Video HDTV Expert Alfred Poor Tells You What to Buy and What Not to Buy (Video) 324
Video no longer available.
Alfred Poor's website is called HDTV Almanac. That's where he talks about the latest HDTV industry news and changes. He also writes about HDTVs and monitors for a variety of industry publications and does some marketing consulting for manufacturers in the field. In this 17 minute video, Alfred tells us what features we should look for in our next TV buy and which ones aren't worth spending extra money on. He also says that for a variety of non-technical reasons, you might want to consider buying your next TV between now and June -- and says you should think about getting a 3D TV even if there aren't many 3D TV shows you want to watch right now.
Listen to what I have to say (Score:4, Funny)
BUY BUY BUY!!!!
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People are going to buy anyways. No one actually needs to tell consumers to consume. Supply attempts to meet demand.
Most new TV products, like all new products, attempt to come in with all the bells and whistles at a given price point; unless you are prepared to do the research yourself then you're like most people wanting an expert to break it down and allow us to make an informed decision. This does of course introduce another point of failure, the expert. Which expert to listen to?
At the end of the day,
Re:Listen to what I have to say (Score:5, Insightful)
>People are going to buy anyways. No one actually needs to tell consumers to consume. Supply attempts to meet demand.
Many people would disagree with you. The US consumer confidence index, while in the rise, has been pretty damned low for the past few years. Unfortunately, the US economy is largely reliant on rampant consumerism. Lack of consumer confidence means consumers are less likely to spend money, less spending of money by consumers is bad for the US economy.
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The only part of Keynesian economics that has a bad track record is the part where you're supposed to build up a surplus in the boom times in order to pay for the deficit in bad times. Governments, under the proddings of the Wold Bank, et. al., tend to try it the other way around.
Re:Listen to what I have to say (Score:5, Insightful)
My god guys, that is abstract. Let me explain how people in the real world buy a TV using myself as an example.
So last october ye olde magnavox 25-year old CRT in the living room started giving weird colors, seems the red gun is going out, and also its having some convergence problems, and occasionally some HV probs. The TV is dead! The TV is dead! Oh no the TV is dead! (or terminal, anyway) Off we go to Best Buy with a budget, and we spent what we budgeted. I was completely uninterested in the bells and whistles, all I wanted was a really big monitor with VGA and/or HDMI input from my mythtv box (most people would use a cablebox, eh, same difference) so I got a somewhat featureless TV that is larger than a feature-ful TV at the same price.
I did not bother trying to debate Keynesian economics with a wife going thru reality TV withdrawl. And frankly I also missed the women in bikinis suntanning on Survivor.
Re:Listen to what I have to say (Score:5, Insightful)
When they figure out how to do 3D TV's which don't require that I wear clunkly glasses and keep my head perfectly level, I'll consider buying a 3D TV. Until then, the 42" LG flatscreen that I bought 5 years ago works perfectly well. It does 1080p, the picture is bright enough and clear enough, and it has 2 component video inputs and 3 HDMI, which is better than a lot of TV's on the market today.
For the foreseeable future, I don't see any reason to replace it unless it decides to shuffle off its mortal coil.
Re:Listen to what I have to say (Score:5, Informative)
Given the size of my living room, a 720p 50" Sony I bought years ago is doing just fine. It doesn't need 1080p, because at the distance I'm sitting from it, the eye can't tell the difference anyways.
http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html [carltonbale.com]
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it's about the amount of sensory information being displayed and the fact that it is moving. A pimple may show up in the 1080p source but not in the 720p source.
I'm fine with not seeing the pimple, really.
Seriously though, a pimple may not show up in one frame but as you said, the images are moving, which means in aggregate, the pimple WILL be shown and visible, and if it's so small that it's disappearing from some frames, then it's on a face so far back from the zero plane that I really don't give a rat's
Re:Listen to what I have to say (Score:5, Informative)
The rest of your description is likewise meaningless. At 12 feet from the TV on a 50" screen, you CAN NOT physically tell the difference. It is impossible, your eyes don't have the resolution to handle it, and telling yourself otherwise is like telling yourself you need some $10,000 ethernet cables [amazon.com] for your home network too.
This is not true. The acuity numbers you base this on (from the article linked earlier) are related to vision tests like you might undergo at an optometrist, where the measure is the smallest size text you are able to read at a given distance. "Nominal" vision in this case is 20/20, which means that the subject can resolve letters 20mm high at a distance of 20 feet - this is where the 1 arc-minute of visual acuity your linked article mentions appears to come from (and never mind that people have been measured with vision down to 20/8, which would reduce this significantly - about 0.4 arc-minutes).
