"Hooked on Magnavox!"

About the smallest widescreen HD CRTs come are 26" : http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6938905&type=product&id=1097582050451 Some 4:3 TVs (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...t&productCategoryId=cat03002&id=1093468377058 ) Are still HDTV resolution by narrowing the picture to the apropriate ratio. You get the full 1080i resolution in the widescreen image. But you have black bars. So for image size in widescreen mode a 30" widescreen might be comparable (if not larger picture size) to a 36" 4:3 tv. :
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...t&productCategoryId=cat03002&id=1077628886036
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...t&productCategoryId=cat03002&id=1110265591659
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...t&productCategoryId=cat03002&id=1083537583947

http://www.target.com/gp/detail.htm...9?_encoding=UTF8&frombrowse=1&asin=B0002F7I9O
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.htm...9?_encoding=UTF8&frombrowse=1&asin=B0001YI462

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Sony.../sem/rpsm/oid/93014/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do
 
Well, it ends up Norcent's is 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i compatible, which is very much what I was looking for. It's still the cheapest, between $400 and $350, with a good 17" widescreen TV size. I still need to see it in motion, but so far it looks like the only quality, cheap, small TV out there that has 720p. Yeah, I know how most nice ones are 20 or 30 inches and up, but I really couldn't fit one of those in my closet, and my dad would really despise a bigger screen.
 
Your dad's screen phobia is ridiculous. Do you have a link to the Norcent one? Like we said above, a decent 19" LCD is only $400, and most "TVs" in that range are faking their high definition in one way or another anyway.
 
Ah, shoot, I forgot, I never posted a link to that did I?

http://www.norcent.net/main/product_detail.asp?prodID=16

http://www.dl-electronics.com/store/item_LT-1720.html

Since Circuit City JUST stopped carrying it, I'm gonna look at it in store next time I visit a Staples. Luckily, they carry it, and my mom's a realtor, so she visits it often enough for supplies and stuff.

Oh, and about my Dad's "phobia" it's not really a phobia, but he's sick of them like some people are sick of messy rooms. We have a huge projector TV in the family room, but I never play games on it because he thinks it will leave ghosting on it since it's projector. But, we did buy a projector and screen recently, and he's very happy with that since the projector is always a temporary set up, and the screen rolls up into a small case near the ceiling, same color too, so it's not noticable.
 
here's some things that bother me about the norcent one... specifically statments like:
480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i signal compatibility
Click to expand...
That bothers me because all it says is that it can handle the signal, but doesnt actually say what it will output it at. The fact that it says "1280 x 768 maximum resolution " kinda indicates that it most certainly will not be outputing 1080i.
 
Wow. You brought up a really good point there AD. I'm devoting all my research into finding out what the real output is now. I might have to ask in the store actually. That would be bad...

Oh, and one site kind of hinted at the idea that it puts HD signals into 720p, ED signals into 480p, and SD signals into 480i. But, generally, that sounds really messed up, so I'm going to keep searching.

Oh, and if you guys find any widescreen 720p TVs, CRT even, that are under $500, I would be very interested in them, no matter their size. I might be able to get something bigger than I thought after all.
 
Jesus said:
Wow. You brought up a really good point there AD. I'm devoting all my research into finding out what the real output is now. I might have to ask in the store actually. That would be bad...
Click to expand...

It's the same issue I brought up with the other LCD. You're just not going to find a small LCD that actually does 1920x1080, but at the distance you are going to be, even 1280x720 is going to be wasted with a small screen.

Jesus said:
Oh, and one site kind of hinted at the idea that it puts HD signals into 720p, ED signals into 480p, and SD signals into 480i. But, generally, that sounds really messed up, so I'm going to keep searching.
Click to expand...

It's a budget tv from a third tier manufacturer. Of course it's going to hint that it does all kinds of things, because it doesn't actually do them like normal priced tvs would.

Jesus said:
Oh, and if you guys find any widescreen 720p TVs, CRT even, that are under $500, I would be very interested in them, no matter their size. I might be able to get something bigger than I thought after all.
Click to expand...

As I said above, keep in mind that CRTs that do real 720p are like $2000. They'd all be upconverting to 1080i. They start around 26-27" and about $600 (and typically don't even upconvert the 720p signal in that price range).
 
