated picture settings for the Vizio GV47LF.

Filed in GV47L, GV47LF, GV52L, GV52LF, Picture Settings, V047L, Vizio settings | Comments (1)

Collection of Vizio VO47L HDTV Reviews

Sunday, March 2, 2008

I’ve put together a large collection of owner reviews from the AVS Forums Vo47LF thread, so there’s no need to cull through 15 pages of questions, troubleshooting, etc to see the reviews. Reviews are after the break.

Filed in GV47LF, V047L, V047L Review, V047LF Customer Reviews, VO47L, VO47LF, Vizio | Comments (7)

My Apple TV Take Two Review: Ripping DVDs, Creating a Media Library, and HD Downloads

Saturday, March 1, 2008

I recently purchased an Apple TV. I had a couple reasons for getting one. The first was to be able to create, maintain, and access a library of ripped movies and other video content on my television. I also wanted to be able to rent HD movies for my Vizio 47-inch HDTV (thus increasing my amount of HD content) and to have access to my iTunes library in my living room. Here’s a review of my experience with the Apple TV so far.

One of the first things I did with my Apple TV was rent an HD movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. My impression of the picture quality was that it looked great–definitely a high definition experience. I have seen plenty of OTA 720p and 1080i high def content, and it’s my amateur impression that there is no visible difference between Apple TV HD and OTA broadcast HD. I have recently read that many are questioning whether Apple HD movies can be truly called high definition because of the compression that is used on the video. An interesting read is George Ou’s article “Don’t Believe the Low Bit-rate Lie.” George Ou makes an interesting point about the bitrates of Apple HD and other download services being lower than that of even standard DVD discs (although different codecs are used for each, which create different bitrates. Apple’s HD codec is one of the best at giving the best picture at smaller bitrates). All I can say is that I cannot tell the difference between broadcast HD and Apple HD. Both look really good to me–way above the standard def experience.

The detail on Captain Barbossa’s face was impressive.

Creating a media library for the Apple TV was pretty easy. I use Handbrake, available on Mac, Windows, and Linux, to rip DVDs. There is an Apple TV preset to make ripping easy. One tip for using Handbrake is to select the “constant quality” check box, then change the percentage to around 70%. This will give you the best picture possible. However, it also increases the file size.

Handbrake with Apple TV Preset and Constant Quality Setting Adjusted

Apple TV preset and 70% constant quality

I store the movies on a 500 gb Western Digital My Book hard disk drive (cost me $130 at Costco). The disk drive is connected as an Air Disk (wireless storage) to my Airport Extreme 802.11n WiFi station, so there’s no need to connect it to the Apple TV or my computer. It is simply connected to the WiFi router in my den, and I rip movies to it over the WiFi connection.

Once the movies are ripped, I manually drag and drop them into MetaX, a Mac-only program that adds movie art from Amazon.com, movie descriptions, actors, and other information so it looks great when I browse through the movies on my Apple TV. MetaX will automatically add the movie to my iTunes library when it’s finished processing.

When added to my iTunes library on my computer, the Apple TV in my living room automatically begin synching the movie, and I can watch the movie immediately.

I use my MacBook laptop to rip the movies; it usually takes around two hours for each movie.

My Book and Airport Extreme

WD My Book, Aiport Extreme, MacBook, iPhone

I’ve also enjoyed now having access to my music library on my TV. It’s much easier for me to listen to music while working on a project or entertaining friends in the living room. One gripe I have is that the Apple Remote makes it difficult to navigate through huge lists; anyone with a decent music collection knows what I’m talking about. Apple TV tries to aid your search by having the screen scroll faster the longer you hold down the button, but it’s still an ugly way to navigate through huge lists. If Apple really wanted to improve on its remote control and menu navigation, it will release a touchscreen remote that syncs with the menu portion of Apple TV. Or better yet, write a program for my iPhone that allows it to transform into a remote control. *Update* Apple ended up doing just this with the iPhone Remote App. Looks like Apple was listening!.

I also like that album art is used as a screen saver. Album covers float lazily up the screen in 3D. A very nice polished touch.

I have a few other complaints about the Apple TV. One is that it did not come with component or HDMI cables. Apple’s being a little cheap and inconvenient there if you ask me. Also, downloads can be slow if you don’t have fast broadband. I have AT&T DSL (really, really sucks, I get well under 1 mb/s), so downloads take a lot longer for me than most. Also, most seem to agree the industry-standard 24-hour viewing time limit on downloaded rentals sucks (but apparently there’s a simple way around it).

Conclusion

So far, I’m totally impressed by the Apple TV. HD movies look great, the interface is fine, and Handbrake makes creating a media library easy. If you are looking to get rid of cable TV but still want to watch television, this is a great way to download and manage content. The 160 gig model is still a bit pricey for most people at $330 (I used my $100 iPhone credit on mine), but if you’re using it as a replacement for cable TV, it’s still a pretty compelling price.

Suggested links for Apple TV owners:

AppleTVJunkie.com - Find out every HD movie that Apple TV offers and what has just been added.

Handbrake - Rip DVD into an h.264 format compatible with Apple TV, contains an Apple TV preset.

MetaX - Add DVD covers and other information to your mp4 (h.264 files). Having DVD covers makes browsing movies on your Apple TV so much better. Watch a video demo for an example. It pulls information and movie art from Amazon.com and other sites.

Filed in Apple TV, Cable TV, Full High Definition, HDTV | Comments (10)