Sony 57inch HDTV no 720p. Should I return it?

[neomaxi]

I just bought a Sony 57 inch HDTV and found out it doesn's support 720p

It says right in the instruction booklet.
"This projection TV is not capable of displaying a native 720p format signal. When a 720p format signal is received, it is converted into a 480p format signal"

Do you guys think I should take it back. I bought it from Best buy on Tuesday. I just don't want channels to start broadcasting in 720p and me being able to see only 480p.
Any suggestions? Should I take this back???
I know WITI is going be 720p, are others soon to follow?

[Matt Heebner]

While I think it's kind of strange that it converts 720p to 480p (most, if not all TV's convert to 1080i), I dont think you will missing out. Hardly any TV's do 720p, and the only station doing 720p is ABC. Everything else, networks, D-VHS, eventually HD-DVD will be 1080i. Supposedly we will be seeing 1080p, but in the very distant future. WITI is only doing 480p, not HD by any stretch of the imagination. I have not heard about them doing 720p, nor do I think they will be doing any HD anytime soon.
I would check to make sure that does convert 720p to 480p....thats a hell of a conversion...and not 1080i. I figure Sony would have that happening even thoug I dont know much about Sony.

[ReesR]

In another topic you indicated:

 

Mine is the Sony KP-57WS500.
It says right in the instruction booklet.
"This projection TV is not capable of displaying a native 720p format signal. When a 720p format signal is received, it is converted into a 480p format signal"

I have a Sony KD-34XBR2 and my manual clearly says it accepts 720p or 1080i and displays them as 1080i.  Personally, I would opt to return it because otherwise you would have a system which would downconvert the 720p to standard definition (480p).  Certainly not of value in the world of high definition.  Just my .02 worth.

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Rees Roberts
Racine, WI
reesr@wi.net

HDTV Receiver:  Sony KD-34XBR2
Bi-directional Yagi Antenna at 30 feet

[This message has been edited by ReesR (edited 09-13-2002).]

[borghe]

Does it have the tuner built in? If it does and it downconverts 720p that would kind of suck, but also be kind of odd. If it is a monitor only, don't worry. Any STB you plug into it will have the ability to upconvert 720p to 1080i.

[This message has been edited by borghe (edited 09-14-2002).]

[neomaxi]

Thanks for the input!!! To answer your questions, no it doesn't have a tuner built into it. Are you saying there are boxes out there that you can buy that up a 720p signal into a 1080i??  If so I should't have a problem right?

[Gregg Lengling]

No, the other sets are able to operate at 720p they don't up convert it(not enough info to do that with any high degree of accuracy).  And your set down converts it to 480p which is ridiculous.  I read that some of the other Sony's actually have to video inputs sets, 1 for 720p and 1 for 1080i which leads me to believe they really don't know what they are doing.  Any video I put into the component video jacks on my set will be properly displayed, it doesn't matter if it is 480p, 720p, 1080i or any other of the other approx. 15 possibilities.

You were sold something I would never touch...TAKE IT BACK....unless you want to watch half of the stuff at 480p.



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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
glengling@ameritech.net

[borghe]

Hmm.. It depends what set you have Gregg. I have a Mits 55819 and on two inputs I can only input 480i or 480p, and on a third input I can input only 480i, 480p, or 1080i. If I were to add a Hi-Pix card to my computer and output at 720p, my TV wouldn't know what to do with the signal. It comes down to that my TV can only handle either 480 lines or 540 lines every 1/60th of a second. It's usually only higher end TVs that can handle 720 lines every 1/60th of a sec. Most TVs just won't display anything with a 720p signal.

[This message has been edited by borghe (edited 09-14-2002).]

[This message has been edited by borghe (edited 09-14-2002).]

[Gregg Lengling]

Okay I've been surfing dudes.  After a lot of review of different STB's there is a concensus.  Almost 100% of them when they receive a 480p or 720p signal they upconvert them to 1080i for the component video outputs for HDTV displays.  A few  of them even allow you to convert 1080i, 720p, and 480p down to 480i to display them on a normal television monitor.  So it looks like you really shouldn't have a problem.  Of course until you buy an STB and check it out you don't know what you're going to get.

A final note so you don't misunderstand what is above.  Although it is upconverting to 1080i, it is not producing a native 1080i signal, this is impossible as the amount of information is not available from the lower formats to do this.  But through the miracle of computers line doubling and stretching techniques are used to approximate the lower value picture in a 1080i data stream.


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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
glengling@ameritech.net

[This message has been edited by lummox (edited 09-14-2002).]

[borghe]

Oh yeah, you're right about the 480p. Forgot about that. That's actually a little annoying because I would be happy with leaving 480p at 480p instead of an upconversion. But yeah, my box converts everything to 1080i. And yes, my box can also downconvert everything to 480i. The only thing that sucks about that is I can only use 1 output at a time, so I can't watch something in HD while recording it in NTSC.

[ReesR]

which box are ya using?

[borghe]

Hughes E86

[ReesR]

Thanks for the update.  I am looking for a Sat box which will output component as well as composite video.  Then I can at least see high def as well as record it in standard definition.  So far have only found one box that will do that.  The Samsung TS160.  But nobody has em.