Deals for Hi-Def. displays to Play VF5

A lot of people have been asking what's a good deal on a HDTV to play VF5 on, so hopefully some of this information will save some of you guys some money on decent HDTV or Monitor.
As of 1/24/07:

For a small display to play VF5, this is a great deal. 22in with HDMI and sound. Beats those dell screens at only 300$. Plus costco has free shipping and life time warranty. Great find from GreatD. I wouldn't worry about the brand either because it probably came from the same factory as those Dell screens:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.asp...c1&Sp=C&topnav=

32in is good for a small room, and obviously the sound is better on this and it has more connections. This isn't a HDTV because it doesn't have an ATSC tuner for over-the-air HD, but everyone has cable now which makes the tuner an useless feature. Great price at 550$ other than the fact Compusa rebates suck. Syntax makes great low priced TVs, this is a decent size if you got the room:
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=341859&pfp=jan21

Here's a similar TV with a OTA tuner. Honestly I like snytax better than viewsonic 569$
http://www.buy.com/retail/Product.asp?sku=202714279&adid=17662

Here's a 37in HDTV for 699$, Winbook is a soso brand but it's decently price. Microcenter has pretty prices on TVs over all. And you can probably get a open box for at least 10% off if you just asked the people there. 37in is big enough for a decent VF experience in a family room.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0244718

If you are looking for something bigger and want to use it for more than just VF5, like watch HD movies, this is a great set, it's 42in and 1080p. I have this TV and it looks great and great price for a 1080p set. you can find them on sale for 1900$. The same line has a 46in and 52in, and they have better contrast and PQ than the 42in version. You be looking around 3000$ for those but worth it. These are good as the Sony's but 500$ less.
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_..._LCD_1080p_HDTV

Anyways when you buy, know what you are using it for. If you are only using it for VF5, don't buy features you aren't gonna need (like Tuner, Extra ports). If you want to a 1080p set, realistically plan to spend at least 2000$, get a set with good contrast is more important than resolution. If you plan to buy extended warranty at all, go directly to Costco. They have good prices on all range of TVs and you can't beat the life time refund policy. Otherwise don't buy extended warranties at all. And just to be on the safe side, stay away from Screen with a 12ms typical response time or higher.

 

phat post, good shit

 

your first link is dead, im sure its that sceptre monitor since thats the one i got. There is a light leakage problem, the dvi cable included is shit and the stand is cheap. Thats what you get when you save a few bucks but its still a great monitor. plus its the only monitor with HDMI in.

I posted this earlier in a different thread that 1080p is possible due to scaling by this monitor

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137364 .

A note on LCD monitor buying, theres only about 6 major LCD manufacturers in the world, everything else is a rebranded screen from these few companies. The big ones i can name off the top of my head is Samsung, Sharp, Chimei, Panasonic, Sony, Hitachi. Theres probably some new upstart companies coming around, but these are the major players thats usually rebranded. Chimei is the brand thats most commonly rebranded in Dell monitors as well as Sceptres. Dell ultrasharp lines are usually rebranded samsungs. Oh make sure your monitor is also at 5ms or lower, anything higher is susceptible to ghosting issues in high speed gameplay. I heard counterstrike source players notice ghosting at 5ms if they really push the speed of it, so 5ms is a relatively safe point. Also make sure monitors are HDCP compliant to get 1080p out of them. A lot of older non HDCP compliant monitors are selling cheap nowadays, and you wouldnt want to be left behind due to the industries latest way to enforce DRM.

 

With all these posts on HDTV...do I need an HDTV, or will the game, or rather any PS3 game look just fine on a component or even composite video connection?

 

Gears of War on standard TV = can hardly tell the good guys from the bad guys.

Gears of War on high-def TV = as though I'm wearing glasses for the first time, everything is so clear.

 

PhoenixDth, The first link works, are you sure you pressed it correctly?

 

must of caught the server at a bad time

 

I was really surprised at how good VF5 looked on standard def with component cables. Sure, it's not HD, but it looks damn good.

 

Office Depot had a sale on Olevia 27" HDTV going for $569.99, I just got one right now. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif Played my 360 on it, and god damn, now I know why people want to move to HD lmao.

 

I got the Sceptre LCD (x22wg-gamer) that Shang mentioned in his post, thanks to his help (thanks again Shang!), so I thought I'd offer some impressions.

