Official Thread for Starhub HDTV Trial...

[oliverlim]

 

In short, all I was trying to say before some of you guys had to pick nits, for those who are itching to buy an HDTV screen today, IMHO HDMI 1.3 should not be something to hold your breath for. Go for the glory of HD. There are a million things that are coming, including 4-color LCDs, super High Dynamic Range LCD panels (how does a CR of 20K:1 or even 100K:1 on a consumer panel sound?), OLED screens which draw so little power and has all the advantages of plasma and LCD without the limitations, etc.

 

Where to draw the line? Simple: is the technology today good enough and cheap enough to take the plunge? My submission is yes - the amoi 37" is the first example: full HD res, super good price, even light distribution, incredible resolution, and got some chiong faroudja inside for some form of DCDi.

 

 

 

At the end of the day it is still up to personal preferences.  I still find that current LCD display still lose out in terms of blacks.  They may have found ways to increase the contrast by increasing white. But how bright can you increase contrast before it becomes too bright to watch even with normal living room lights?  thats why for me now, if I were get a LCD or Plasma, it would still be plasma due to black levels.  the thing I like about LCD is that the screen is much less reflective. Surprise that you LCD lovers did not mention this.  Also on power consumption, The top end Plasma brands like Pio/Pana/Hit, consumption of energy is about the same as most LCD models on the market.  You cannot just show the full consumption as a picture is never all white. So on a average picture, there is somthing like 30% brightness only which means that a average Plasma display will draw about the same as a average LCD of the same size.  There is a thread in AVSforum where many showed their power consumption of both LCD and plasma and they draw about the same when they ran them through 3-4 hours of TV programs.

 

Oliver

[varun1624705824]

 

the thing I like about LCD is that the screen is much less reflective.

 

 

This, in fact, is the key reason I went for LCD instead of plasma, despite acknowledging that the colours in a good plasma may be a lot more natural. I simply CANNOT stand the reflections on CRT and plasma screens.

 

- V.

 

[wind30]

my personal take on 1080 displays is I will get a 1080 projector when the price is around 5k OR when my optoma dies. I personally feel it is no point buying a 1080 37 inch display.... unless you sit real close lor.

 

Currently still not much material at 1080i to entice me to upgrade leh. When bluray goes full force with PS3 and there are cheap 1080 projector hopefully beginning of next year...

[MichaelTan]

Oliver, I have totally discounted plasma personally. I was neutral until I did a little bit of research into this. In fact, I have blogged several reasons why NOT to buy Plasma, here:

 

Plasma vs LCD: Enough Already!

http://miketan.blogspot.com/2006/06/plasma-vs-lcd-enough-already.html

 

HDTV-Plasma or LCD?

http://miketan.blogspot.com/2006/05/hdtv-plasma-or-lcd.html

 

In short, plasma in the past was great for DVD, where the resolution is SD. Now with HD, plasmas with the requisite pixels to do 1:1 mapping are huge and expensive. Since then, there are other reasons:

 

1) Plasma requires severe light control in your living room etc. because although the contrast ratio is high, IT CANNOT SUSTAIN THE CONTRAST RATIO in a bright ambient lighting environment. Of course, projectors are much worse than this. So if you cannot control the ambient light properly, projectors are out, and plasmas are doubtful.

 

2) Plasma technology is most apt to phosphor burn (yes it uses phosphor) and I would hate to continually keep a plasma on and worry about the Discover Channel burning in.

 

The black issue you mention are true, but it does not concern me personally - the current LCDs are fine in this aspect, with a 800 to 1000:1 Contrast Ratio.

 

Anyway, take these points into consideration before buying a plasma (or projector).

 

At the end of the day it is still up to personal preferences.  I still find that current LCD display still lose out in terms of blacks.  They may have found ways to increase the contrast by increasing white. But how bright can you increase contrast before it becomes too bright to watch even with normal living room lights?  thats why for me now, if I were get a LCD or Plasma, it would still be plasma due to black levels.  the thing I like about LCD is that the screen is much less reflective. Surprise that you LCD lovers did not mention this.  Also on power consumption, The top end Plasma brands like Pio/Pana/Hit, consumption of energy is about the same as most LCD models on the market.  You cannot just show the full consumption as a picture is never all white. So on a average picture, there is somthing like 30% brightness only which means that a average Plasma display will draw about the same as a average LCD of the same size.  There is a thread in AVSforum where many showed their power consumption of both LCD and plasma and they draw about the same when they ran them through 3-4 hours of TV programs.

