question #2

[chronovore]

What is the difference between an LCD monitor and an LCD TV? For a 15" monitor, I am seeing the damned things for about ¥25,000 (recently ¥109 = US$1), and 15" TVs are still running ¥40,000. I am assuming that there is a TV band tuner in the latter; apparently those cost a lot of money? TV Capture devices run about just under ¥20,000 here for an external unit, though it is now par for the course for midrange PCs now include an internal unit. Speaking of "par for the course" Samsung's recent range of TVs also have a 15-pin connection and advertise their use as a monitor as one of the primary features. I am also seeing not-unreasonably priced WindowsXP home entertainment setups with widecreen LCDs running about 24"-27" - These have a P4 2.8GHz in 'em, and a 300GB HDD, and are running about US$2400.

So LCDs, the de facto choice for monitor in space-starved Japan, are coming down in price, but at the same size scale the TVs are still expensive. The standard NTSC picture displayed on them looks like crap compared to a high resolution Windows screen, but that's probably a source signal issue. What am I missing, and what should I beware when looking at monitors vs. TVs?

Comments

[tsanders.livejournal.com]

All of these comments will come from an American perspective - I'm not quite sure how Japan factors into this. There's an analog HD signal that I know nothing about, and I'm not sure what the digital plans are over there. Having said that . . . .

I'd guess two differences between a "monitor" and a "television". 1) A governmental tax or subsidy on one side or the other for whatever reason. (For instance when I bought my current TV 16:9 aspect ratios tube sets were HORRENDOUSLY expensive because those tubes were only made in China and there was a huge tariff on them. A 30" direct view CRT cost about as much as my 65" rear projection set.) 2) the scaler and the native resolution.

Remember that all LCD's have a "native resolution" and anything else fed in will be scaled/converted/whatever to the native resolution. The monitor might have one good resolution (the native - say 1024 x 768) and a really shitty scaler - so 640x480 (NTSC) will look like crap. Perhaps the TV is expecting a wider range of inputs so has a better scaler? (That seems a little backward to me, but hey!) I'd suggest checking three aspect ratios before any purchase.

1) NTSC/480i/480p - Use a DVD for source material.

2) Your desktop resolution of choice. For 15" I'd guess either 1024 x 768 or 1600 x 1200 depending on eyesight. This will come from a PC.

3) 1080i - this is 16 x 9 of course and might be the most US-centric suggestion. I honestly don't know what Japan's analog is here. But the thought is to check the HD standard.

Lastly of course you want to consider inputs. The winner at the moment seems to be HDMI (make sure it also supports HDCP which is a software protocol - look here for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI). This connector is also compatible with DVI with a simple dongle so you're set for that connector as well. Firewire might be nice but it seems like HDMI is going to supplant Firewire pretty damn quickly.

Component and SVideo would also be bonus naturally. How bonus versus required is a matter for you to examine for your particular device set. Basically HDMI is likely to be what you want in the FUTCHAR (where you already live), but you probably want to connect your PSX and so forth.

And like I said - you may want to run all this by somebody who understands the Japanese TV situation. I'd stand by this information for US - but Japanese HD may require some other widget.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your insight.

Right after I posted, I began to realize that I had no idea if there were going to be other issues just based on a Japan vs. Rest of the World issue. Japan uses NTSC for standard TV, which made purchasing VHS tapes a snap back in the day, but the introduction of Region with the DVD format has kept me from buying any Japanese DVDs; which is strange since I own a player for each.

So one thing you brought up is the HD thing; maybe the LCD TVs are so expensive because they support progressive scan; I don't know that they do, but it would make a bit of sense. Unfortunately the demos they show on them are rarely HD; they run HD demos on their large screen TVs and such, but not the Sharp AQUOS line, which is the most commonly available LCD TV here, and typically one of the first to drop in price.

Do HDTVs use firewire for signal carriage? That is wild! One thing about FireWire, which apparently is an Apple designation, is that Japanese manufacturers do not want to acknowledge the name and give mindshare to the concept. Sony goes by iLink, and everyone else uses the IEEE designation, which is purely political and unnecessarily obfuscating. However I will keep the HDMI or DVI in mind when looking at any future purchases.

Here is a giant exposure of my ignorance:
If the AQUOS are capable of a higher resolution signal than they are being displayed at, that would explain why the pictures look crappy -- they're being scaled up to fill the picture. Despite the fact that I can't stand looking at text on monitors that aren't running their best-native-resolution, it hadn't dawned on me that the same would be true for LCD screened TVs.

Can PC monitors display HDTV, or is that simply a question of the source they are displaying from and the refresh rate of whatever monitor it is using? Does the playback device also factor in? (Here I am associating with VLC, which gives me dick-refresh rates on my 2.4GHz machine at home, and slideshow-like viewing on my iBook.)

[tsanders.livejournal.com]

I would bet the LCD tv's are all progressive devices - the nature of LCD is such that it wouldn't be interlaced. So even if you feed it 480i I'd assume it line-doubles it into 480p. This could be another quality issue when you get into deinterlacing film-sourced material and the 3:2 pulldown fun.

HD has used all sorts of connectors - Hollywood got all involved and it's been a very messy time. My TV takes component and VGA - VGA was never very popular in the TV space. Firewire was used for a while, and still has some traction for PVR devices but I think the market is settling down into HDMI with the HDCP software layer for copy protection.

"Can PC monitors display HDTV" - in theory sure, as long as it can support the resolution. I guess in the CRT case you might care about refresh rates but in practice you only need 60 Hz so I'd imagine that wouldn't be a problem.

As for a playback device there would be a lot of options. I have a HD DirecTV unit that has a VGA output, and you can buy a box that converts component signal to VGA (not cheap, but they do exist). In a more PC space you can get a video card with a tuner like the ATI All-In-Wonder line.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Ooh:

from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewire) "FireWire was developed primarily by Apple Computer in the 1990s, after work defining a slower version of the interface by the IEEE 1394 working committee in the 1980s. IEEE proposed the standard as a serial replacement for the SCSI bus. Apple's development was completed in 1995. It is defined in IEEE standard 1394 which is currently a composite of three documents: the original IEEE Std. 1394-1995, the IEEE Std. 1394a-2000 amendment, and the IEEE Std. 1394b-2002 amendment. Sony's implementation of the system is known as i.Link, and uses only the four signal pins, discarding the two pins that provide power to the device in favor of a separate power connector on Sony's i.Link products"