I worked on my closet more today, and I was able to clean it out to such a reasonable level that I could fit a 35" wide TV stand in there now. With that, I'm looking into bigger, better, CRT TVs. I found a very nice stand, the Ameriwood. It's supposed to hold TVs up to 27" in size(not width). It's also got room for my CD and DVD cases, which have been growing recently, and I've been running out of places to put them, so that's a plus. It's about 30" wide, 30" tall, and 20" deep, which fits perfectly into my closet with room to spare. I did a google, and Ameriwood seems to be reliable. It's also only $60.

EC.AWD.27856.JPG


There's also another good deal from Best Buy, a $25 stand that's even nicer, but sadly, it's a foot over the space limit I have, and it would also have one of the drawers blocked by my closet's inability to have both sides open at the same time. Aside from that, it looks nicer, it's bigger, and it's way cheaper, so if I can find a way around those issues I might get this instead.

Oh, and I've half scrapped the idea of anything above 480p now. I just want widescreen and progressive scan, additional lines would rock, but I've realized that they don't make a difference on such a small TV. Still, progressive is important to me, and I really want widescreen for my Xbox360 titles.
 
Well, Nintendo announced that instead of just leaving it at "not HD" for their Revolution, they're pushing to have all games in Progressive(thankfully). I also found a TV that would fit on my new little stand that I recently got at target, it's cheap, it's widescreen, it's CRT, it's 26", it's got Component Video inputs, meaning it SHOULD be 480p(otherwise, why would it have cables?).

6376637_ra.jpg


Did I mention it's a measly $270?

This would also be the best of both worlds for me since I would get the Xbox360's widescreen modes, while getting the Nintendo Revolution's progressive scan modes, along with all movies in widescreen from now on.
 
That TV's not progressive scan. One of my CRT TVs has component inputs but only does 480i. Component inputs are simply a great way to hook up. Using component cables on that TV should be noticeably better than using s-video connectors, but they do not automatically imply any enhanced resolution or features.
 
True, Video-Component inputs are REALLY common, even in regular edtvs. Even in 480i the image is just better than S-Video or (ugh) composite.

The Funny (sad) part is that most DVD-players in Brazil are progressive scan capable (i.e.: 480p, EDTV), but almost no TV is. I think there is ONE model capable of 480p, but it is 20" and REALLY expensive. Meh, that really sucks.
 
Well, I stopped by circuit city this evening, and I was seeing what they actually had on display. The cheapest they had was a $350 HD CRT Magnavox at 20". Heck, it looked like a normal TV compared to the 40" Sharp Sony across the isle from it for $2k, but it looked a whole lot better than the "30 CRT rounded front one sitting above it. Anyways, I'm now inspired more to find a good summer job(I'm so lousy at this) so hopefully, I'll be able to get something good soon enough.

And yes, now that I've seen HD TVs, I think they're worth it.
 
Maybe it was a regular TV? Magnavox doesn't even have a 20-inch hidef CRT on their website.

Was it widescreen? It probably wouldn't be worth getting a HD set if it isn't widescreen.
 
Ok, I changed my mind a LOT through this, but now that I've seen some real TVs in Circuit City, I think I know what I want to get. I've found two, perfect TVs. Both are $480 26" 1080i 16:9 ratio CRT HDTVs with the ability to double as a monitor. Now the question is, Toshiba or Philips?
 
Stopped by Best Buy today to check out the Toshiba. Yeah, I'm hooked. It's not too big for my room, it fits within half an inch on my TV stand, just the right depth for my closet with some spare room. It's not that tall, but hey, this is widescreen. It has 5 TheaterWide options(standard, full, TW1, TW2, TW3) which I think are how wide the viewing screen is stretched, that way I can flip between 4:3 and 16:9 or even that extra wide movie theater ratio.

It's only got one problem, and I'm not sure if its even standard. I saw a ton of ghosting on the display model, and I mean unhealthy amounts considering it's an HDTV. It stretched a good inch to the right when white text showed on a black background. But, I'll check ConsumerReports.org for that(I recently found out my parents are members, heh). Anyways, I'm slowly chugging my way up there, now that I'm at $215 with another $15 coming in the mail from Turbo Squid which I recently discovered I finally made three sales on.
 
Show rooms are usually pretty horrible. They have most tvs hooked up in terrible ways.
 
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