 

Oliver

[oliverlim]

 

 

In short, plasma in the past was great for DVD, where the resolution is SD. Now with HD, plasmas with the requisite pixels to do 1:1 mapping are huge and expensive. Since then, there are other reasons:

 

1) Plasma requires severe light control in your living room etc. because although the contrast ratio is high, IT CANNOT SUSTAIN THE CONTRAST RATIO in a bright ambient lighting environment. Of course, projectors are much worse than this. So if you cannot control the ambient light properly, projectors are out, and plasmas are doubtful.

 

2) Plasma technology is most apt to phosphor burn (yes it uses phosphor) and I would hate to continually keep a plasma on and worry about the Discover Channel burning in.

 

The black issue you mention are true, but it does not concern me personally - the current LCDs are fine in this aspect, with a 800 to 1000:1 Contrast Ratio.

 

Anyway, take these points into consideration before buying a plasma (or projector).

 

 

I totally disagree with  ambient light control.  I have seen so many people usingplasma in their living rooms with lights in 4 corners.  Only in extreme cases will the reflection be too much of a problem. Dun forget that CRT has and still has this same issue but no one really complain much about it. But I agree LCD is much better at rejecting reflectoin.

 

As for Phosphor burn in. It used to be a real problem. But recent plasma (Talking Pana and Hitachi) in general are very good. I have seen Pana with a blue box that was there in the morning and still there in the evening and when I tried to switch inputs, there was not even a slight temp burn in.  But I do know that some other plasma brands may not be so good.  My 4th generatoin Pio will suffer from slight "burn in" that dissappears after a few hours if I leave or play a PS2 game continuously for 2-3 hours.  So I would say the current generation will not have a issue.  Not even for TV viewing with TV logos.  But if you play games on your screen, you should go for LCD.

 

Also have you looked at 60K hours to half life?  Its like over 20 years if you run your LCD/Plasma at 8 hours a day every day!  So I can tell you its a non issue.  And go ask them if you can replace the backlight on a LCD. Its possible but rarely happens.  And by the time you need to do it, the price of a new LCD will probably make more sense.   

 

Again there is no black and white.  I watch alot of science fiction and horror movies.  So blacks are the most important.  In a all black scene, LCD just cannot make it.  But if your room is extremely bright and you have a spot light shining at the screen (You should not do this anyway), then a LCD will make a better choice. If you intend to play games on your screen, then LCD again.  Otherwise, picture quality, colours and Blacks should help you make your choice. 

 

Oliver

[c7221624705751]

michael, I'm not going to argue with u more on the technical details here.  There are so many things that are clearly unknown to you.  for example:

1) xxx bit color is the transmission format, nothing to do with the capability of a display. 

2) and I hope u know there are other color formats than RGB (since u talk abt the LCD xx bits yyy colors etc).

3) and I hope you understand the diff between on/off CR and ANSI CR, and human eye's non-linear perception

4) and I hope you know what the S gamma curve in film is and what it implies for a consumer display,

.....

 

oliver, I gave up on him already... ::)

[MichaelTan]

The ambient light issue is not linked to reflection. Ambient light reduces plasma contrast without even requiring light to strike the plasma panel directly. It is a function of the phosphor light emission itself - single pixel wise it does not emit light in the same quantity as LCD, therefore the CR cannot sustain in bright light situations.

 

The phosphor situation - not talking about morning and evening but over months and years. It's phosphor wear and tear. It's far greater than LCD.

 

I totally disagree with  ambient light control.  I have seen so many people usingplasma in their living rooms with lights in 4 corners.  Only in extreme cases will the reflection be too much of a problem. Dun forget that CRT has and still has this same issue but no one really complain much about it. But I agree LCD is much better at rejecting reflectoin.

 

As for Phosphor burn in. It used to be a real problem. But recent plasma (Talking Pana and Hitachi) in general are very good. I have seen Pana with a blue box that was there in the morning and still there in the evening and when I tried to switch inputs, there was not even a slight temp burn in.  But I do know that some other plasma brands may not be so good.  My 4th generatoin Pio will suffer from slight "burn in" that dissappears after a few hours if I leave or play a PS2 game continuously for 2-3 hours.  So I would say the current generation will not have a issue.  Not even for TV viewing with TV logos.  But if you play games on your screen, you should go for LCD.

