Jan, at least 1 (ONE) TV I saw over the years DID have an external tuner...making it a 2-piece TV. The set in question was a CRT Sony XBR of I think....32" or 36". Up to that time, it was without question the finest picture I had ever seen in-store. News was on when I viewed the set. News is for some reason always a premium broadcast. You could see the shadings in the news ladies hair...She was a redhead and it looked amazing.
If I understand TV circuitry well enough from the CRT days, all the acceleration voltage is in-set and the tuner had no HV or hi-current sections.
Yes, but I don't think that's the op's question. There were - and I presume still are - manufacturers who split their production between consumer and professional lines, Sony and Panasonic (or Matsushita) being the most common in CRT's for broadcast use. They were strictly either CRT's or they were the accompanying "tuner". Tuner being a very loose term here as the professional studio doesn't tend to use a "tuner" as the consumer recognizes the term but rather they run their monitors off their board with a feed from the camera or the post production source player. This somewhat depends on just where in production the video image would need to be monitored.
Being a "professional" monitor, the CRT's would have a vastly differnt set of features and the concept of quickly shifting between a "Sports" and a "Movie" preset just didn't exist. Most were adjusted to a specific RGB color mix with a "White Balance" adjustment which determined how far from neutral the picture values strayed. I'm guessing you know enough about broadcasting to understand the lighting temperatures for studio and location settings and for live camera vs video vs film sources. These too must be correct if the video image is to adhere to that specific RGB color mix.
Most of these "monitors" have gone the way of the dodo with the exception of off site monitors which need to be quite compact - the equivalent in video to the old LS3/5a monitor loudspeaker. LCD's have supplanted most CRT's in the vast majority of applications given the higher color accuracy and detail retrieval of the LCD panels.
We would on occasion get a request for just a monitor - back in the days of consumer TV's based solely upon CRT's - but what was sold to the professional market didn't easily transfer to the consumer market due mostly to differences in connectors. In the early days of preparing for "digital TV" many manufacturers eliminated the tuner from their products assuming most consumers would be using an external tuner such as a satellite or cable receiver instead and thus saving them some money and allowing for a lower pricing of their product. In their infinite wisdom, the US government then regulated the industry and any "TV" over 20" must have a HD tuner in "the set". As is usually the case with such regulations, it solved the issue of consumers being sold a product they didn't understand and were surprised to find still required a further purchase of a "tuner" but it also raised the cost of a TV to everyone who doesn't have any use for an internal tuner since they will be using a satellite or cable box receiver.
The op mentions a "projector". In such systems, the projector must have an external tuner which then feeds video content to the inputs of the projector. It is customary to use either a satellite or a cable box receiver as a projector's source. Though I have to say, I've never seen a projector set up with a cable TV feed that looked like anything I would care to watch and that is even more so in the days of true 1080i video and projectors capable of ever higher resolution. IMO you'll never get what you paid for with a high quality projector - there are still a few low quality projectors meant for other than home use - until you dump the cable TV box.
Yeah, I think the Sony would be what we call today 'prosumer'. Also, studio 'monitors' are fed from the board where inputs are selected. No tuner here! or needed.
The one projector I saw in a home was a big disappointment. Not bright enough, Poor sound and an improper screen. All conspired to make the experience simply marginal.
I remember skipping the 'early' days of digital for the very reasons you mention. I didn't even try to wade thru the jargon and try to get what was needed. I live in such a poor signal area, anyway, that the tuner in my TV is left on channel #3 and used for the niece when she brings her game system over.
I think that Sony I saw was an XBR200 series. Also, not being fixed pixel, I think it would compare favorably to a screen of similar size....it was a 4:3 set, not a 16:9 so you either compare by area or by vertical size....a person 'standing' in the set will be about the same size on either. I've looked at the current Sony LCD offerings and the pictures look soft. My SXRD is killer on good broadcasts...like either news or live sports. Other broadcasts are stepped on too badly for valid comparison....My OPPO upsampler will produce quite the picture from a standard DVD providing it was mastered properly to begin with.
