Video Asylum

Posted by Pierre (i) on October 18, 2000 at 19:32:00:

In Reply to: Pierre can you please clarify posted by jh on October 18, 2000 at 06:08:55:

I understand your interest in the Tantus because aside from the progressive scan, if you compare it to the Wega 27" the Tantus has a component input which will give you the best quality for DVD viewing.

Last Christmas I bought a DVD from Sony, but I bought their cheapest model because I did not want to spend a lot of money on something that would be obsolete in a few years, when the High Definition tv set will come on the market. But after seeing the Tantus progressive scan tv, I decided to replace my DVD with one with component outputs because I was very impressed with the quality that could be achieved with good old NTSC and even if in my everyday work now for the last 6 months I have been working with HD equipment, I do not think that HD television and/or regular HD broadcast will be available in Canada before at least a good 5 years.

Last August my Sony 27" tv failed me for the second time in 2 years, first it was the tuner then the sound failed. I decided to buy a new set. 27" being the largest I could fit in my living room I started to shop around for a new tv. Then I saw the Tantus tv with progressive scan (progressive scan gives you 70% more resolution than interlace scan) I found the image quite impressive so I bought one because I think it will give me improved resolution up until HD becomes available and/or afordable!

Since I bought my Tantus tv I have seen a lot of new DVD that now offer progressive scan. Those DVD (if my understanding of the progressive scan format is correct) will not be compatible with the Tantus progressive scan, because the Tantus stores one frame of video in a frame store, then displays that frame twice in a progressive way. Progressive scan DVD do the same thing but sends out the signal at twice the normal rate (30khz instead of 15khz) so you need a tv set with progressive input. Which the Tantus does not have since all of that process is done inside the tv.

I hope I am not confusing you more but the reason I went trough all of this is to bring you to my next point.

I hope that not all Tantus tv set are noisy because I would not see the point in having progressive scan and component input if the tv can not display a clean image. The set I bought display noise especially on a white background. If I freeze the picture with the still button on the remote, I expect the picture to be 100% static nothing should move ( ie : the white should be white without any variation) the day I got my set I bought Madonna's latest DVD video collection 93:99 and on the video "Rain" wich has a lot of white and blue I was horrified to see all the noise in the background.

When Samsung agreed to replace my tv set they told me that it was in back order and that they would receive some in the 3rd week of September. Then last week they said that they were not sure if they would receive that model or a new one.

My advice to you would be to wait to see if they are coming with something new because I thing that they might come up not only with a set that has progressive scan build in but also with progressive scan inputs in order to benefit from the new DVD players ( I will no go on explaining why there is a benefit in doing the progressive scaning in the DVD player because this post is long enough already !) Still the progressive scan in the tv has some advantages when watching tv off the air if the video is of good quality of course because on bad off air video the progressive scan seems to agravate thing by causing some artefacts in the picture.

I think you should also wait to see if they replace my set with a non-noisy set ! Hopefully I was only unlucky with my set and things will get back in order.

Samsung is trying to compete with Sony by offering a very interesting product at a competitive price, since I was not impressed with my last Sony I decided to give Samsung a chance, I hope they will not deceive me !

Maybe you should register on this bulletin board so you can e-mail me directly and I could keep you informed on what is happening...

Regards,

Pierre