 

[dna]

anyone knows of any commercial subscribers who were selected for the HD world cup trial?

 

Any pubs, restaurants, clubs,etc got broadcast world cup in HD?

 

hey anybody got information on commercial subscribers for HD trial?

 

I think last night after spain game, there was a quick ad flashed. i think i saw devil's, near UE square? and something. Call starhub customer service they r like  ???

[MichaelTan]

Hey, what's with the attitude? I'm posting here in the hope to learn, and I assume you are too.

 

1) My understanding of the >24bit colorspace for HDMI 1.3 is this: Video colorspace is stored in 36 bits, 36 bits cannot be rendered in full gamut by the LCD display, therefore, it will be downsampled to 24 bits by an intelligent dither engine in the LCD. There are algorithms to control the downsampling, some look better and some look worse. This has been long seen in the PC world, where the PC supplies 32-bit colorspace to a monitor which can do 24bit.

 

However, your statement about TRANSMISSION FORMAT having nothing to do with the display intrigues me. Either I don't understand your statement or I am really missing a fundamental part of knowledge. Can you please let me have more detail on this?

 

2) I'm aware that there're a lot of colorspaces depending on the media format, but color information is color information, there is an absolute amount of color information in a given number of bits of color, just that there are variances in rendering depending on the color format used. Tell me more about this if I'm missing something.

 

3) On the contrast ratio thing, tell me what I'm missing from the perspective of my post.

 

4) Tell me more. This is a forum. Tell me what I'm missing. The worst thing would be to criticize a post with exotic technical terms without an succinct explanation - very much like the lamentable name dropping which plagues most of our formal dinners.

 

don't give up on me! You'd be surprised that I'm one of those people who really want to soak knowledge like a sponge and share it round.

 

michael, I'm not going to argue with u more on the technical details here.  There are so many things that are clearly unknown to you.  for example:

1) xxx bit color is the transmission format, nothing to do with the capability of a display. 

2) and I hope u know there are other color formats than RGB (since u talk abt the LCD xx bits yyy colors etc).

3) and I hope you understand the diff between on/off CR and ANSI CR, and human eye's non-linear perception

4) and I hope you know what the S gamma curve in film is and what it implies for a consumer display,

.....

 

oliver, I gave up on him already... ::)

[zermat]

Ambient light reduces plasma contrast without even requiring light to strike the plasma panel directly. It is a function of the phosphor light emission itself - single pixel wise it does not emit light in the same quantity as LCD, therefore the CR cannot sustain in bright light situations.

 

If it is a function of the phosphor light emission itself, then what has it got to do with ambient lighting in the first place?!

 

"Single pixel-wise it does not emit light in the same quantity as LCD, therefore the CR cannot sustain in bright light situations."

Sounds very technical, like a thesis for a PHD degree  but, hey, are we saying LCD emits light?

 

 

[c7221624705751]

alright for a simple one: ur idea of "color" is too simplified.  In video world it's mostly component space, i.e. YCbCr. A color of a pixel is not R+G+B as u obviously had thought (hence ur idea of LCD unable to "render" x bit colors etc).  It's defined as a luma plus 2 offset. Because human eyes are more senitive to luma than chroma (i.e. we can't tell between 90% red and 95% red), video is chosen to store more luma details than chroma details. With RGB, every pixel has equal color info together with the pixel info itself. With YCbCr, we can choose to store more luma details (i.e. resolution) with less color details (i.e. not every pixel has full color info).  Same for transmission, even for 24 bit, we dun have to transfer 8bit R, 8bit G, 8bit B. We can transfer 12 bit luma, 6 bit Cb, 6 bit Cr and the result is better. It's called 4:2:2.  This is how xxbit is used for transmission in HDMI.  Got it ? You can read all abt this by doing a simple search.  Pls dun ask ppl to explain all that to you.

 

This is a thread abt HDTV trial so let's get back to it.

[karlie]

I was looking at LCD against plasma myself for a while.

I was keen towards LCD because it is less fragile than Plasma.

