Remember 2006 HD debate?

[Data]

2006 was the year of HD.  If you went to go buy a monitor or television you would be faced with choices of maximum resolution, screen size, and quality of picture which now includes the necessity of the digital HDMI input.

Most people at the time  had 720 x 480 projection televisions in there living rooms and 1360 x 768 lcd monitors for their computer. 

Take a vivid DVD of the time such as The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  The DVD was 720 x 480 so you would have to play it on you're PC and sit up close to get the maximum visual effect.

2006 began a war between HD DVD and Bluray disks, both of which could display 1920 x 1080.  This introduced some new problems.  The first was which HDMI version you had.  It needed to be version 1.3 to display 1080P.  Version 1 only supplied data for 720P and 1080i.  The next problem was deciding on a television.  1080P monitors and televisions were all great when they were supplied with 1080 content which was only available through bluray but if you plug you're cable box in which barely supplied 720 x 480, it looked like garbage when it was stretched onto a 1080.

Satellite provider DirecTV had "HD" boxes which had digital HDMI outputs and up to 1080i resolution.  At the time National Geographic was one of the few channels which transmitted in either 720P or 1080i.

People in 2006 had to choose between CRT, flat panel LCD or Plasma.  Although 1080P televisions were available by mid 2006 many consumers would argue that 1080i is all they need and that 1080p is something for the distant future.  They would also be found bragging about their 195 pound 1080i Sony crt and then poo poo those that spend extra for a space saving flat panel.

Here is an example of three "True HD" televisions which were released in 2006

Sharp Aquos LC-42D62U - This had 2 HDMI inputs and a digital analogue tuner.  It was a 42 inch LCD 1080P and cost $2300
Pioneer PRO-HD1 This was the 1st plasma to support 1080P.  This 50 inch had 2 HDMI but no speakers and no tuner although the best quality picture for $8000
Samsung HL-S6187W  I heard some of these 1080P Rear Projection televisions are still going strong today.  Great picture and great sound.  They don't make them like this anymore. The 61 inch will set you back $2600

In 2007 I got a 27 inch Panasonic that supported 1080i and had 2 HDMI inputs which was a premium at the time and was still going for $1100 but it had a far superior image when compared to my old 1360 x 768 computer monitor. 

It wasn't until 2011 that I got a much larger monitor that was 1080P and Plasma.  I played the same DVD trilogy of Lord of the Rings on my new 50 inch and compared that to the 1080P digital copy of the bluray and was once again impressed with the visual gain.

[kitsunebi]

Yeah, it's funny.  I love playing old pixely EGA games just as much as I ever did, but when it comes to movies/TV (which I watch exclusively on a monitor connected to a laptop), I can't stand to watch anything that isn't at least 720p anymore.  If I was sitting further away and watching on a bigger screen, I'd probably be unsatisfied with anything other than 1080p.  And one day it'll be 4K.

 

[twiztor]

call me old fashioned, but a lot of what i watch are VHS rips. i have a 32" flat screen that i would guess is 720p as my main tv. i really couldn't care less about 4k or whatever. i still prefer dvds to blurays (cases look nicer lined up), except for the special features.

[te72]

My eyes aren't so great, so it's difficult for me to appreciate the advancements in modern displays. I will say the best aspect of Blu-ray in my opinion is the sound. I actually enjoy movies again after setting up a nice Klipsch home theater system that I let a good friend talk me into.

 

That said, I still have my 32" Sony CRT from 2002, it was 4:3, but would still display 1080i and 720p. I haven't used it for much in the last 8 years since getting an LCD, but I still like that old Sony. Sound was great, actually had an internal subwoofer! Kinda helps explain the 176 lbs that it weighs...

[Straydog]

It took a long for me to really come around to HD, the first HDtv I bought in late 2007 was only 720p and was honestly kind of a piece of crap, I remember never being as impressed by the picture quality as I expected to be.

However in early 2011 I bought my first 1080p television and that was much, much better.

Consequently though I hung onto my old CRT television which I still use for standard def consoles like the PS2.

[E-Day]

I don't think I got an HDTV until 2009, and it's the same one I have today. Now I'm looking at getting a 4K TV and moving my trusty HDTV to the basement.

[kitsunebi]

I haven't owned a TV since 2008.

Ever since I moved to Japan, I do all of my TV/movie watching and gaming on a PC.  The attached monitor is 1080p, but it isn't quite the same as a giant TV you watch from across the room.

[Areala]

My wife and I bought our home in 2009, and when we moved in, we picked up a new 50" HD TV. It only does 780p and 1080i, but I refuse to buy all my movies again just for a clearer picture, so I've avoided going to Blu-Ray with a couple of exceptions like "Planet Earth" (where you really do want to watch it in HD). My Blu-Ray player is just my PS3 with an HDMI cable, so it's not like I don't have a way to play them. We just have a lot of movies, and neither one of us is really a "graphics whore".