This is useful information, but it doesn't actually mean what you seem to be claiming - that we can see no difference in features smaller than this, and any greater resolution is wasted. In tests where subjects are assessing whether two lines line up, acuity down to about 8 arc-seconds has been observed, which is actually better resolution than the physical receptors on the retina. Similarly, a single dark line against an evenly illuminated background can be observed down to a limit of about 0.5 arc-seconds, much finer than the physical detectors in the eye.
This isn't to say that we need displays capable of sub-1 arc-second resolution, but human vision is far more complicated than you make it out to be. Saying that there is no difference between a 720p display and a 1080p display at x distance and size because the pixels are too small to be individually resolved (based on results from a test for resolving letters) is simply not true. Most people probably can detect a difference, even if the difference is too small for them to really notice in moving pictures (or are just not bothered by it). Claiming that no one can see any difference and therefore anyone who doesn't follow that simplistic chart is an idiot is, simply, false.
Re:Listen to what I have to say (Score:4, Interesting)
So the issue is not so much whether there is some fixed line that divides Acceptable Image Quality from Not Acceptable. I accept that this is a moving target for many good reasons that make the boundary conditions difficult (probably impossible) to identify with precision. Instead, I'd argue that having a general, fuzzy approximation is better than having none at all, and that while the 1 arc-minute "conventional wisdom" is limited, it probably does okay as a rule of thumb to get closer than an order of magnitude from the optimal choice.
Translation: listen to the experts and the reviews and all, but trust your eyes. Go to the store and look at the screens, and decide for yourself how big a screen you need to have so that you can see the fine detail when you're as far from it as you will be in your living room. Nothing beats the Mark II Eyeball as a predictor of future satisfaction.
Alfred Poor
HDTV Almanac
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Re:Listen to what I have to say (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt very much he has his 50" TV on his lap.
Seriously, why do people find the fact that the eye's resolving power is measured in seconds of arc so difficult to comprehend? You need to know number of dots, screen size AND viewing distance to make any meaningful statements.
And that goes double for the "photographers" who think you need Z number of megapixels for an X x Y print.
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Not really. Unless you're dealing with billboards or something similarly unusual in which distance from the print is forced by the display environment, 99% of the time, people are going to get fairly close to your prints. Thus, it is not unreasonable to require a certain minimum DPI regardless of print size, based on the assumption that some people will be viewing it at a typical reading distance of a
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exactly. it's almost beyond comedy to act like buying anything *now* is ever good advice.
In addition we have 4K tv's on the way. Wouldn't a better time to buy a TV be right when 4K TV's become widespread and relevant 1080P TV's become cheap as dirt?
Room in the OAM spectrum for 4K? (Score:2)
Wouldn't a better time to buy a TV be right when 4K TV's become widespread and relevant 1080P TV's become cheap as dirt?
Not if A. your TV just failed, or B. you're trying to put together a home theater PC with the latest version of XBMC and you've discovered that it doesn't have a composite output and your existing 480i TV doesn't have a VGA or HDMI input. And I don't see 4K (i.e. 2160p) TVs becoming widespread for a long time. There isn't enough room in the OTA spectrum for 4K, and people with old TVs don't want to have to buy yet another converter box to downscale 4K broadcasts to 2K (i.e. 1080p).
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Re:Room in the OTA spectrum for 4K? (Score:3)
4K on the way (Score:5, Informative)
Alfred Poor
HDTV Almanac
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Re:4K on the way (Score:4, Insightful)
Alfred Poor
HDTV Almanac
Re:4K on the way (Score:4, Informative)
Not all of the LM9600, only the 84 inch.
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Re:Listen to what I have to say (Score:4, Informative)
I've found the tunable 3rd party glasses (Monster MV3D or XPAND X104) require significantly less head leveling. FWIW.
(BTW if you are buying for 3D, DLP is the better performer in this space, despite what manufacturers say about their LED/LCD/Plasma refresh rates. Problem being you can no longer get a DLP set smaller than huge.)
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Dual DLP projectors with a 3D separation box (there are several) is even nicer, but you'll have to align the two images very well.
