With all the Black Friday deals now seven days (plus a few hours) and counting… I’ve had another letdown… not one retailer is pushing an EDTV. Now, you might think I’m crazy for wanting an EDTV when HDTVs are so cheap, but there are a few reasons.
For those that don’t know, EDTV represents TVs that run at 480P progressive scan. They aren’t quite HDTV, which is reserved for quality grades above 480P (1080i, 720P, 1080P, and so on). EDTV was meant to be a transatory standard, helping people walk away from the 480i SDTV, without suffering as painful upscaling when going up to HDTV. In other words, high definition content looks good on it, and standard definition content looks okay on it as well. So what is EDTV actually great at? Quite a few things actually:
Nintendo Wii outputs at a maximum of 480P, and as such, it looks best on EDTV.
Sega Dreamcast, using the VGA cable, also outputs best at 480P, and looks best on an EDTV.
Modern DVD movies are designed for 480P, and also look best on an EDTV.
Those are just the top three, many original Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube games are also rated at 480P. However, PS3 and Xbox 360 utilize anti-aliasing in their backwards compatibility, which levels the playing field.
Now, I know what you’re going to say… there are other options. Sure, I can get a Plasma EDTV and yes, computer CRT monitors do run just fine at 640×480 (except that they aren’t traditional televisions)… and I can probably dig up an LCD EDTV off of eBay. However, I was hopeful that at least one retailer would have had a cheap LCD EDTV… I really don’t want a giant CRT in my house anymore…
DVDs aren’t designed for 480P. They are designed for 480I, with a 16:9 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio. Also, while they will look better than standard def on a 16:9 EDTV (because of the use of extra widescreen pixels encoded on the disc, not really because of the ‘P’), they will look far better than that even on an HDTV with an uprezzing DVD player. I’ve seen it — it looks gorgeous. Almost as good as a true HDTV signal. You’re never gonna get that out of EDTV.
DVDs are designed for EDTV and SDTV, (and that means 480i and 480P), sorry but you’re incorrect. The native format of a DVD is 720×480 (480P). However, older DVDs were interlacing that to achieve 480i (since there were hardly any 480P TVs at the time, nobody really cared that the quality was being downsampled). Once people started to realize TVs would be harnessing 480P, and that higher-definition was the future, movie studios embraced the full 720×480 resolution (or the 4:3 equivalent, depending on the format of the movie and version of the disc).
Upscaling a DVD to HDTV is a whole different story, it depends on what video processor you have. Granted, if you have a good scaler, you’re going to see good results on an HDTV, but a widescreen DVD shot at 480P (and most now are either widescreen or 4:3 at 480P) will look best on an EDTV. You can’t possibly argue that something upscaled will look better than when it plays at its native resolution… removing any differences in screen size.
Widescreen DVDs are not “shot” in 480p. The digital master is used as a basis for the final output which is in 2.35:1 (anamorphic) or 1.78:1 (3:2 pulldown) depending on running time and type of content, which translates to a resolution of 1152×640 interlaced or the more recent 1280×720 progressive for each respective aspect ratio.
Getting back to your gaming questions, it is not necessary to have an EDTV to play consoles with progressive output as I use a 37″ Philips LCD with my PSP’s video out to play games at full 480p with no ghosting or image stretching of any kind. As long as the console outputs a progressive signal, the internal scaler in an HD set will (with a few major exceptions from major brands) display the signal with no correction.
Don’t get me started on original aspect ratios… the point however remains the same… a DVD is going to look worse on a 720P HDTV than it does on the intended audience of an SDTV, or an EDTV.
The internal scaler, is in the eyes of the beholder. You’re upscaling content, and whenever that happens… it looks worse than if you had the same screen with native resolution. I watch movies on my computer in their original resolution… most of the people around me beg that I hit the full screen button and upscale the video. I cringe whenever I do…
Like I said, there are some great scalers out there… but I can usually tell when they’re being used. It’s the same reason I can tell when Fox is running 480P content instead of 720P (part of their famous Fox Widescreen “High Definition” Debacle). Again, most people can’t tell when Fox ran 480P, I could.
Try plugging in an original Xbox and play a game in 480P on a 720P HDTV… it looks horrible. It wasn’t until Xbox 360 BC added support and anti-aliasing that it became acceptable. Some people say Wii looks great on a 720P HDTV, I want to change the channel whenever I see it.
Came across this article in my search for a cheap small LCD EDTV. Author is 100% spot on. I’m just looking for something to take to work that is portable and has a great screen for movies, Gamecube, PS2 and possibly Wii.
I’ve had an HDTV for a few years now and it did not do any justice for PS2 or GCN games. There were a few games like Eternal Darkness on the GCN that looked OK on the 40″ 1080i tv, but it was the exception to the rule. I ended up buying a 19″ 480i tv to play everything but the Wii on…
Anyway, the cheapest option I’ve found for a good EDTV is the Sharp LC-20SH3U for just under $250. Anyone know of a better deal?
Unfortunately, that’s the best I’ve been able to find too… aside from buying some used plasma (which I’m not intersted in).
To add insult to injury, all the EDTV LCDs on the market, despite their hyper-inflated prices… lack reasonable things like a VGA port. This means consoles like Dreamcast which could only output EDTV via VGA are left out.
I just don’t get why there aren’t at least one or two 26-inch EDTVs with VGA. There is a market, and I would pay $400 for one easily.
(Actually, I do get it… I just don’t like the reason. Big retailers like Wal-Mart were sick of customer confusion, so they insisted all TVs greater than 20-inch be full HDTV or they weren’t going to carry them. And thus, the EDTVs died before the outputs for them did.)
Hello…just stumbled upon this post trying to find the right TV. I want an upgrade from my 14″ CRT, and I want progressive scan (around a 26″ range). I didn’t have the money before to buy a new CRT SDTV, and now I appear to be out of luck when it comes to tube TVs in general. I was just wondering if you ended up finding a suitable TV for your video games? I have a Wii, XBox, and N64, and since none output in HD, I am really worried about the input lag, especially on an LCD in my price range (less than $500). I’m getting really frustrated in my search for a suitable TV – seems like unless you have an HD console, there’s nothing you can do!
Unfortunately, no EDTV on the market today (and there are less than six) satisfies what I want. All the EDTVs sold today lack VGA ports (a shame, since they all have VGA leads… they just didn’t attach the physical port).
So, I have two choices: Buy a discontinued (and used) LCD EDTV (no thanks)… or invest in the best video scaler I can find at a reasonable price. I’m probably going to go for option two.
I know it is not a T.V. but I bought an Optoma DV-10 projector on a black Friday sale from Circuity City for $450… native res. is 854×480, 480p… came with a 92″ screen… has built-in DVD-player… movies look fantastic, my Wii and Gamecube games that I play using the wii look fantastic – not all Gamecube games will output 480p – many will, but they still look great and some are capable of widescreen… my PS2 games look fantastic also… try OutRun Coast-to-Coast… 480p and widescreen… awesome!
BTW, everyone probably knows this, but you need component cables for the Wii and the PS2 to get 480p out of your system.
I would NOT hook up my Wii or PS2 to a HDTV… it does NOT look nearly as good as it does at its native res.
Forgot to mention, the DV-10 is portable… comes with a carry case.