Seth C said:
The argument is flawed. Who says you will get more image in the future? Example, if a 47" widescreen and a 51" 4:3 cost the same amount, the 4:3 will give you roughly the same 16:9 view as the widescreen, while the widescreen will give you a much smaller 4:3 view. Where are you gaining image in the future? You aren't. However, with the 4:3 set you would gain things NOW and lose nothing in the future. Wait, unless you'd like to argue that black space is somehow worse than having exctra room to place things on top of the TV, but come on....
People like to speak of "black bars" as if they are magically something of evil. They aren't. It sounds stupid. "You don't want black bars!" Why not? If I bought a 4:3 51" set now, I'd still have a 47" widescreen set later. The black bars are not the end of the world. At least that is viewing area I CAN use if I want to display something that is 4:3. It's viewing area you won't get access to on the widescreen that cost just as much.
why, I am glad you asked this question Seth!!!! Allow me to respond!
An HDTV has 1080i lines of resolution. (well, technically 540 lines but we won't go into that). no matter if it is 4:3 or 16:9, an HDTV only has 1080 lines of resolution. Got that? Ok, now let's take that further.
HDTV has square pixels. So it is really easy to figure out effective and actual resolutions (unlike that crummy NTSC TV which has .9 or 1.2 aspiect ratio pixels which ends up complicating things). So if a 4:3 HDTV has 1080 lines of horizontal resolution (that is the picture is 1080 pixels tall), how wide is the picture? If you said 1440 pixels, you are correct! So a 4:3 TV is 1440x1080 pixels, but a 16:9 TV is 1920x1080 pixels. With me still? Now you will also note that the ATSC resolution of an HD broadcast or recording is 1920x1080 pixels (even if it is 720p the tv or the box still has to upconvert it to 1080i). So how does your TV fit a 1920x1080 picture on a 1440x1080 screen? The same way a DVD player does it.. it decimates every fourth line of resolution from the source video and sticks black bars on the top and bottom of the picture.
Ok, that is a really long way of saying it. What is the recap? Simple. A 4:3 HDTV only displays HD video at 1440x810. Yup. So there you have it. Even more so a 51" 4:3 set will give you a bigger 4:3 picture and the same "size" picture as a 47" widescreen set. However, that picture on the 51" set will actually be lower quality, only 75% the resolution, of the 47" set. And trust me, when you blow up a 25% less sharper picture by an extra 4", you will see the difference.
that's all of today folks. join us tomorrow for our next episode of "101 reasons why at this point in time it is retarded to buy a 4:3 HDTV" Same bat time, same bat channel.
Seriously though folks. There is NO good reason. NONE! Buy 16:9... I mean I can't force you at gunpoint or anything (unless you want to pay me to.. and provide the gun), but trust me when I say you will be kicking your ass around 2 years from now.. It is great that those in the thread who have a 4:3 TV have enjoyed it. Just please understand we haven't hit the point yet where it will really start pinching you, and by the time we do hit that point it sounds like you will have a good 3-5 years on that set which isn't bad. But the people you are suggesting 4:3 sets to now WON'T have those 3-5 years in on the set. Within the next two years these people are going to be kicking themselves in the ass because their 4:3 TV is only 2 years old and most of the stuff they use it for is letterboxed with black bars on the top and bottom and their resolution on HD material is 3/4 what it would have been had they gone with the 16:9 set.
Friends don't let friends buy 4:3 HDTVs.
edit - and to answer your second post a little more directly Seth, you will get more picture in the form of a 33% bump in resolution over the 4:3 letterboxed picture. the "more picture" comes in the exact same form that you get more picture by watching an anamorphic DVD in 16:9 mode as opposed to 4:3 letterboxed mode. you get more picture because there is more information/resolution in the picture than on a 4:3 set.
at this point it is like arguing that non-anamorphic letterboxed DVDs are just as good as anamoprhic widescreen. Just because the picture is the same size doesn't mean they are just as good visually.