Re:Listen to what I have to say (Score:4, Insightful)
3D is a gimmick, just like it always has been up to this point. I'll invest in 3D when we're seeing true 3-dimensional holography without the need for special glasses, and it doesn't seem like that's going to be anytime soon...
Plus I always get headaches after a couple hours of watching 3D content, so I avoid it in the theater whenever I can. The only film I even care to see in 3D at this point is The Hobbit [imdb.com], and that's not so much because it's 3D in itself but because I've been watching the behind the scenes footage of their technical setup [youtube.com] and am interested to see the difference in quality compared to the typical shit-tastic, fake 3D slapped on top of a 2D movie, Hollywood crap.
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Even though 3D is a gimmick, 3D sets are still a good idea to buy due to response time.
For 3D to work, the pixel response time has to be VERY fast. So you are guaranteed a set with very good response time if you buy one that has 3D ability. Even if you never use the 3D ability, you will benefit!
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Maybe it is psychosomatic, I don't know, either way, coming out of a movie theater with a pounding headache and then having to jump in the car and drive home isn't very fun. Standard movies don't give me headaches like that. I suspect it has something to do with the flickering of the light coming in the sides of the lenses (since the movie has to be twice as bright due to the way polarized 3D works), but I don't know for sure, I'm not a doctor.
As for 3D TVs, honestly I think the TV industry is just trying
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The problem isn't technological. I'll buy a 3DTV when they discover a way for 3D to actually be an important part of the story and to move the story (and my emotions) in ways that regular 2DTV cannot. So far, they have not been able to do it at the movie theaters so my expectation is that they will not be able to do this for quite some time.
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Right now we have a similar thing happening on
Re:Listen to what I have to say (Score:5, Insightful)
"You might want to consider" is about the same as "If you're in the market" plus a little of "Take a moment and think about if your wife has been complaining about something with the TV."
If you are in the market, and especially if you are in the market and don't realize it, this is probably great advice. If you are not in the market, even the normally terrible summary doesn't tell you to buy one, only consider it.
I don't understand the knee-jerk "It works for me" replies to any 3D TV story. I'm interested, I don't have one yet, and having this guy's opinion gives me more info to base my decision on.
In other words, if your needs are fulfilled right now, you are very likely not the target audience.
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Re:Listen to what I have to say (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, most modern 3D technology does not require you to keep your head perfectly level. Older 3D glasses that used linear polarization showed crosstalk if you tipped your head but this is not the case with the modern technology. "Active" (shutter) glasses (the somewhat clunky ones) work perfectly well with moderate tips of the head, although your brain gets confused if you tip your head completely sideways (because the parallax is not in the direction that your brain expects from the position of your eyes). Most modern passive 3D systems use circular polarization, which is similarly insensitive to head angle.
Re:Listen to what I have to say (Score:5, Funny)
For the best experience in mortal coil shuffling, I recommend Monster Cable brand mortal coil. It's death contacts are gold tipped, because that matters to digital mortal coil shuffling just as much as analog mortal coil shuffling.
Total binspam - why was this even posted? (Score:5, Informative)
BTW - this guy is no expert.
Who submitted this shite anyway? Oh, there was no submitter - it's a slashvertisement brought to you by roblimo. Can we have a way to down-mod stories? We've only been asking for that for years and years and years now. It would be better than those stupid anti_social_media buttons.
Re:Total binspam - why was this even posted? (Score:4, Interesting)
Screw 3D movies, bring 3D games! (Score:3, Insightful)
I have tested NVIDIA 3D technology with some games at it's awesome! The effect is even more real because you are actually interracting with the world. For example Left4Dead is great with 3D glasses. Now we just need more support from game developers.
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I played Crysis 2 on the Xbox at a friend's house. He has a Samsung 3D TV using powered glasses (I don't know the tech involved, but they were not shutter glasses, apparently they send some sort of pulse through the lense) that were very comfortable.
Anyway, I nearly creamed myself. It is a crazy experience playing a FPS, looking down the iron sights and target being away there, in the distance, really...
The TV (I don't know the exact model) had it's own native conversion process for other games which worked
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Now we just need more support from game developers.
The benefit games have is the 3D information was already there, even retroactively, so it could instantly work on a bunch of older titles.
It would be nice if NVidia would support OpenGL 3D-vision in games (again?). I've heard older drivers could do this but have never found any workable solution for current drivers.
