SD Broadcast: Pioneer 4280 Vs CRT

[admin_exported]

Just a simple answer will do...

Some one who has had a chance to compare standard defn broadcast on a good old CRT and Pioneer 428/4280... which, do you think is better. Sometimes I still find a CRT better and havent had a chance to directly compare them.

Thank you.

 

[simonlewis]

Which answer would you like??? -it really annoys me this type of question, a CRT will not accept a hi-def format.-

-& i certainly would not like to have a 42" CRT hanging off the wall, it would take too much space up.

 

[D.J.KRIME]

IMHO a good CRT is better with SD material over any Plasma (more so LCD) that I have ever seen which IMHO is due to the fact that a CRT was designed with SD in mind hence screen resolution as with any HD screen there is the need for upscaling which can lead to picture inperfections, yet alone taking into account the SD was never really intended to be viewed on larger screens like 42"".

 

[Anonymous]

simplenbasic:
Just a simple answer will do...

Some one who has had a chance to compare standard defn broadcast on a good old CRT and Pioneer 428/4280... which, do you think is better. Sometimes I still find a CRT better and havent had a chance to directly compare them.

Thank you.

I've been looking at flatscreens for some time (~2yrs), and still use a 32" Sony Wega 100Hz CRT fed from a Sky Pace SD box.

I have yet to see an LCD which even approaches the picture quality from my CRT, regardless of whether it is being fed with SD or HD material. In comparison, LCD pictures seem to vary from absolutely dire to average at best.

The Pioneer 4280 is the only flatscreen I have seen which gets close to CRT, though still not quite as good. I often think that many reviewers have forgotten just how good a CRT can be !

 

[Anonymous]

my friend i too have had two large flat scren tv's since my 100 hrz sony crt which was picture perfect with super smooth motion on broardcasts and dvd until now yes i have been kuro'd i have pana and tosh what a crock get the pioneer before its too late soon every screen will be faulty after 6 months or rubbish build quality because of the price being driven down to get prices down they are cutting corners pioneer have never done that they are lovely to use and never once do you look at it and see funny colours or silly digital blocking if i could find a buyer i would sell my son and wife and get the new 6090

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you DJ, CS and SJJ for your time. Good to read difft (and opposing) views. Was asking this cos dont know how much of HD content is available on air.... tough decision...

Dear slewis, I do understand CRT will not accept Hi Def and a few other bits like SD is 576 lines, HD ready is 720 or 768 lines and 720p can be better than 1080i and a bit about up scaling. Sorry to annoy you. I requested for a direct comparison and that is what I am getting. Nevertheless thank you for taking out time to reply.

Any more views... Prof hat or any of the expert... any comment on CS's opinion.

 

[Anonymous]

I have a 32" Sony Vega that I lent to a friend of mine because the thing is just too damn big and ugly. However, even today its hard to argue against SD TV on CRT. It raises an important point. Everyone goes on about HD but before buying a HDTV you have to ask yourself what percentage of your time will you be watching HD resolution source media. If you don't own a PS3, don't have HD broadcasts and you only watch analog TV and the occasional DVDs in a small room (which is still the vast majority of people) - then stick with the CRT until you know you will be watching more HD material or if your room is much larger.

I just wish that standard def TV all came in 16:9 format. I don't even care about HD so much - as long as it fills the whole damn screen. I also wish the movies came in 16:9 format instead of 2.35:1 or other super widescreen formats. I am sure that if it was up to a vote - most people would rather everything be broadcast to fill the whole screen so that you don't have to get the TV to zoom it where it typically looks terrible.

In other words, if the TV stations are worried about bandwidth - then just give me 480p in 16:9 format for all channels and I would be happy.

 

[Anonymous]

slewis:Which answer would you like??? -it really annoys me this type of question, a CRT will not accept a hi-def format.- -& i certainly would not like to have a 42" CRT hanging off the wall, it would take too much space up.

Why does this question annoy you? it is a perfectly reasonable and interesting topic. If you don't want to hang your TV on the wall, and you don't want a a giant TV in your living room, in my opinion, on SD, nothing comes close to a good CRT. Particularly if you are watching fast moving action like football.

