toobfreak
Tungsten/Glass Member
Welp, my 2009 Mitsubishi 60” DLP TV was a goner again last night. I sat down to watch TV and eat something, relax, and BING! No picture, no sound, just a red status light. After about 30 minutes of fiddling, I was sure the TV was really DOA this time. At the very least salvageable only by a factory technician. But after a time of rest and reflection laying on my bed thinking about it watching my 1986 Hitachi 27” CRT bedroom TV which still works like a champ never a problem (they really make the BEST TVs), I got behind the thing, delved into it and resurrected it for now at least to live another day.
But my patience is broken. I’ve had it with DLP. I want a new TV with better technology and I would buy one today and pay any price, if but for a few things:
Much to my dismay, all I found was marketing hype. Mind you, I was an electronics/electrical engineer who has a lot of background in video (I could probably design and make my own TV) and all I found was a couple of useful features (like 120Hz refresh rate which was just coming out new when I bought my TV). Instead, they hit you with
The ONE THING that matters, to a TV buyer you would think, is the capability to have the input range and scale needed to support your existing equipment, but that spec is buried in the specs and when you find it, the inputs are:
3 or 4 HDMI inputs! And at least one or two called HDMI 2.1 which probably means incompatible with regular HDMI. Probably an RF modulated input (antenna in), and if you are lucky, maybe ONE composite input. And that is it. Many of my devices were made before HDMI was even invented. Worse, I hate HDMI. But we are forced to use it because unlike DVI, HDMI allows the industry to spy on you and collect data on your viewing habits and things. And as I went up in price, $1000, $2000, $3000 and more, instead of getting more inputs, all it got me was more gingerbread technology fluff garbage features I do not need.
This really bothers me as I know how companies and engineers think: Designed Obsolescence. Instead of adding inputs to support older technology and gear, they want you to throw everything out TO BUY NEW. Gotta keep that return business! Hell, not only do I still have two professional Super-VHS tape decks that cost $800 each in 1988, but I even still have a Sony Laserdisc player! It is cool to fire it up once in a while. Back then, they used to make laserdiscs which had the full TAR (Theatrical aspect ratio / letter-boxing) which showed the FULL width of widescreen films even if the aspect ratio was 5:1.
Now when you buy a BluRay or DVD in widescreen, they still chop some of the ends off like pan and scan to fit the standard 16:9 HD widescreen format of today which isn’t very widescreen. I remember going to see Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World at the theater in 1963 that the screen was so wide, it was curved, and you had to look side to side to take it all in, you could not follow all the action at once. Oh what an experience going to see a movie used to be at one time. So now I am forced to consider just keeping my old TV and sinking money into it to keep it going, or looking for some sort of “converter box” that takes all these old interface formats like composite video, S-video, component video, DVI, etc., which then CONVERTS them into an HDMI output and hope the thing works half well.
Anyone ever try one of those?
Most of the good brands are gone. You can find Sony, Vizio, LG, Samsung (ugh), but not Hitachi, Pioneer Elite, Panasonic Prism, or Mitsubishi, and some others that used to be the best there was. Nearly all of it is Chinese or Korean made now.
But my patience is broken. I’ve had it with DLP. I want a new TV with better technology and I would buy one today and pay any price, if but for a few things:
- 60” TVs are apparently no longer made. Selection is now down to either 55” or 65” and my speaker system is set up optimized for a 60” so I would have to reconfigure my speakers to fit a 65”.
- It must be stand mounted. I cannot do wall mount (not that I would want to) because my rear wall slants.
- My TV had a boatload of inputs for HDMI, component, composite, S-Video, RF in, outputs, you name it. And I use them all.
- I’m a name brand buyer: Hitachi, Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Mitsubishi, but most TVs now are fuzzy brands I never even heard of. What’s an “Insignia?” "Hisense?" And please don’t even mention Samsung to me. Every Samsung product I've dealt with is crap.
Much to my dismay, all I found was marketing hype. Mind you, I was an electronics/electrical engineer who has a lot of background in video (I could probably design and make my own TV) and all I found was a couple of useful features (like 120Hz refresh rate which was just coming out new when I bought my TV). Instead, they hit you with
- 4XHD resolution (why do I need this when all my sources are 720 to 1080 at best?).
- LED technology, processing technology, backlighting technology (they are all nice, all good, not a critical choice). I guess plasma TV is long gone.
- Built in streaming services, Google, Roku, Apple, etc. I don’t use any of that crap and don’t even want Ethernet connected to my TV. Even the damn remote controls have buttons for all this stuff I do not want or need.
- The damn TVs now have 99 specs, 95 of which are of little to no value to the user. They have USB ports, optical output ports, BUT NO FREAKING INPUTS.
The ONE THING that matters, to a TV buyer you would think, is the capability to have the input range and scale needed to support your existing equipment, but that spec is buried in the specs and when you find it, the inputs are:
3 or 4 HDMI inputs! And at least one or two called HDMI 2.1 which probably means incompatible with regular HDMI. Probably an RF modulated input (antenna in), and if you are lucky, maybe ONE composite input. And that is it. Many of my devices were made before HDMI was even invented. Worse, I hate HDMI. But we are forced to use it because unlike DVI, HDMI allows the industry to spy on you and collect data on your viewing habits and things. And as I went up in price, $1000, $2000, $3000 and more, instead of getting more inputs, all it got me was more gingerbread technology fluff garbage features I do not need.
This really bothers me as I know how companies and engineers think: Designed Obsolescence. Instead of adding inputs to support older technology and gear, they want you to throw everything out TO BUY NEW. Gotta keep that return business! Hell, not only do I still have two professional Super-VHS tape decks that cost $800 each in 1988, but I even still have a Sony Laserdisc player! It is cool to fire it up once in a while. Back then, they used to make laserdiscs which had the full TAR (Theatrical aspect ratio / letter-boxing) which showed the FULL width of widescreen films even if the aspect ratio was 5:1.
Now when you buy a BluRay or DVD in widescreen, they still chop some of the ends off like pan and scan to fit the standard 16:9 HD widescreen format of today which isn’t very widescreen. I remember going to see Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World at the theater in 1963 that the screen was so wide, it was curved, and you had to look side to side to take it all in, you could not follow all the action at once. Oh what an experience going to see a movie used to be at one time. So now I am forced to consider just keeping my old TV and sinking money into it to keep it going, or looking for some sort of “converter box” that takes all these old interface formats like composite video, S-video, component video, DVI, etc., which then CONVERTS them into an HDMI output and hope the thing works half well.
Anyone ever try one of those?
Most of the good brands are gone. You can find Sony, Vizio, LG, Samsung (ugh), but not Hitachi, Pioneer Elite, Panasonic Prism, or Mitsubishi, and some others that used to be the best there was. Nearly all of it is Chinese or Korean made now.
