HDTV Quest: The Never-ending Story

[Gregg Lengling]

By Nick Stam
It's been about six weeks since my story HDTV Quest: The Sequel was posted, and as you can infer from the title of this story, the saga continues -- I still haven't found the perfect HDTV for my family room-- sigh... The previous episode closed with my early March purchase of a 40" diagonal, futuristic-looking mid-2002 model year Panasonic PT-40LC12 rear projection LCD-based HDTV. After initial tweaking, things looked pretty good, but after nearly a month of use, a few items troubled me, enough so that I chose to return the unit before the 30-day grace period expired. Here we go again...

The Panasonic was the fourth HDTV I've owned since late January; in my prior two stories I discussed why I returned three different Sony CRT-based HDTV units. The Panasonic had many great qualities, and was a perfect fit in our new corner entertainment unit, but alas, it too was voted off the island, for reasons I'll describe shortly.

In the past, I discussed HDTV technology basics, and many of the challenges you might face when purchasing your first set. When they were originally introduced to the US market five or six years ago, the sets were way too expensive, and little HD content existed. That's all changing, and sales of HDTVs (mostly sets that need an external HDTV decoder to display HD content) are ramping up steadily. However, mid-range to high-end models are still far more expensive than analog sets.
Network HD Options Increase: On any given night, the three major networks -- ABC, NBC, and CBS -- might broadcast two to four shows in high-def. HD versions of HBO, Showtime, Discovery Channel, and a few other cable-based networks broadcast through much of the day (check out HDTVGalaxy for current listings). Mark Cuban's sports-oriented HD-Net is popular with aficionados on DirecTV, and ESPN HD has now come up too.

According to a recent NY Times article, less than 1 million of the nation's 106 million TV households currently own a TV capable of receiving HD content, but the Wall Street Journal recently reported that 1 in 10 televisions (2.5M) purchased last year were HD-capable. As prices continue to drop and HD content continues to rise, that percentage should increase significantly over the next few years.

HDTV Roadblocks: Besides cost factors and sparse HD content, other roadblocks exist today. As I've discovered, achieving acceptable display quality across all input sources – digital and analog -- is still a major problem. Display quality continues to be a major debating point on HDTV discussion forums such as //www.avsforum.com and //www.hometheaterspot.com. Many new HDTV sets require professional calibration to optimize color, gray scale, and other attributes. This is because the service menus needed to tweak the image often aren't exposed via standard controls. The forums I listed above can be great resources for uncovering those menus – but one of the best sites for finding service menu tweaks is probably //www.keohi.com/keohihdtv.

HDTVs are notorious (as I've learned from research and much viewing) for not being able to display average to low quality NTSC analog video as clearly as traditional sets. The line-doubling and pixel doubling technologies used to improve NTSC signals instead seem to replicate or exaggerate the noise in a low quality signal, making the image look much worse. And obtaining that HD signal, whether via satellite, cable, or over-the-air, presents many hurdles that might turn many new users off. However, once you watch a few high-quality HD programs on a decently tuned HDTV set, chances are you'll want one in your home regardless of the problems. I know I do. But so far, I haven't found the perfect set for my family room, so the search continues!

Coming up next, I'll reveal why the Panasonic went back, and what set I picked up next, which presents an entirely new set of problems. To avoid being branded persona non grata at the local Best Buy and Circuit City, I traveled far from my home to purchase this fifth HDTV set. But clearly this can't go on forever, so I hope I find something I can live with soon.