Each game would still have to be patched (Score:2)
The benefit games have is the 3D information was already there, even retroactively
But even if the information is there, it's not automatically extractable. Because each game has its own unit scale (one may use inches, another centimeters, another meters), a driver doesn't necessarily know the appropriate inter-pupil distance in game units, which rules out automatically changing the view frustum for both left and right eye views. Worse, some may use more than one scale in the same scene (one for the playfield, another for the skybox, another for the HUD), which rules out even setting one
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Even though in theory it should work perfectly since your 3D card knows all of the information it needs to send proper 3D to the glasses, game deve
3D Display... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:3D Display... (Score:5, Interesting)
My dad has always been a 3D nutter; he even constructed his own 3D digital camera around ten years ago (consisting of TWO digital cams, measuring the exact distance from each other/shot timing and put onto a homemade wood frame. The images were run through a program on the computer that arranged them to make the pictures viewable through a classic stereoscopic viewer). While he has the new technology, the 3D TV, manufactured digital cams, etc., he has that complex... only it's been a lifetime love affair, organic, geeked-out and really cool to grow up with. :)
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3D TV doesn't really effect most people because most people don't watch TV like they do movies. They watch TV slightly distracted.
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3D wasn't expensive to develop at all, that's the lie.
3D is just a high refresh rate and an IR transmitter sync'd to vsync to flip which image each eye sees.
This isn't high tech, it was done long ago, including in video games in the early 90's.
Posting under top comment for exposure (Score:5, Informative)
No more advertising videos.
TFS Saved Me 17 Minutes (Score:5, Insightful)
Alfred Poor...says you should think about getting a 3D TV... .
Thank you summary, you just saved me 17 minutes by letting me know that Alfred Poor is a tool.
Re:TFS Saved Me 17 Minutes (Score:5, Insightful)
There are certainly a lot of things i'd like to know about which specs and features i needed to worry about and which i don't, i certainly did a lot of research on it the last time i bought a tv, but the first thing i put in the "just a marketing gimick that i don't care about" is 3D. I say this as someone who owns a 3DS and and never gets headaches from it. 3D works for me just fine, i just don't give a damn most of the time. And from what i've gathered from talking to other people i'm far from the only one. So the fact that this guys is pushing it makes me doubt everything else he has to say.
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I recently bought a hdtv.
It's got 3d. I got no intention of using it. but the electronics needed for it.. well, they're not really that much. if the tv has fast enough refresh, it can do 3d with very little extra circuitry. In other words it would have been hard for me to find a set like the one I bough without 3d and that doesn't bother me too much. It was pretty cheap, imagine is nice. big enough.
everything is going to be cheaper in a year though. but this video? could have been one paragraph of text...
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In other words it would have been hard for me to find a set like the one I bough without 3d and that doesn't bother me too much. It was pretty cheap, imagine is nice. big enough.
everything is going to be cheaper in a year though. but this video? could have been one paragraph of text...
Tvs come with imagination now? I guess it is good that it has a big enough imagination too, wouldn't want a tv that couldn't imagine enough things. That has got to make watching them a bit odd. I agree that text would have sufficed, that is what imagination is for.
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If you play video games, there are a lot of 3D video games (on the PS3 at least), whether you want 3D for TV or not. Some of them are headache inducing personally, like Motorstorm Apocalypse and others are beautiful like Uncharted 3. YMMV.
TL;DR (Score:3)
In a couple of lines, what does he say?
Re:TL;DR (Score:5, Informative)
In a couple of lines, what does he say?
Please buy the TVs whose manufacturers pay me more $$$ for.
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Re:TL;DR (Score:5, Informative)
Armchair expert says buy "through my site" (Score:5, Interesting)
This is some guy with a website, with a dull and poorly produced video telling you to buy stuff. I stopped when I got to the part where it says that most people buy smaller TVs than they "need". N-E-E-D.
Now, if he said "people buy smaller TVs than would be AWESOME", okay, fine. But this is basically crass consumerism pumped up by guy who isn't an "industry expert" but rather someone who worked for a crappy rah-rah-buy-stuff computer magazine for 20 years and is trying to trade on that to get some money. That's not wrong in itself, but it sure does translate to being a slashvertisement here.
Two thumbs down.
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No, you need that tv; just like you need a new car today; just like you need a smart phone.
Just like you need Brawndo, remember, It Has Electrolytes!
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Didn't watch, but he's saying people buy smaller TVs than they need? Most of the TVs that I see for sale these days are 40" or larger. As someone who had a 19" TV for several years and felt lucky for it, I feel downright decadent with my 32" LCD TV, which is now several years old.
