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What exactly do you need to know? The spec sheet I got in front of me is not very detailed either, so I can't guess the exact power of the speakers or the color saturation or the throughput of HDMI, for example. The only thing I can do, is compare it to the rest of the monitors/TVs I have in my lab and draw a general conclusion as to how it improves my daily work and video testing abilities. The *main* job this TV fulfills in my lab is for video testing purposes, as I have taken seriously my new videography hobby since I bought that HDV camcorder last May.

Edited 2007-08-02 07:11

very disappointing...
Just this morning I've bought cables to do the same thing which means I did some research and I should say there is a plenty of things one should know first.
Could be much more professional.
_You see_, most of us do not need 32" monitor to read/write email it requires to be too far from the screen and we are not used to but for a HTPC usage (which I am going to do) the thing is just the fit. Connectors, cable lengths, remotes, resolution, audio is just the short list of things one should know to do that.
And what should that video show? that you really can show pictures on TV? great...

>do not need 32" monitor to read/write email

Huh? Who said that anyone uses the HDTV just for normal PC usage? I don't most of the time. I have two other monitors for that job. The HDTV is used mostly for video testing/viewing, although if it's connected via VGA/HDMI/DVI, it *can* also be used as a normal monitor if required because the connection quality is good. And no, you don't need to sit particularly far from a 32" screen to use it as a monitor.

>Connectors, cable lengths, remotes, resolution, audio is >just the short list of things one should know to do that.

This is not something for me to write in great detail. I already explain that a TV has 4 ways of getting connected to a PC and I explained these 4 ways in one big paragraph. From that point on, it all depends on the kind of graphics card the user has, and how far the PC is from the TV. I can't possibly write "buy a 6" HDMI cable" for someone whose PC is much further away and his graphics card has no HD or DVI connectors! Besides, this is OSNews. Users are already tech-minded, they don't need _me_ to tell them how to connect an S-Video or DVI cable. What I can write, and I did, was to explain how the whole thing works/connects, and then readers can connect the dots. There is not much more one can say about using a TV with your PC.

I personally had no problems whatsoever getting the whole thing to work and I had never done this before. So, I don't see why the average OSNews reader would need a step by step tutorial on this.

As I wrote in the article, the ONLY thing that bothered me was the non-native 720p resolution, anything else worked as expected without any surprises. So, I don't see what good it would be if I was to say that "The TV turns ON if you click the power button, and the volume cranks up when you click a button named Vol+". Come on.

Edited 2007-08-02 10:33

>perhaps you should watch for a 1080p tv.

1080p TVs still cost $2500 anew, so they are out of the question for most people. From the 37% of the US population who own HDTVs, only about 3% have 1080p TVs.

>Was it good as a tv monitor? How did if fail?

Did you actually read the article? Besides, the product was used on an office with various equipment and multimedia devices, not on a living room. As I wrote earlier, the monitor worked perfectly, and the only problem I found was its resolution which was not 720p-native. Other than that, I found no problems whatsoever.

>for video editing, how was it?

You still don't understand. The video editing part happens on my higher-resolution PC monitor, not on the HDTV. On the HDTV you only *test* the video for color/contrast accuracy, you do nothing else with it.

>Did you at least tried to compare it to other similar products?

I compared it to our 55" HDTV. Really, did you read the article or you just skimmed it?

>(preferrably an expencive one as reference)?

Feel free to send us one. I am not related to Bill Gates or Steve Jobs so I can't ask for a loan.

Edited 2007-08-02 08:58

Eugenia, you may want to double-check your price expectations (at least in the US). As a sanity check, Amazon has a 32" Sharp Aquos 1080p for < $1100 (and claims the list price < $1400). Shipping, tax, and extended warranties are, of course extra.

This is still more than double the price than 1080i TVs. People can buy 50" 1080i TVs for that price, and I can tell you that most will go for the size rather than the specs.

Edited 2007-08-02 20:47

I'll refrain from making a horribly bad joke about size. Second to size, consumers will be a little more aware of what the i and p stand for. People interested in online HD content, Blue-Ray, HD-DVD, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, all combined are still less than the HD cable folks.

What annoys me is that some networks choose i over p and vice versa. So if there's certain cable networks that you absolutely must have in HD, that'll sway your purchase decision.

Most of the networks in USA are 1080i, not 720p. The only networks that use 720p are ABC, FOX and some of the sports channels. Everyone else, uses 1080i. Given that the HD player market hasn't really took off in a big way yet, most people (as in, not OSNews geeks) just buy basic 1080i HDTVs. The bigger and cheaper, the better (they think). As I wrote in the article, only 37% of the US population have HDTVs, very few have 1080p TVs, and the digital TV switch is supposed to happen in 2009.

