The ads all show the screen, but not the wire. At minimum you have power and signal wires (cable or satellite). By the way, these babies are heavy. It's not at all like hanging a picture.
What you should do about it:
Plan ahead.
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed - Secret #6: IF YOU SEE A TV THAT SAYS "...READY" THAT MEANS IT DOESN'T HAVE A TUNER. YOU NEED A TUNER. THEY WILL SELL YOU A SEPARATE TUNER. YOU ARE BUYING A MONITOR.
Monitors don't have tuners. Since so many sets were being sold in a way that may be politely called MISLEADING, somebody changed the regulations - now it has to be disclosed. The picture may not suck, but just know a monitor should be a lot cheaper than a true complete TV.
What you should do about it:
know this. It can save you money and SHOULD.
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed- Secret #7: SOME PLASMAS AND LCD DIRECT VIEWS LOOK LIKE HI-DEF BUT AREN'T.
The PICTURES don't look like High Definition because they aren't. The screens, when OFF, look the same.
What you should do about it:
IF YOU WANT HDTV, Pass.These sets were put out into the market as bait. Often thousands less than the original run of HDTVs, their pictures were better than you had been used to, but can't stun you like true HDTV can.
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed - Secret #8: YOU MAY NOT SEE A PICTURE AT ITS BEST.
What you should do about it:Depends on how deeply you want to crawl into this.
Warning!
This is technical but I'll simplify. Each piece of electronics - a display device (Hi-Def, digital television) has its own way of showing the picture, involving a fixed number of pixels (picture pieces). This isn't the same for all sets. It isn't the necessarily same for DVD players, converters, or whatever else you plug into see a picture. So somewhere the data is converted. ALL CONVERSION SCHEMES ARE NOT EQUAL. THERE MAY BE LOSSES of resolution, or clarity. There may be what they call artifacts.And here's a thrill: The TV stations don't have to use all their new digital bandwidth to broadcast in full high-definition. For example, rather than being limited to providing one analog programming channel, a broadcaster will be able to provide a super sharp "high definition" (HDTV) program or multiple "standard definition" DTV programs simultaneously. Providing several program streams on one broadcast channel is called "multicasting." The number of programs a station can send on one digital channel depends on the level of picture detail, also known as "resolution," desired in each programming stream. DTV can provide interactive video and data services that are not possible with "analog" technology. They may use some of it for something else that makes them more money. They - or the satellite channels - can in effect send a degraded picture alongside another new channel of degraded picture. There's nothing you can do about this. Nice.
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed - Secret #9: ARTIFACTS.
Important background on nasty artifacts:
Warning:
Like a pimple on a teen, after they see it, that's ALL they see. If you want to live in denial, skip ahead to Number 10. And these aren't REALLY secrets, because you can see them, but you might not notice right away.
What you should do about it:
Decide which you can live with and which you can't. It will drive you crazy if you let it. Or spend a fortune to get the latest technology that might have it fixed. Or just ignore it. Life isn't perfect. Be VERY CLEAR on what the warranty covers or doesn't.
Mosquito noise.
Not buzzing. It's a swirling that looks like tiny bugs flying around. You'll see it - if you do - in saturated colors.
Screen Door Effect.
It looks like looking through a screen door into your picture. (Especially - to my eye - on Plasma sets.) It's because of how the set is built (you are actually seeing the holes or spaces between picture elements). Manufacturers are aware of this and doing all they can to fix or mitigate it.
Blocking.
The picture breaks up into little (or bigger!) blocks. This is horrible to see unless you love modern art. It'll be seen in moving pictures of detail. This is the worst sin.
Rainbows.
Certain people see a rainbow effect in certain DLP (Digital Light Projector) sets. You might notice it if you look slightly away from the screen. It's caused by the way the DLPs work. Some are better at this than others. There's no pot of gold at the end, either.
Pixel failure.
Since there are so many elements (pixels) to a picture, one or more can fail. THE WARRANTY MIGHT STATE that a certain number of failures is okay with them and may even be expected. IF you saw it you'd only notice it up close (see section on where to sit in relation to screen - you shouldn't BE that close. One or more might also stay lit permanently. That'll be more obvious, a tiny, tiny red in a black scene, for example. There may be millions of these dots on your screen, to give you a sense of scale. This isn't the end of the world.
Home Theater Ugly Secrets Revealed - Secret #10: SPEAKERS NEVER SOUND THE WAY THEY DO IN THE STORE.
What you should do about it:Just know it. There's little you can do. (But in the audio section I'll tell you all about how to get the best out of your sound.)
Why? It has to do with the acoustics of the room in which you listen. Each room makes the same speakers sound differently. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. You could buy a subwoofer and bring it home and HEAR NO BASS where you sit. But this will be covered in the audio section. Along with what you can do about it.
BONUS: Home Theater UGLY SECRETS Revealed - Secret #11: SOME TV SCREENS ARE REFLECTIVE.
What you should do about it:Avoid them!!! unless you have a windowless hole to use as a viewing room. Or wait till dark. Or get dark shades.
I would immediately disqualify* any screen that reflects light from windows in the room back at you from the screen. Notice, if you dare go to a store, that the good ones have the big screens FAR AWAY from windows or other sources of light!
A tip:
bring a flashlight to the store. Really. Shine it at the screen. You'll immediately see the difference between reflective and non-reflective.Some manufacturers will SELL you the ADD ON anti-glare screen. It's like undercoating on your new car. YOU SHOULDN'T NEED IT. Avoid reflective screens.
*this doesn't apply to screens you use for a PROJECTOR if they weren't reflective, you'd see nothing. Even so, now there are projector screens which you put on the wall or drop down, that reflect the colors of your TV projector but not others as easily. Less non-tv reflection = a better picture.
Some manufacturers know you will have to watch in a dim room - not because the TV can't crank out brightness, because they CAN, but because you have to use a more moderate brightness setting for a great picture. PLUS they know some of their screens are crappily shiny. So they are starting to put lighting INTO the side and/or back of the TV itself. That actually helps. Thought you should know.
BONUS: Home Theater UGLY SECRETS Revealed - Secret #12: On many new HDTV display screens, old analog TV looks bad.
What you should do about it:Live with it. It'll change when the TV channels go High-Def.
This drives me crazy. And it's often difficult to get them to show you a standard picture in a store. They'll say, "Oh, we only have satellite" or "Our antenna is bad." Because they don't want you to see this ugly thing. To me, at worst, faces look like they are one tone of skin colored wax with not enough detail. There's a reason stores won't show you this: because it looks bad.
You can still get a CRT (TUBE type) "Direct view" TV in HDTV. These are going away, but won't be obsolete. Any HDTV set with CRT technology will show you what is now 'standard' TV better than other types. But, again, soon there won't be 'standard' tv.
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