Even setting aside the question of whether anyone "needs" a TV, nobody needs a 40" TV. It's all luxury.
Re:Armchair expert says buy "through my site" (Score:4)
Modded +5? Two thumbs down.
Rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)
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3D is worthless to me... (Score:5, Informative)
Due to a (somewhat) rare eyesight condition, 3D doesn't work on me. I have two working eyes, just one doesn't see as well as the other so my vision is way off balanced to the right. I am also fairly near-sighted. Day-to-day, this causes me absolutely no trouble at all. I can't wear glasses (doesn't help), so I make do with just getting closer to things.
Anyhoo, it never stopped me from being able to use a computer. Standard font sizes on standard monitors were fine, I could read them just fine. However, as displays have gotten higher and higher resolutions, I'm finding it harder and harder to read them. My eyesight hasn't got any worse, it's just that things are getting smaller.
Despite all of the advances in Technology for the differently abled, such as DPI settings in windows, it doesn't actually help. Adjusting DPI breaks so many apps that it's more trouble than it's worth. 3D seems to be the big new thing everyone wants you to buy and I can only pray that it fails so badly, people just give up trying to sell it. I worry because if 3D becomes the "standard", there's possibly going to be a shift towards content that is only /i>3D, in much the same way that content has shifted to "HD everything", meaning I'm screwed.
So, for little ol' me, don't buy into 3D. Please.
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adjusting dpi in windows is nowadays almost flawless for me, certainly more useful than it's trouble. the only thing is that some crappy programs like gimp need to be adjusted(from run properties) to not use pixel doubling(works fine with pixel doubling.. but.. it's a drawing program so).
only with very few old programs, usually installers, there is problems. usually very poorly written programs. with them you sometimes can't reach buttons because they're so far in the window.
(one trick to avoid pixel doubli
Re:3D is worthless to me... (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed, it's a lot better than it used to be but I still have a major program that doesn't like it - Visual Studio.
Now the funny thing is, it's "DPI-Aware" and the interface is, mostly, fine. The problem is the Windows Form Designer. It works, but the results on my screen differ from a non-DPI adjusted screen. So simple things, like lining up a bunch of text boxes so they're straight (and thus visually appealing) just doesn't work, not unless whoever runs the program is running the same DPI settings. Oddly enough, if a program is designed with DPI set to the default, on my DPI-adjused screen it's still fine. It makes no sense, really.
When I encounter a program that doesn't adjust correctly (as you said, often older or badly written programs), you can disable all DPI scaling easily enough but VS completely ignores these settings.
I'm lucky in that I have a decent sized monitor - 22", but at 1080p I find it just about uncomfortable to use. I only need about a 10% increase to be comfortable with it, but that's just enough to break things. I have a 24" monitor at home that's 1200p (1920x1200) and it's perfect for me. I'm saddened that you can't find 16:10 monitors any more because of this.
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The content should not worry you too much. There are some cinematic effects that producers simply won't use in a 3D movie because they don't come over well in 3D, so those will be missing from the cinematic bag of tricks, but it is hard to imagine a 3D production that won't be watchable in 2D without ruining it.
Where you need to worry is in the lack of 2D viewing equipment. People with your types of conditions need to start pummeling the TV manufacturers and theaters publicly, because they have stopped pr
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You're quite right, it's the equipment that's the issue rather than the content. I guess what I'm (poorly) trying to say is that I'm worried 3D will become the "standard" much like HD has, whereby there's no "off" switch because why wouldn't people want the better picture?
3D glasses aren't actually a problem. They simply don't "work" on me, I see the same image with or without the glasses (or rather, if I watch the 2D version it's the same for me, as 3D-without-the-glasses is of course all blurry). I've tes
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Why thank you for that insightful input. It's funny, though, in my experience the ones that stay sick are the ones that completely ignore the advice of doctors and trained professionals. You know, the ones that have spent years and years practising and learning their craft.
But hell, don't just take my word for it - have a look at what others with the same condition as myself have to say:
http://www.nystagmusnet.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5516 [nystagmusnet.org]
Oh what's that, not a single reply from someone saying that
Blu-Ray vs. DVD (Score:5, Insightful)
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You can tell even more of a difference if you were to sit closer. you are sitting outside the window that physics dictates, but then you might be a superhero that has laser vision.