Dish Network broadcasts all of their HD at 720p. On my 42" plasma the 480p from the dvd player even looks sharp. So I really don't see why people would care if they have 720p or 1080i on a 32". You do realize that even though 1080i has twice the pixels that 720p is better for full motion video?

1080 = 1920 x 1080 pixels @ 30 fps
720 = 1280 x 720 pixels @ 60 fps

720p is not broadcasted at 60fps btw, I think it's just 30. As for 1080i, I *did* see a major difference in quality from a local 720p file I had around. You see, the cheap HDTVs -- as I explained in the article-- use that oddball resolution that doesn't upconverts correctly. And so there is actual visual details that are lost. In my video, I could not see the shiny strass that Madonna was wearing when viewing the video in 1080i, while everything was visible in 720p mode. Because the 1080i is interlaced, there was some ugly algorithm going on to try to fit all the pixels correctly and upconvert correctly in that oddball resolution. And so at the end, I decided to just use 720p as the resolution of my choice when the monitor was connected via SVideo/Component instead of DVI/VGA.

Edited 2007-08-03 01:27

1080i 32" TVs can indeed be gotten cheaper; I could also find cheaper 32" 1080p TVs and 42" 1080p TVs for the same money (as well as 47" for about $200 more). It depends a lot on the quality and features of the set, as well as the reputation of the manufacturer.

I simply wanted to point out that, probably due to the extremely volatile nature of HDTV pricing, your $2500 price point seemed unrealistically high.

The 27-28" 1920x1200 LCDs are starting to drop toward the sweetspot. You can even find good brands like Viewsonic for under $700 these days. These are big enough for the 10-foot TV scenario, small enough to fit on a desk, and they have a reasonable pixel pitch for workstation use. You don't really want to go any smaller for a TV or any larger for a desktop monitor.

If you're looking for smallish HDTV, you might as spend a little more and get one that doubles as a killer primary monitor. The perfect single-head HTPC setup.

I personally download quite a few videos from HD forums, shot from people with HD cameras. They usually upload their test footage on high-resolution, usually in 720p. There is quite some nice HD, free & legal, footage out there besides YouTube. For example, this video in HD is absolutely amazing, shot with the same consumer HD camcorder I got by a 16 year old: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACVZp-UMD0Y

Regarding YouTube itself, my husband actually watches some videos on our 55" HDTV, using his Nintendo Wii and the Opera browser. Some of these videos are well-encoded and they look acceptably well.

I can also testify that watching Apple's HD ads and trailers in 32" is very cool. The 1080p trailers or iTunes-bought movies/shows are really amazing to watch on a big TV connected to a PC!

I suppose if you're actually buying HD content from iTunes I can see the point. But the difference between a 22" monitor and a 32" TV seems too small for it to be worth it for the odd trailer or YouTube video. Personally I don't bother viewing that kind of thing full screen on my 20" display.

For users who aren't editing video, or watching a lot of downloaded HD content, I'd have thought that a smaller (but higher resolution) monitor would be a better choice as a secondary display. That would be more useful for digital image editing or other tasks where resolution is as important as size. A 22" monitor is still very nice for watching video, especially when you're sitting at a desk, much closer to the screen than when watching TV.

One important use for larger monitors that hasn't been mentioned is for partially sighted users. Large and reasonably priced LCD and plasma screens have been a real boon for people with that kind of disability. I know a couple of people who can now happily browse the web or respond to emails, with text enlarged to fill a big screen. Before they really struggled, or had to use screen readers that weren't compatible with a lot of content.

One important use for larger monitors that hasn't been mentioned is for partially sighted users. Large and reasonably priced LCD and plasma screens have been a real boon for people with that kind of disability. I know a couple of people who can now happily browse the web or respond to emails, with text enlarged to fill a big screen. Before they really struggled, or had to use screen readers that weren't compatible with a lot of content.

That is indeed a very important and often overlooked point. A friend of mine with very bad vision, can now, thanks to these big LCD screens, for the first time in his life just write letters and use email without some special screen reader or any other software. For him it means the world. If you have good vision, it's so easy to forget that for other people something as simple as reading a mail can really be a problem.

now dont think im just egoistic and moronic, but if special software can allow him to do it by magnifying, it means his screen is large enough..

so... how hard can it be to simply use larger fonts? i shouldnt think it would be too hard.

It's funny, because while almost everyone is whining around here, no one actually asks a direct question as to WHAT they want covered in the article. From where I stand, I covered everything there is to cover about the product as a user. Feel free to ask a question, like the guy about YouTube did above and we had a civil conversation, instead of whining in a generic form.

Edited 2007-08-02 20:38