Tube HDTV + Xbox 360

[sirplayalot]

How would an Xbox 360 look on this TV?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7600955&st=HDTV&lp=8&type=product&cp=1&id=1130981752759

I am currently running my 360 on my Westinghouse but I will soon be selling my Sceptre and using my Westinghouse as a PC monitor.

[|MaguS|]

I wouldn't unless it supports 720p but saddly the specs on BestBuy don't say that, only that it supports 1080 (no "i" or "p" which usually indicates "i").

[sirplayalot]

I wouldn't unless it supports 720p but saddly the specs on BestBuy don't say that, only that it supports 1080 (no "i" or "p" which usually indicates "i").

So this thing doesnt do 720p?

[Arioch]

Being a CRT it will only display 1080i.

[|MaguS|]

Actually it doesn... but cnet doesn't have many nice things to say about it..

http://reviews.cnet.com/Insignia_NS_30HTV/4505-6481_7-31871129.html

[Raptorman]

It says it's 1080i (down the page it mentions interlaced).

Personally, I'm not all about the Tube HDTV's. You can get a pretty good 30" LCD at a fair price. Circuit City and Best Buy have a HDTV sell going on right now.
About a week ago I bought a Sony Bravia 46" LCD, and I'm glad I made the switch from Rear Projection HDTV to LCD. There is a world of difference.

[sirplayalot]

What would be a good HDTV to use for my 360 @ 720p? I'm looking at one from Best Buy. :)

[Arioch]

I am using a Westinghouse 27" LTV-27w7. You can get it for a shade over $600 and does 720p. There may be better LCDs out there but they aren't night and day better plus the price is very good.

[evilchris]

What would be a good HDTV to use for my 360 @ 720p? I'm looking at one from Best Buy. :)

Try Sony's XBR970. It's "ok". If you want the best picture quality in existence find a used XBR960. No TV of any tech has surpassed its picture quality yet.

LCD's are generally the worst HDTV's. I especially would avoid them if you want to game. You want rich, deep blacks in games, something LCD's have never had.

[evilchris]

About a week ago I bought a Sony Bravia 46" LCD, and I'm glad I made the switch from Rear Projection HDTV to LCD. There is a world of difference.

What type of RPTV? With current top tech, any RPTV will blow away the best LCD's including the XBR3 Bravia's.

[Marvel_us]

What type of RPTV? With current top tech, any RPTV will blow away the best LCD's including the XBR3 Bravia's.

Yea, I thought rear projection was better than LCD? I remember you linking to a sony RPTV in a previous thread that looked really nice.

[sirplayalot]

I'm looking for something generally cheaper than the Sony XBR and other high quality HDTV's. I want something with great picture quality.

[Tyr-Sog]

I just picked up a Samsung 30" Slimfit for $650. IMO it's the best TV on the market for price to performance ratio. I had the money for a 32" LCD but after doing a ton of research and compairment shopping, I can't justify spending the extra $400-$600 difference for a namebrand(I was sold only on the panasonic or Samsung lcd) lcd. The slimfit is absolutly gorgous both physically and picture quality wise. I know there was some issues with the earlier models but after researching a lot the consensus is the TV is a pretty much perfect now.

I just can't see spending $1000 plus on a lcd(unless the thiness is playing a key factor) with 1080p on the doorstep. I know you can get cheaper off brand lcds but imo the pictures are just not up to par compared to the Sammys and pannys. Also, in 1-2 years time 1080p will drop in price and will be widely more available on stations.

The slimfit is actually replacing my 46" Sony RearPr hdtv as the main tv in my livingroom(Rear projection is just way to big in a very small living room). Once i get more use out of it I cna give a better opinion on it but so far after doing reviews, looking at it hooked up in hd at bestbuy and playing with it for a couple of days at my place I'm extremly happy with it. Can't wait to hook up the 360 :D

[Namrok]

Any TV with a slimfit tube (pretty much all ~110 lb 30" tube TVs) have a problem with reduced resolution towards the left and right edge of the screen. At least, thats how it was with my LG Slimfit, and to the best of my knowledge most other brands. The problem is that the tube just can't bend the particle beam accurately with such a shallow tube, so they give you less resolution instead to keep it accurate. It wasn't so bad playing games, but it was painfully obvious when you bring up the 360 dashboard, and the text is pretty blurry towards the edges but crystal clear in the center.