You know, though, jan, you're right....just looked at the OP A projector simply takes its feed from whatever....And the projector will have various inputs...HDMI, sometimes DVI, Component and all the rest. Audio will be handled by other gear. So, you'd feed the small box to the receiver, daisy chain over to the projector and let the receiver peel the audio off.
"I've looked at the current Sony LCD offerings and the pictures look soft."
That's Sony's house picture. Compared to the edge sharpened, ultra-high white levels with over saturated colors found on most of their competitors' products, the Sony is an acceptable aletrnative for lots of people. If you've only seen the "EX" series, you haven't seen the new Sony's. The "EX's" are Sony's budget busters, not made by Sony at all and pretty much just Sony name tagged. Sony's been through this before and they p!ssed a lot of people off with these tactics. Why they're going back to this idea doesn't mke sense to anyone selling the TV's. Move up into the upper end Sony's and you'll see what they can really do. They are still one of the most competitive pictures out there if you know what you should be looking at. But, just like every other consumer product they sell, Sony's strength in the market exists in turning out good - with the occasional really good - low to mid priced stuff.
Next time I'm in one of the 'multi-marts' I'll check out the EX line.
As far as I can tell, the Bravia line is where I'd get on the bus. BUT, the 'soft picture' may not have been always a Sony 'house pic'. My SXRD is pretty darn good. Very 'film like' as a matter of fact, and totally without any pixelization. The VIAs (space between active cells) of the SXRD chips (RGB, no color wheel) are only a few microns unlike the rival technology, DLP which not only has huge VIAs but also, in home use, is also a color wheel, single 'chip' light engine.
Looks like DLP's are not going to catch on in one piece TV's. The $250-400 cost of lamp replacement every few years has pretty much doomed them there. DLP projectors, however, are going strong but facing stiff competition in the market.
A lamps a lamp. My Sony lamp ran about 140$ with housing. I now have a spare housing which will get a lamp when I can afford a new one......so I'll have a rebuildable spare. Wear latex or vinyl gloves and if you touch any glass, a little propanol and a lint free wipe.....OOOPS, I'm not in fab any more! My original lamp lasted about 7500 hours and popped without drama. Fortunately I live close enough to a major online vendor to do a will-call of a Philips lamp, not a generic or Osram. Look at any wires for corrosion or blackness....signs the connection won't conduct properly and either fix it or buy a new pigtail.
Sony doomed themselves and have lost a couple class-action lawsuits due to awful picture problems. I think it was traced to the plastic covers over the LCD panels or the SXRD panels in the light engine. They fade / craze just like headlight covers on some cars.
If I could afford a projector in a proper space.....and an all-Maggie HT system powered by Bryston or Pass, it'd be one of the SXRD Sony Projectors.....cost no object. That is, once I satisfied myself that the problems in the TVs have been overcome and addressed with say.......heat-proof optically flat glass....
DLP was DOOMED by flat panel LCD displays. The minor problems overwhelmed the color wheel brigade. IF you could get a 3-chip DLP for home use, do away with the color wheel, some problems with the implementation would simply disappear.....like some motion artifacts and 'screen door' effects. A very knowledgable person over on one of the video forums is 100% behind plasma displays. They are still technically ahead of LCD, but for most users, the cooler running and less expensive LED backlit sets make bunches of sense. Since I can't afford any of it, the argument is academic and I'll stick with my SXRD!
DLP projector market is still going strong as the technology provides a much better picture quality than LCD in pretty much every circumstance.
Leo I have the entry level SXRD sony 1080p Projector with a 106 inch screen and I love it. Mind you, giving what I have seen the last few years my next upgrade in the projector market will be a higher end Epson or a Dream Theater DLP. DLP seems to add much better black levels.
TV market on the other hand sees the doom of DLP and now Plasma which is a shame because Plasma blows away LCD. The market is all about easy breezy and not heavy duty.lol
In projectors I would lead anyone to look first at a DLP. Great detail and excellent color rendition from a modestly priced unit. Lamp life about the same as any other projector. Whites and blacks done well. None of this applies to a DLP "TV set" where the lamp needs to be pushed to its limits to exhibit high light levels for daytime viewing. With projectors you can get by with lower light output and a higher gain screen.