*huggles*
Areala

[te72]

I'm waiting on OLED tech to become a bit more reasonably priced (sub-$3000 for 65" class) before I finally upgrade. I used to get a new tv once every 6ish years, but I've been on the current set for 8 years now, and don't expect to be upgrading within the next year or two. The idea of a bigger tv introduces a bit of a conundrum in that I'd have to move my PC somewhere else, as it wouldn't fit where it is now if I went much bigger on the screen size. First world problems, I know...

 

Areala, no need to re-buy your movies on another format, but going forward with new purchases, I'd suggest it, particularly if you and the missus are audiophiles in any sense. The sound quality you get from Blu-ray is pretty awesome.

[kitsunebi]

22 hours ago, te72 said:

Areala, no need to re-buy your movies on another format, but going forward with new purchases, I'd suggest it, particularly if you and the missus are audiophiles in any sense. The sound quality you get from Blu-ray is pretty awesome.

Of course, that also requires an expensive (and possibly obtrusive) surround sound receiver/speaker system.  Just upgrading to bluray won't do anything without the proper equipment.  Also, the sound quality you get from any given disc is up to that disc's particular mix.  Some will sound awesome.  Some won't. 

It was the same with DVD.  Buying a surround sound system was the best upgrade I ever made during the DVD era, and gave a lot of movies a "movie-theater" feel.  But not every disc had a 5.1 mix, and even some of the ones that did weren't that great.  It varies by title.

Where I live currently, surround sound isn't practical.  The physical placement of the room and the monitor wouldn't allow for proper speaker placement, and the neighbors living on the other side of the wall certainly wouldn't appreciate any booming subwoofer explosions.

[te72]

2 hours ago, kitsunebi77 said:

Of course, that also requires an expensive (and possibly obtrusive) surround sound receiver/speaker system.  Just upgrading to bluray won't do anything without the proper equipment.  Also, the sound quality you get from any given disc is up to that disc's particular mix.  Some will sound awesome.  Some won't. 

You make a lot of good points. The visual quality isn't a HUGE improvement, at least to my eyes, and the sound is only gonna impress if you're willing to set up a surround sound system.

 

My old Sony setup, I picked it up for a reasonable price on Amazon shortly after buying my LCD, and realizing that thin tv sets have terrible speakers. It was a huge improvement over what came in the tv, and I was satisfied. It worked for the house we bought a couple years later, nothing too overpowering that the neighbors (rotten though they were) would have had trouble sleeping if we were watching a movie, so it was a good setup for the time. It has since been relegated to the garage now that we've moved into a standalone house.

 

On that note, depending on the construction density of your house or the distance between your property and your neighbors, that will dictate, along with room layout, as Kitsunebi points out, what to do about speakers. Our main living room is of decent size for about 5 to 6 people. The speaker setup my buddy talked me into is by Klipsch, and while it does take up some floor real estate, I couldn't be happier. The T-rex escape scene in Jurassic Park? It sounds every bit as thrilling as it did in theaters.

 

All that said, all depends on your desires and how much sound matters to you. For me, it's a big thing. Fortunately, speakers have come a long way, according to Crutchfield, even smaller speakers these days sound very convincing if you don't have the space for floor standing speakers...

 

As for me, one of these days I would like to have a Klipsch THX system in the basement, once I figure out how to sound proof the walls and ceiling.

[MisterXiado]

I still don't have an HDTV. The only TV I own is a decent CRT that has been under one of my desks for almost a decade, which I keep just in case I want to play a lightgun game or something. I've been using capture cards for ten years to watch tapes and laserdiscs, and to play any game systems that aren't HDMI capable. I even have to split off the audio while using HDMI as I use HDMI to DVI to play the stuff on my monitor. A TV could be useful to me, but I just CBA to buy one as I never watch TV.

[te72]

Raijin, you sound a bit like me in a sense. I used to hook my computer up through a VGA to DVI adapter to my aforementioned Sony CRT, since I never really had a proper monitor for the computer, just always hooked to the TV. Man, this makes me realize how great HDMI is. Not a fan of a couple aspects of it, but in general, it's a standard that is very widely accepted. No longer do you need to deal with a multitude of monitor hook ups, many of which I've forgotten the names over the years. RGA, VGA, EGA(?), RGB, coax, composite, component, YPB, etc, etc... I like the idea of only needing one cable to hook it all up.

 

Which brings me to a similar, if opposite point: I have a TV, but I treat it exclusively as a monitor. It's never had cable or any of that nonsense hooked up to it, just my computer and gaming systems.