 

Only one LCD could make it for my kind of PQ: the Sony V series

All the others had a huge problem with black levels, and come to think of it a lot of my movies happen to be in the shadows.

In the end I went to plasma and there is no regret: even with my TV still in break-in mode, even in full ligh I have no problem of ambient light.

Yes my pioneer doesn't even have a full 720p display (1024x768), but I have a much better picture than on a 1920x1080 LCD.

  As for life expectancy, well once you start looking at the life of the lamp behind LCDs and how much it costs to replace... (not counting the problem of light uniformity)

  I think LCDs are yet to come of age, and this show when you look at the crazy prices that can still be paid on a lousy 20" LCD TV: the manufacturing process still has a low yield.

 

[desray]

Michael and c722...be cool guys. Can we just stick to the topic of interest here. We're awfully getting OT here.

 

:) Peace...

[MichaelTan]

I write horribly. I apologise.

 

Let me try rephrase, taking away all my pixel crap: The absolute brightness of plasma TVs is lower than other LCD TV technologies, making it difficult to maintain the wonderful contrast ratio in a room with bright ambient lighting. Yes, I know the specs show an impressively higher brightness per square metre for plasma, yet I say LCD is brighter - this is what I see and what all the magazines say also. But nobody I have found explains this. My take on WHY is this: This is when all the phosphors are blowing at full blast when the measurement is taken for plasma. However, when you talk about COLORS in normal usage, the plasma's phosphors only selectively blast - and this causes the brightness to go down dramatically. For LCD TVs, the light source remains constant, yet the crystals twist selectively to let the light through, but when they let light through, the full light from the CCFL backlighting is let through. In short, the high brightness spec of plasmas is misleading, and is a technical property of the way plasmas operate.

 

No, LCDs do not emit light by itself, it requires backlighting. If I led you to understand otherwise because of my poor technical phrasing, I apologise.

 

When somebody sounds very technical, it only means that he is not writing well or not well versed with the technology. In my case it might be both. A person who understands very well, can write so easily that even laymen understand perfectly.

 

If it is a function of the phosphor light emission itself, then what has it got to do with ambient lighting in the first place?!

 

"Single pixel-wise it does not emit light in the same quantity as LCD, therefore the CR cannot sustain in bright light situations."

Sounds very technical, like a thesis for a PHD degree  but, hey, are we saying LCD emits light?

 

 

[Guest quiksilver1624705782]

Wow this is a fascinating and super technical thread!

 

Ok, slightly off-topic...

 

Right now, to enjoy this Starhub HD 1080i broadcast, which TV would you buy?

 

Would it be Sharp 45"? The new Toshiba 47"? Or just Amoi 37"?

 

Or would you just wait till Q4 because that's when all the market leaders like Sony, Panny, etc are bringing in their latest 1080p models?

 

What about the other HDMI equipment to pair them with? Let's have some basic system suggestions, covering TV, amp, player, etc...

[oliverlim]

If it is a function of the phosphor light emission itself, then what has it got to do with ambient lighting in the first place?!

 

 

 

Agree.  The main reason LCD works better in bright ambient light is due to the better anti glare screens on LCD and because the brightness on LCDs are usually much more then Plasma. 

 

 

C722 - Dun give up just yet.  :p  We still need people like you around to help us all

 

Oliver

[varun1624705824]

 

Also have you looked at 60K hours to half life?  Its like over 20 years if you run your LCD/Plasma at 8 hours a day every day! 

 

 

You're right about this - the half-life is so long, it's absolutely unimaginable that any of us (particularly *us*, since we're likely to be early adopters of the next big thing with a replacement in say 3 - 5 years) will have our TV long enough to want to replace the backlight. And, given how rapidly technology is evolving and prices dropping, the cost of backlight replacement might not be worth it for whoever buys our sets second-hand in 5 years (at probably 20% of what we paid!). "Life" is therefore moot.

 

 

But if your room is extremely bright and you have a spot light shining at the screen (You should not do this anyway), then a LCD will make a better choice.

 

 

Disagree. A plasma screen is a mirror. You don't need to shine a spotlight AT a mirror for it to reflect it... just shine the spotlight ANYWHERE and the mirror will reflect ALL that the light is incident on. Ditto for the plasma. Ditto for CRTs. I couldn't STAND the fact that I could literally comb what little is left of my hair in the reflection on my old Sony CRT while attempting to get involved in an otherwise-compelling West Wing episode...