I just bought a Panasonic plasma "set". IMO the problem with plasma - now that they've somehow got an Energy Star rating for power consumption - will be who is making the plasma screens. No one can tell me where the screens originate, I'm guessing Matsushita but I don't know. The competition to Panasonic in the plasma market is currently LG (Goldstar hiding behind a new label) and Samsung. If the reliability of the plasmas from those two companies is equivalent to the reliablitity history of those two companies, the plasma will be stained and finally sucumb to the goo-goo gee-gaws of the martkets' whims for features over performance.
Exactly Jan. It is amazing also how the newbs getting their first job at a big box store are being fed that LCD is better. Kind of like how they are told Bose are the best speakers they sell. It is amazing. This sort of false marketing based training in the large retail market could be the end of any product no matter how good it is. In this case, Plasma. Plasma picture quality literally takes a huge crap all over LCD yet people keep sticking their hard earned money into LCD. Even the old benefits of LCD are no longer. Plasma's come plenty bright enough now, and also last 10 times longer than they use to (5-7 yr life span when the technology was new, and non-repairable). Real shame that the worse technology is winning. Now its LED. LOL. Which is LCD except with led light projection. Brilliant. Same crappy picture but now even brighter and even worse black levels. *Yeah*!
The LCD panel folks have fought back with the 'zone system' of LED backlight. Seems to improve some of the numbers and increase the size of the color space. Some photographers like these for computer monitors because the color space can exceed sRGB or AdobeRGB. Black levels are the real weak point to LCD. Plasma is, I'll admit technically superior. The energy star rating MAY help, but the last time I seriously looked at 'em, the heat output was brutal. LOCOS was 'the next big thing' and you got a 3-cell system...true RGB without that awful color wheel. The original Philips LCOS set lasted about 3 weeks. My neighbors had one on order but never got it. I went to the store and looked at the set and the picture was stunning. The Sony and JVC systems were technically better, no pixelization on screen, good brightness and black levels. My 60inch Sony SXRD is still a terrific picture. Too bad about that plastic in the light engine which will eventually yellow out on me and produce color artifacts...blobs, strings and all the rest. By than, I expect Sony will no longer have to deal with these 'legacy' sets and will have written the whole experience of their non-CRT RPTV line off as a bad dream.
The DLP folks improved contrast with the addition of a black segment on the wheel. Some people, me included see motion artifacts, especially if you move your head. The picture is also very pixilated.
Next time you are in a place selling TVs, have a look down the line. They all compete for brightness / wacky saturated color. This is the NTSC system. No Two Same Color.
My last CRT set, a round front Panasonic was actually pretty darn good after a 'calibration' using the DVE disk. Digital Video Essentials. A must have for anyone interested in a better picture.
Definitely Leo. All the TV's come out of the box usually set to a insane brightness level and pushing hard red or blue to pop the colors. You get one home and it looks like poo.lol. Any tv purchased should be calibrated in my opinion. The Sony SXRD's look amazing once calibrated. The best LCD picture is a Sony IMO. Yeah if your a guy who sees the rainbow effect on the DLP sets then they are definitely not for you. I am surprised Pioneer stopped making the Kuro Plasma sets as they were the best picture anyone has ever seen. I don't get it. I guess this gives the higher end Panasonics the crown back.
I saw the Kuro for about 30 seconds when they first came out but the $$$$ price was off-putting.
Since I can't afford the 400$ or so for an ISF guy to come out and calibrate the TV with instruments and reference disks, the NEXT best option is the DVE disk. I feel I can get maybe half-way to what the ISF guy can get. This makes a major improvement and even non-TV types notice....'What's up with that picture?'
Since I'm not in the market for a new set, I just glance at the sets near the front of Costco as I walk over to the books / movies section while the wife shops. Maybe it's a bad feed or I need my glasses, (not wearing them helps my stereo sound quality) but the picture on most of 'em look soft. I guess I'll just walk the line and check them out next trip.