As far as the PS3 is concerned, the monitor does 1080p over HDMI through scaling, and it looks considerably better than a 720p signal. Since the native resolution of the panel is 1680x1050, downscaling looks better than upscaling. 720p looks good if you sit at a distance (4-5 feet); that way, you won't notice any scaling artifacts.

I had a very hard time calibrating this monitor to my tastes. I've been a CRT user all my life, and my previous monitor was a Sony CPD-G420, which was pretty great. My initial impression was rather bad, as the factory defaults are horrible, so I took my time.

After a couple of days of careful calibrating, I can say that the color fidelity is very good. Blacks are still weak - if you reduce the black level too much, you lose definition in the lower color spectrum, but this is standard with LCD's and I don't think this monitor is any worse than others I've seen. This is still a major issue for people used to CRT's, as I was.

Backlight bleeding is very noticeable, especially on letterboxed materials (such as 2.35:1 movies), or on a fully black screen. When the frame has other color elements, it becomes less of an issue.

It has three switchable inputs (HDMI, DVI and VGA) with separate adjustments for each one. The menu system is a bit awkward and the buttons are on the back of the monitor, which takes some time getting used to, but isn't a big deal once you do.

On the subject of scaling, I have to say that this monitor's internal scaler is pretty impressive. Although a scaled image will always look worse than native resolution, scaling isn't as bad as in other LCD's I've seen. 1080p looks pretty awesome (I've tested GTHD and Ridge Racer 7, as well as 1080p trailers from the PSN store). So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for native 1080p support in VF5.

Another issue is viewing angle. As I understand, this is a TN panel, and while horizontal angle isn't bad, even slight vertical angle shifts are literally atrocious. So, you really want to keep it at eye-level.

The stand is a cheapo plastic stand, without any adjustments. However, you can get better stands for cheap.

All in all, this is a great value. I paid much more than the 300$ you can find it for in the US (I paid a bit less than 500, because of shipping to Brazil and stuff) and don't regret the purchase. It's the most cost-effective way of getting a 1080p signal out of the PS3.

If you can get it for 300$, and are on a tight budget, it's a must buy. It's the only monitor in its class to offer a HDMI input (HDCP enabled). However, be sure to sit some distance away or you'll notice scaling artifacts, especially from 720p signals.

I'll try to post pictures later on.

 

I got the same monitor, i agree with most of the above. The backlight bleeding is mostly improved from the older versions of this monitor, with only slight bleed coming from the bottom. Really nothing noticeable once you have an image on. The stand is really shoddy like everyone says, but once you have it set it shouldnt be too much of a problem. You can always go out and buy a new stand. Also if you read reviews about poor dvi cabling, these newer models ship with new cables so that wont be a problem either. Basically if you want 1080p from your ps3 this is your cheapest way to get it. Other than the image slightly stretching, which isnt really noticeable for 3d games its a great buy. Basically it is still the only monitor in the 22" or less range that has hdmi in, and still very great colors once you take the time to calibrate it right.

 

Costco is selling 56" 1080p JVC HD-ILA aka LCoS sets for about $1,500 w/ free stand. While that's a lot of money, it's a pretty good deal for a set that's been rated top 1 or 2 rptvs of the year; list is around $2,500 and they usually street a little less than $2,000

I picked one up today (well, not by myself - although these new microdisplay based units are lighter, they're still about 100lbs) and can post some impressions once my better half relinquishes it.

I tested them in-store, though, and ps3 / hdmi works fine. Some guy walked by while I was playing motorstorm and was like "Is that a ps3?" "yeah . . ." "holy sh*t! that looks good" heh.

 

Just an update regarding the Sceptre 22" monitor;

Apparently there has been a very widespread problem which affects the digital input boards - both HDMI and DVI inputs just die out after some time. Everyone I talked to that had this monitor was affected, and so was I - mine died after a little more than a month.

VGA still works, but the VGA input is crap compared to DVI; it's noticeably blurrier and the colours are quite off. I suspect the digital->analog conversion circuitry in this monitor is horrible.

There had to be a catch - it was simply just too good a deal to be true. Apparently new revisions of the monitor are coming with better boards, but who knows.

 

Mine shat the bed as well. Stay away from this monitor. It's just not worth it. Pay for what you get - a decent monitor with ok colors, average viewing angle, and sub par circuitry. I knew what I was getting, but who the hell feels good about a monitor that dies on them?

Put in my RMA asap.