99% of people CANT tell the difference between a clean SD signal and a 1080p signal on a 42" beyond 12 feet. And I am betting that you would have trouble if someone were to show you a very clean superBit DVD and the bluray of the same content.
Re:Blu-Ray vs. DVD (Score:4, Informative)
BUT YOU NEED TO BE READY FOR 3D (Score:5, Insightful)
you need to buy a 3D TV for the most money even though there is little media for it and even though they will be a lot cheaper in a few years when or if there is more media just to be ready for the media. remember you won't be able to buy a 3D TV in a few years when the 3D media arrives so you have to buy it now just to be ready for the arrival
anyone remember maximum PC 15 years ago? they were saying the same thing. buy expensive crap before there is any media just to "be ready". like the hardware is not going to be cheaper when the media arrives. i see the same nonsense now about the upcoming 4K TV's
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Before I read the comments I was guessing reasons to buy now might include things like, "Get 3D now before it's got twice the DRM packed in with it." or 'Ideally you should get a new TV before June because that is when they are releasing the TVs with hidden cameras that send data back to 3rd parties." Instead it sounds like he's simply saying buy 3d now so I get a larger bonus.
I can believe there are sometimes reasons to buy early even if later prices will come down but it doesn't sound like this guy has an
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And worse, you are never really ready. People with laser disk are still waiting for their content and people with first gen *anything* have to buy a third/fourth gen of the same gadget when the content is available (I fell for that, I have this nice Marrantz DVD player, that can only read the DVD from 10 years ago, not the bulk of the DVD created later).
Also happened with the tech itself: "upgradable" motherboard as long as socket, base frequencies, multiplicator, port, ram, or disk tech do not change in t
wth (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are going to post "advertorial" content SLASHDOT, at least mark it as such. I just lost some respect for this site.
Non-technical reasons between now and June? (Score:2)
So, like many others I'm sure, I can't be asked to watch the video... but I'm curious as to what these non-technical reasons are for buying a new TV before June. Anybody care to list them?
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the 2012 models will ship in volume later in the summer so you can pick up a 2011 model on sale
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Ah, thank you :)
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ive looked at TV prices for myself and others and in the june/july/august time frame there is a lot of discounting. usually manufacturers will run specials with a retailer at a time over a few weeks
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Didn't watch the video, but from a few comments here I think it's summed up in one word:
sports
In other words, no one with a brain need care.
Because intelligent people neither have played nor are interested in watching sports.....
Okay, so someone link to some good advice then? (Score:4, Interesting)
Everybody seems to be bashing this guy as some kind of shill, could some of those same folks please point out some advice that they *would* give credence to?
Re:Okay, so someone link to some good advice then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's my advice:
1: Current TV broken?
2: Yes? -> Buy one that suits your current needs. If it costs over $1000, reevaluate concept of "wants" and "needs". Buy it (you were going to anyway). GOTO 1.
3: No? -> Wait until it breaks. GOTO 1.
Shop for Deals (Score:4, Informative)
Sales pitch for 3D? (Score:2)
There is no real technical information here, this video is targeted to the standard consumer, not a slashdot reader.
What I find most offensive though, is that you get 3/4 of the way in before you realize this is really a sales pitch for 3D. Yes, he really wants us to buy 3D so the installed base gets bigger and more content is available. Sorry. I wear glasses, I will never sit down and watch a 3D movie. I just don't care about 3D, nor do I see any sense in spending the extra money for a 3D set. It doesn't m
HD4K2K (Score:2)
Horrendously expensive at present like $55k for a 3m screen but prices will drop with Moore's law regularity
2160p OTA? (Score:2)
some sport this year is being recorded in HD4K2K so are most movies
How many Mbps does 2160p video take, and can it fit into an 18 Mbps broadcast channel?
So.... (Score:2)
Having a blog makes you an "expert" now.
Glad to know the bar is lowered a lot for expert status.
3D may never be worth it (Score:3, Interesting)
Buy a TV? (Score:2)
People talking about buying 3d or any television because they need it? Frankly, my television is sitting in the corner and hasn't been turned on in 2-3 years. What need is there for a television? I don't see the need to buy DRM encumbered technology, which is what I understand tvs are these days. So really, I doubt anyone "needs" to buy a television. Food on the other hand...