Now that said, it might not apply to the TV you are looking at, but make damn sure in the store it doesn't have blurry left and right edges, and that if it does, you are OK with that. Like I said, its only really jumps out with text, but if you look close, you can see that resolution is lower towards the edges.

I ended up ditching the Slimfit and going with an LCD, and the picture looks so much crisper. The black levels don't begin to compare to the tube, but I think it was a good tradeoff. Yeah the tube was cheaper, but the blurry edges caused me to regret ever buying it. I guess I might be a perfectionist like that.

[Tyr-Sog]

snipit

Yea, that was my main worry with the edging. Thats why I researched various sites and user reviews mainly. Susposly it's been fixed to miminal with the new revision(Samsung at least, xx82 model, forget the first 2 numbers). Some hardcore audio/video dudes see it with their new rivised tubes most don't. Those who seen it said they'ed take back until they got a tube that wasn't noticable. Wierd it would be on some tubes but not others.

I haven't hooked my xbox up just yet so I really can't comment on the issues that could be there with these slimfit models.

Any how, for me it just came down to the cost. Personally I just find this particular tv to be the best for the price and will get me through a couple of years until I go 1080p lcd, plasma or whatever the future brings.

Not to mention the money I saved I can go get my new Weber BBQ...Steaks anyone?!! :D

[Namrok]

Yea, that was my main worry with the edging. Thats why I researched various sites and user reviews mainly. Susposly it's been fixed to miminal with the new revision(Samsung at least, xx82 model, forget the first 2 numbers). Some hardcore audio/video dudes see it with their new rivised tubes most don't. Those who seen it said they'ed take back until they got a tube that wasn't noticable. Wierd it would be on some tubes but not others.


Yeah, for me, it went from a thing I barely noticed, to a thing I tried to ignore, to a thing I thought I could live with, to a thing that bugged the hell out of me constantly :p I ended up giving the TV to my parents when theirs broke. I was too lazy to take that big ass TV back to BestBuy within the 30 days, plus it took a long while (about 4 months) for the issue to grow to an intolerable level with me. I think the last straw was when I saw someone elses HDTV hooked up to a 360 and it looked so much better. Then I noticed every little flaw in the Slimfit even more.

[Mathesar]

I would steer clear of Insignia. ive heard nothing but bad things especially when it comes to picture quality.

Unfortunately most companies stopped making worthy CRTs and the only ones left are cheap & crappy ones, except for the Sony XBR970 , although this model is a step down from the now discontinued XBR960 (the 970 lacks sony's super fine pitch tube which makes 1080i content extra crisp / detailed) it still offers excellent picture quality & im sure 360 looks great on it.

Im currently using a Sony XBR960 34" and Xbox 360 looks better than any other display ive seen it on , a shame Sony stopped making this model but the use of its "Super fine pitch" tube put the price pretty high and a lot of people werent willing to pay $2,300 for a 34" CRT ,CNET still uses it as there refrence monitor when judging other hdtv's, I bought mine 7 months ago on sale for $1,900 and have zero regrets.

The XBR970 should be available for under a grand.

[Scunner]

I just picked up a Samsung 30" Slimfit for $650. IMO it's the best TV on the market for price to performance ratio.

I picked up the 27" 4:3 Slimfit from Circuit City a few weeks ago for the open-box bargain price of $350. I think it retails new for $500-ish. Awesome picture quality for regular, non-HD TV, but with an HD antenna, it's perfect. DVDs and my 360 look gorgeous. I've stopped playing games on my PC since I got the 360 - comfy couch FTW!

I looked at the 30" widescreen you got, and felt at the time that it gave up too much in height. In retrospect, after playing games in 1080i, I think it would have been just fine.

[Namrok]

I've stopped playing games on my PC since I got the 360 - comfy couch FTW!

