Questions about HDTV's?

Question

1.) When tv's are upgraded, such as samsung A650 to A750, what are the main things that change? yes of course new style and higher contrast, is there anything else?

2.) What is 3d ready?

I just transferred to TV sales at Fry's Electronics, I learned ALOT my first week, I'm just trying to gain some knowledge that the salesmen havent shwed me yet. Is there any other interesting things I should know?

Answer 1

1.) The difference is largely in the chip that actually processes the image and coloring.  You'll notice more color accuracy on the A750.

2.)  Mitsubishi is supposedly releasing a 3d video format that makes an image pop-out at you visually sometime later this year or early next year.  As of now it is a perfectly useless selling point on a tv.

By the way, know that contrast ratio is a practically useless number when comparing color quality on televisions.

Answer 2

720p is broadcast at 60 frames/images per second.

1080i is broadcast at 30 frames/images per second.

A 1080 picture has higher resolution, but 720 is better for fast action like sports.  FOX, ABC, and ESPN use 720p.

Bluray can send at 1080p which is 60 frames / images per second, but broadcast at 1080i is stuck at 30.

You can see a 3D image if each of your eyes sees a slightly different image.  One way to do a 3D movie will have you wearing a pair of glasses with each lens coated with a polarized film, and each lens is rotated 90 degrees from the other.  A 3D TV will have 3 colors at each pixel for your left eye of one type of polarized light for one lens and 3 colors at each pixel for your right eye  of the other type of polarized light.  Voila, you get 3D when the two light sources mix.

Also learn about calibrating the TV sets for brightness and contrast.  There's only one correct setting.  Brightness is like the gain of the video signal and contrast is the offset.  If the video signal had numbers from 1-10, you'd want the contrast to center the signal at 5 with the brightness large enough to show the full range from 1-10.  You can make the brightness larger by adjusting it but any number larger than 10 (or lower than 1) will only show up as a 10 (or 1) and you wouldn't see it accurately.  If the contrast is off a bit and the brightness is correct, your scale may be set to something like 2-11 which your TV can only show as 2-10.  You don't see signal level 11 and the dark potential (low numbers) isn't taken advantage of because the signal never got to 1.  Brightness and contrast are iterative adjustments.  If you tweak one, you have to go back and adjust the other.

Check out the THX Optimizer on any DVD title showing the THX logo.  It's in the setup menu.  For contrast, there are eight different shades of white. The correct setting is when you can just barely see them all.  For brightness, there is a pattern of 10 black boxes of different shades.  The correct setting is the one when you can just barely see the 7th one.   Remember to go back and forth between the two tests and make sure they are both correct.  You want to test the TV for the condition of light in which it will be finally used and the TV needs to be warmed up first.

There's also a test for color, but to do it properly you need a filter to match the blue content of the magenta and cyan patterns.

Answer 3

Fry's is my favorite store. I spent around $6K at Fry's this year.