Consider it a different way, if the guy was saying I need a new computer, when my current system works fine and beyond that t
Strange for slashdot (Score:2)
Transcript (Score:5, Informative)
TItle: Industry Expert Alfred Poor Gives HDTV Buying Advice
Description: There are features you need and some you don't
[00:00] <TITLE>
A "Slashdot TV" logo appears in the bottom left with "An Interview with Alfred Poor of HDTV Almanac" to its right.
"What mistakes do / people make when / they buy an HDTV?" zooms into view.
[00:04] Alfred>
The biggest one they make of all is not buying [...]
[00:06] <TITLE>
A webcam picture of Alfred Poor fades into view.
[...] the right size TV.
A lot of people were trained - I don't know about you, but I was trained, growing up, to not sit too close to the TV - it's going to ruin your eyes.
In fact, I was taught: hold your palm out so that if it covers up the screen, then you're at the right distance.
That's great for the old-fashioned standard definition TV but it's not the right move at all for HDTV.
I try to tell people to think in terms of going to the movies; You don't sit all the way in the back of the theater so that you can cover up your screen with your hand - You want an immersive experience, where you're enveloped by the image.
That's the same thing you want at home.
For most people, they typically get a screen that's a lot smaller than what they really should have.
There are a lot of rules of thumb out there - some of them are wrong, but they basically.. if you're gonna be sitting about 6 feet away, you need at least a 42" screen.
A 47" screen would be even better.
So, that's one of the big mistakes that people make.
Now the prices have come down so much that a larger screen doesn't cost that much more.
So I encourage people to buy probably the next size up from what they they ought to get.
[01:22] <TITLE>
"Are HDTV prices going / to keep on going down?" fades in and out of view. These titles appear throughout the video.
[01:28] Alfred>
Actually, the story is that the prices have been coming down very steadily.
They've been coming down almost 20%/year, for the last 4 or 5 years.
If there's one business that I would not want to be in, it would be manufacturing HDTVs.
It's a brutal, brutal business.
We've seen Pioneer get out of it.
Panasonic is backpedaling, even though they have this huge commitment to plasma screens.
SONY is trying to figure out how not to make their own anymore, just job it all out to somebody else in China.
Philips doesn't make 'm anymore - they've just loaned the name to somebody else to stick on their sets.
On and on and on - it's a brutal, brutal business.
We've got Samsung, we've got LG - you've got a handful who are doing a good job of making a go at it, but they're probably losing a lot of money on it also.
So the price has been coming down pretty steadily.
Will they keep coming down?
Well, each year I say they just can't keep coming down any more than they have, just because you get all the materials' cost.
And yet, they continue to do so.
I think it's gotta slow down - I think we're probably getting near the bottom.
If we see cuts at this point, it'll be more due to distress than increased efficiency.
It will be because there'll be either retailers or manufacturers who are stuck with inventory and trying to get some cash out of it, rather than sit there having to pay interest on the inventory.
Though having said that, we're gonna see a bunch of good opportunities, probably in the next 3 or 4 months, to get some very good deals on HDTVs.
Sears has announced that they're gonna be closing a whole lot of stores, and that could put a whole lot of product into the channel at low prices as they try to liquidate some of that inventory.
Each store is gonna have several of each model on hand.
So you're talking about hundreds of sets right there.
If Sears starts advertising prices that are way low, well Best Buy, Costco, they're gonna have to follow them right down into the mountain, so that they don't give up market share.
[03:44] <TITLE>
What's the HDTV
[switches on TV] (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Football? (Score:4, Informative)
Either:
a North American game in which a ball is normally carried by hand and passed from hand-to-hand;
The North American game ("Gridiron Football") is so named because when the game was invented, the ball was 12 inches (1 foot) long from tip to tip. The modern ball is 11.5 inches because it makes the forward pass easier.
or:
a rest-of-the-world game in which a ball is controlled and passed by use of foot or head.
The game you're talking about ("Association Football") gets its name from being played on foot. (As opposed to on horseback, like polo.)
Re: (Score:2)
Although the accepted etymology of the word football, or "foot ball", originated in reference to the action of a foot kicking a ball, this may be a false etymology. An alternative, controversial, explanation has it that the word originally referred to a variety of games in medieval Europe, which were played on foot.
The term football was already in use far before (at least 1424) the invention of American football (mid 1800s), so it seems much more likely to get its name from there instead of from the size of the ball, especially considering the game evolved from other football games.
Re: (Score:2)
If I recall, Slashdot said "sponsored" Slavertisments would be clearly marked.