I find it amazing that hanging your TV on the wall, or how good the flat screen looks as a piece of furniture should be a higher priority than how good is the picture quality. One day we will all be watching HD all the time,, and there will be no problem. But that day is a very long way away. And until then, I can't help thinking that the TV manufacturers have pulled off the their own version of the great train robbery on the public.

 

[Anonymous]

I have to agree with you on this. There are plenty of people who have to replace their old CRT's due to them no longer working but have no plans to switch to HDTV just yet and there isn't an alternative to them. Yes, they get a nice slim TV but the picture quality is no where near as good. They have us by the proverbials as you rightly stated.

 

[professorhat]

My opinion - a very good CRT will outperform any HDTV for SD broadcasts - it's just the nature of what an HDTV has to do to an SD signal to fit the screen means it has to be.
However, I can understand why the manufacturers are no longer producing them. The UK is really quite a small market when you look at the main markets in the US and Japan, as well as the rest of Europe. Unfortunately for us, these countries have been leading the way in HD broadcasts for quite a while now and the manufacturers are therefore providing the technology for them to get the best picture they can. It's not profitable to keep on developing / producing CRTs for the small UK market, so we're stuck with compromised pictures until we catch up. I still don't understand why we've had to wait so long for analogue television to be switched off, but there you go.
However, some HDTVs are able to produce a reasonably good picture with SD broadcasts and the Pioneer is definitely one of the best.

 

[Anonymous]

Prof Do you know of a better one then, keeping no bigger than 42 ?

 

[professorhat]

Nope, but that doesn't mean one doesn't exist...

 

[D.J.KRIME]

IMHO the Pioneer is definatly the best TV circa 42"" out there and snap one up whilst You can as there are not many left.

The problem as has already been pointed out else where in this thread is that as with all things the UK is a very small market and We are so far behind the rest of the world in switching to HD its a JOKE! Go to the US and a very high percentage of their TV is in HD, yet when it is aired here its in SD mainly due ti the fact the rights to the peograms here lie with a channel with no HD.

Now I have a FULL HD Samsung 50"" Plasma and on the whole SD broadcasts are enjoyible to watch, but naturally if You get close enough to the screen You can see imperfections and slight picture noise but not enough to ever distract from what You are watching.But I honestly cant say the same for LCD even at smaller sizes.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree but that's not the impression sometimes being given when these TV's are sold in shops. Sales assistants are pushing the HD picture to a lot of customers who don't realise until they get home that they won't get anything like that quality of picture as they are only using SD sources.

 

[Anonymous]

that is exactly what happened to me! I was a normal chap who dies not look too deeply into all the audio visual technology but have obviously seen the adverts for all the new tv sets available. I have also heard about the swith over and we all need to get ready for the switch-over to digital broadcast. When my old CRT broke fro the third time (having had it repaired twice) i thought it time i saved my pennies and bought a super-duper LCD tv to appreciate the improved picture quality with higher contras fiures and better resolutions etc. Got the damned thing home, plugged in and set-up only to sit and spend the whole evening complaining about just about everything!!! No mention of the SD, upscaling, HD, etc and the end result being a worse picture (i think i fall in to to category mentioned above - small room, standard analogue broadcast reception)! tried to blame the shop for their sales staff not informing me of all this but i guess i should have come online before puchasing. I will for all future technology purchases!

 

[Andrew Everard]

Are we talking analogue or digital broadcasts? IME the stuff that's on during the day on the DVB-T SD channels always looks pretty horrid on any screen, and I'm pretty sure it would look equally nasty on a 42in or 50in CRT, if such a thing was available.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi, I'm in exactly the same position as you at the moment. I currently have 32" CRT that has a great picture. There's nothing wrong with it apart from the fact it's a massive lump in the corner of the lounge! Now I'm quite willing to pay out £1-2000 on a new 42/42" plasma TV if the picture is as good / better than my old CRT. The vast majority of TV I will be watching is Freeview and DVD's so HD is not really a major concern for me (although if I bought a new TV I would like to future protect for HD broadcasts). However, as SD is my main concern, I have found that the Pioneer 4280 (note: not 1080i ready unfortunately) is definately the best SD picture out there on 42" plasma's at the moment (in my opion closely followed by the Pana PZ85B / Sony 42X3500). However, this is the BIG point: Yes, the colours and blacks are great but there are still far too many digital "artifacts" on the picture of even the 4280 (most of the other TV's I viewed are absolutely obismal in SD). The sort of thing I'm talking about is on any Plasma, including the 4280, watch someones hair in SD (even sitting 8 or 9ft away from the screen) and you will see some kind of "digitisation" on it as their head moves around the screen. Unacceptable in my opinion. Also, If you are watching a picture where there is a sudden colour change (e.g. white letters on a dark blackground), again, there is a "fuzziness" or digitisation where the light and dark meets. Again, unacceptable.