I did the same thing too. But then more and more PC games started coming out that I wanted to play... so I got a set of 25' AV cables, hooked my laptop up to my HDTV (it has a VGA in), and lately I've been enjoying 32" of Dawn of War: Dark Crusade :p The best resolution the tv does is 1366x768, which kind of sucks, but you can't beat 32" of screen.

[MustangSVT]

Here's my comment on this.

I've got a 4+ year old Sony 36" HDTV tube (HS510 or something like that). I played 360 on it for like a month or so before I got a new HDTV for my basement (the tube HDTV is still in main room on 1st floor, but it's not the main "home theatre" anymore). Anyway, 360 on it was pretty good. All modern tubes and other HDTVs accept 720p and 1080i from what I know, maybe there's an odd tube or CRT rear projection that doesn't accept 720p. Mine accepts 720p and 1080i. It just converts 720p to 1080i I guess. Anyway, it looked pretty nice. However, it wasn't that big (not compared to my new TV anyway), and tube HDTVs also filter the vertical resolution (1920 in case of 1080i) to like 800-1100. Only the best ones with Super Fine Pitch (Sony XBR960(N) and Sony XS955) can resolve about 1440 lines. All the others do less, 1100, 1000, maybe even 800. They also have quite a bit of overscan.

For my new TV which I use for 360 now, I've got a 52" JVC LCoS 720p model (G787). This TV is like $1800 at Best Buy nowadays.

If you want to buy a good HDTV, I did a lot of research prior to buying my JVC, and my conclusion was that nothing beats a good LCoS rear projection for the price (the newest DLP from Samsung is quite good as well). The only lower end LCoS is the 720p model from JVC, the other ones are $2500-$3500 range and are all 1080p and 56-61" range (JVC and Sony models). I'd recommend you either get a TV like I have (or maybe the 56" version if you have space), or if you don't have the $1800+, maybe a ~30-32" LCD? I wouldn't get a tube for the following reasons:
- you can't find the good ones anymore (Sony XBR, XS)
- they weigh a lot
- most of them only resolve like 800-1000 by 1080 for 1080i so it's not true 1080i
- they have a lot of overscan as well compared to other technologies
- way too small in size, I wouldn't consider getting a TV under ~55" nowadays, but that's just me

[ENU291]

JVC LCoS is similar to Sony's SXRD tech. These sets offer the best big screen High Def picture on the market today. Samsungs new DLP with LED lighting is also very impressive.

[|MaguS|]

Speaking of TVs, I went to my local Best Buy and they had a 60" Bravia on the floor. It looked decent and I actually began thinking of buying it right then, I asked the guy in the area if he would be able to hook it up to an X360 so I can see how games play on it since Im a gamer and his reponse was "Sorry were not allowed to do that anymore, we have to keep everything as is." My answer? "Ok, Bye... I was going to buy it if the X360 looked good on it."

No going to that Best Buy anymore... lazy ass sales reps...

[ENU291]

Best Buy is the worst! In NY I can go to PC Richards and the sales man will pull out the tvs and hook up whatever you want. Back in the days The Wiz was good like that too. They'd let you demo whatever you wanted however you wanted. To bad Cablevision shut them down.

[Marvel_us]

Speaking of TVs, I went to my local Best Buy and they had a 60" Bravia on the floor. It looked decent and I actually began thinking of buying it right then, I asked the guy in the area if he would be able to hook it up to an X360 so I can see how games play on it since Im a gamer and his reponse was "Sorry were not allowed to do that anymore, we have to keep everything as is." My answer? "Ok, Bye... I was going to buy it if the X360 looked good on it."

No going to that Best Buy anymore... lazy ass sales reps...

I can't stand when that type of stuff happens.

You should be able to preview the thing properly, especially for the price they're charging.

Maybe give circuit city a try? Some of their sales reps are pretty good at catering to the customer.

[|MaguS|]

I know why I he gave me the answer, its because of how I look. I come walking in wearing jeans and a "Gi Joe" T-Shirt... not really screaming "Hey, I have money!". I look like a normal college student, not someone whos making almost 70K a year.