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HD tv with standard 4:3 signal

A

amdx

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hey Guys,
I'm curious about viewing a standard analog 4:3 aspect ratio cable signal
on an HD TV.
If you visit a TV sales show room they always have an HD signal playing on
the TVs.
I have a standard cable tv signal to my house I have no plan to upgrade to
the upper tier.
However, I have one spot where I would like to put in a new tv.
So is anyone watching standard (old standard ?) tv on a newer HD tv?
And, what is the downside.
 
T

TTman

Jan 1, 1970
0
amdx said:
Hey Guys,
I'm curious about viewing a standard analog 4:3 aspect ratio cable signal
on an HD TV.
If you visit a TV sales show room they always have an HD signal playing on
the TVs.
I have a standard cable tv signal to my house I have no plan to upgrade to
the upper tier.
However, I have one spot where I would like to put in a new tv.
So is anyone watching standard (old standard ?) tv on a newer HD tv?
And, what is the downside.
You have to feed the HD TV via scart ( normal definition) if you have a non
HD source! most cable feeds ( ntl?) will produce 16:9 format on a TV.
 
K

Kevin McMurtrie

Jan 1, 1970
0
amdx said:
Hey Guys,
I'm curious about viewing a standard analog 4:3 aspect ratio cable signal
on an HD TV.
If you visit a TV sales show room they always have an HD signal playing on
the TVs.
I have a standard cable tv signal to my house I have no plan to upgrade to
the upper tier.
However, I have one spot where I would like to put in a new tv.
So is anyone watching standard (old standard ?) tv on a newer HD tv?
And, what is the downside.

You get black bars on the side or you can stretch the edges. Don't buy
a plasma TV because they have both short-term and long-term burn-in that
will be a problem with lots of 4:3 viewing.

You might be able to get cheap 16:9 content, but maybe not HD, through a
satellite mini-dish service. If you're near an urban area, $300 for
rooftop antenna hardware gives you 5+ years of HDTV.
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
Glenn said:
There is very possibly clear QAM HD on your existing cable which you
will find when you scan for channels. These will be your 'local' OTA
channels. Don't be surprised if you find 3 (yep 3) versions of your
local channels when you scan. Plain old analog, STD DEF digital and HD
digital. You're welcome to watch any one of them but the HD will
likely look better.

As for 'downsides', you paid for something you're not using but it's
your choice. Plasma sets will eventually burn the center vs the edges
- even the new 'don't burn' models. LCDs also burn but take much
longer. If you use a VCR with the new set, you may have color hue
shifts at the top of the picture as the newer TVs are less tolerant of
the crappy Time Base Correction in a typical VCR. A VCR with a digital
TBC will be fine. DVDs will be the best you've seen - as long as you
use HDMI or component vs analog composite.

Actually with VCRs it is usually worse. The whole color portion of the
picture is often offset sideways and that offset moves about. Quite
annoying. Older TV sets didn't have that problem so their engineers must
have understood the basics of NTSC better.
 
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