So, for me, I'll going to wait a year and see if they are any better next year. As they stand at the moment I don't feel it's worth paying upward of £1k for something that produces a worse picture than my CRT. After all, the main purpose of the thing is to provide as good a picture as possible. I agree with one of the other posters that stated that maybe the reviewers have forgotten how good the old CRT's were. I keep reading the "5 star" reviews on the latest Plasma's / LCD's but go and have a look at them in the flesh and think "did the reviewer actually watch this TV in SD", maybe it is great fantastic compared to the competition but it's still not as good as a CRT so hardly a 5 star in my mind. However, after saying that, they are definately getting better and I think are only a year or two away from being as good as CRT's. Then, I'll lay my cash on the counter.

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew Everard:Are we talking analogue or digital broadcasts? IME the stuff that's on during the day on the DVB-T SD channels always looks pretty horrid on any screen, and I'm pretty sure it would look equally nasty on a 42in or 50in CRT, if such a thing was available.

Andrew,

I was referring to SD digital broadcasts from a (Pace) Sky box. I am constantly amazed at how superb the picture quality is on my Sony Wega 32". Even if you sit inches from the screen, there are absolutely no digital compression artefacts, blurring, or fuzziness visible whatsoever. I have not seen any flatscreen which can match it.

The average bit rate from Sky is a bit higher than Freeview (~3Mb/s cf ~2.4Mb/s), so this might be a factor.

Chris.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm amazed this discussion still continues. ÿFirstly lets not get too 'rose tinted' about the CRT. True, manufacturers like Sony and Panasonic produced some superb products - but at a price premium. There was far more CRT dross out there than maybe some are willing to remember.

If we were still in CRT World you can bet the cost of sets would still be going up rather than the 20% per annum drop that we have been enjoying with current flat screens. Imagine the energy costs in producing just the glass tubes. Then the massive transport costs. How many CRT's could you fit in a container compared to flatties. A quarter? maybe even less?.

The average large (as opposed to potable/bedroom) CRT was 28". Hardly a home cinema experience. For that you would have needed an expensive projector/screen ideally in a dedicated room, or you would have had to settle for the less than ideal (and also v.expensive) CRT back projection tv.

42" CRT back projection vs 42" Plasma/LCD. I wonder where the CRT fans' vote would go on that one?!.

I agree that perhaps too many people (and dare I say too many magazines?) jumped on the flatscreen bandwagon too early. A lot of the sets were, quite frankly, ****, as are many 'supermarket branded' models still. And do you remember just how expensive they were compared to a top dollar CRT? BIG BUCKS.

Leaving HD aside - CRT loses hands down on this 'cos it can't show it, which IMO is why die hard CRT fans should let go, the SD picture that I get on my Pioneer 428XD through a 720p BT Vision box is superb. What a flatscreen is less forgiving of in SD is poor quality scource material. I convert (using Elgato EyeTv/Mac min) tv programs for my wife's iPod video. A 1 hour top quality BBC production of, say, Cranford can take up half as much again hard drive capacity as perhaps a 1 hour import on channel 5 eg. 50% more information (quality) is being picked up by my set. Quality in = quality out, rubbish in = rubbish out.

I will concede that even the finest flatscreens cannot handle fast motion in the way a CRT can. I think we will just have to wait 3 or 4 years for the next generation of wall huggers, be it Laser, OLED or whatever.

Sorry about the rant.ÿ

ÿ

 

[danwood6]

I remember my first Plasma. A non HD Panasonic something PW6. Its long gone now but I distinctly remember it knocking the socks off of every 42" CRT I looked at!