 

- V.

 

[varun1624705824]

Excellent information. Lousy attitude. And good point about getting back on topic... ;)

 

- V.

 

bit Cb, 6 bit Cr and the result is better. It's called 4:2:2.  This is how xxbit is used for transmission in HDMI.  Got it ? You can read all abt this by doing a simple search.  Pls dun ask ppl to explain all that to you.

 

This is a thread abt HDTV trial so let's get back to it.

[MichaelTan]

So nice right, MDA forced the broadcasters to give us a reason to buy new toys after a decade or two of no-action. IMHO, if you wanna buy NOW and am a lucky HD trial subscriber, and want to get a temporary LCD TV to try out the tech, I'd go for a 1920x1080 screen.

 

If not, but plan to go HD, I'd wait until Q4 and take a look at all those new screens from the big brands. At the same time can get a amp with multiple HDMI ins, and also, a bluray HD recorder. And possibly a new generation of living room PCs... and at the same time a HD digital media appliance/video endpoint like the Pinnacle SC200.

 

Great fun!

 

Wow this is a fascinating and super technical thread!

 

Ok, slightly off-topic...

 

Right now, to enjoy this Starhub HD 1080i broadcast, which TV would you buy?

 

Would it be Sharp 45"? The new Toshiba 47"? Or just Amoi 37"?

 

Or would you just wait till Q4 because that's when all the market leaders like Sony, Panny, etc are bringing in their latest 1080p models?

 

What about the other HDMI equipment to pair them with? Let's have some basic system suggestions, covering TV, amp, player, etc...

[htfreak]

Mike.. by any chance you are related to Convergent??

[MichaelTan]

Mike.. by any chance you are related to Convergent??

 

I'm here in my personal capacity, but yes, I work in Convergent. Convergent does not exactly do a lot of full HD LCD-TV or other AV products now and therefore, I feel that I can speak more freely on things we don't sell.

[Jag]

Lets go back to topic.

 

We can explain technical things to layman, but avoid talking too simplistic layman when it can potentially lead to confusion. This gets worse when we phrase our assumptions/thoughts as thou we are stating a fact.

 

Nonetheless, lets get back onto topic, gentlemen.  :)

[MichaelTan]

Hey Jag, cool.

 

OK now to post some `not happy' things. I'm not happy with the incredibly high compression level for the H264, so when there is motion, the picture degrades. Sure, it's a whole sight better than SD, but still, it's really not so great.

 

Since Starhub posted some news about Docsis 3 giving their cables more Mhz of bandwidth, perhaps if anyone were asked by Starhub to comment, please tell them that we need higher quality for the compression, or lower compression.

 

Also, how come there's no feedback channel to Starhub for this trial?

[armoury]

Also, how come there's no feedback channel to Starhub for this trial?

Now that is a very good question.  As I posted two nights ago, my HD channel was useless then, and when I tried calling customer service, was put on hold for nearly 10 minutes waiting for a customer service officer.  I gave up.  Checking the signal meter, the signal quality (if that's what they call the second bar) was non-existent...

 

So I gave up, and watched the game on Ch 27 instead.  Last night everything was fine, though. 

 

But the point is, why isn't there any dedicated feedback mechanism for HD triallists?  Indeed, oddly it wasn't a term/condition, or a requirement, to provide any feedback in this so-called trial.  Maybe they don't need (or don't want) our comments, and it's just a platform test, to see if they can actually deliver the HD signal?  And maybe they gauge success from the lack of complaints?

 

(BTW, anyone else have a problem with his/her HD feed two nights ago?  I notice no one responded to my post on that problem, guess you guys didn't have any?)

[htfreak]

I'm here in my personal capacity, but yes, I work in Convergent. Convergent does not exactly do a lot of full HD LCD-TV or other AV products now and therefore, I feel that I can speak more freely on things we don't sell.

 

Heheh.. don't worry about you being misunderstood.  I just thought your name was familiar as someone I dealt with during my SI days.  BTW, are guys still carrying the Pinnacle range of products?  Was trying to find out if the Pinnacle DVB-T PC tuner cards have the software capability to decode H.264 HD signals broadcasted by Mediacorp but don't seem to see it anywhere.