HDTV Forum

I am new to this whole HD thing, I just got a ps3 and am looking for a budget HDTV so I can play in HD. I had one question about this set.

Westinghouse LTV-19w6 LCD HDTV Monitor

I have read reviews and said that the picture quality is great for the price, bad sound but that is easily fixed. My main concern is that it is 16:10 rather than 16:9

I was just curious when it is revieving the HD signals, 1080i, 720p, 480p, would the picture be stretched or would it be letter boxed? I believe that 1080i, 720p, 480p are all 16:9 aspect ratios. If it would be stretched how much worse would the picture look?

Again sorry for this probably really stupid question, I am new to this whole HD thing and just don't want to waste my money which is in limited supply.

Thanks

It will work far better with a PC than HD because it is native to nothing HD and that means your picture will be only as good as the internal scaler that must convert everything to 1440X900. At $399 I suspect poor scaling but what I find acceptable and what you find acceptable is two different things.

As for converting 16:9 to 16:10 I suspect it will be cropping the sides to make that happen rather than stretching anything.

If you see one in the store and you like it then by all means take her home and enjoy yourself!

Not trying to upsell you, but for about $100 bucks more you can get a 23"-26" LCD HDTV
that will do it all (PC + TV) and the size difference can be remarkable. Remember that a
given size 16:9 display -- say 20" -- will have the approximate vertical size of the next
smaller size 4:3 set. -- Your choice of a 19" display will have slightly less height than
a standard format 17 incher.

My Philips 23" HDTV has the approximate vertical screen height of a 20" display, but
sitting on the corner of my desk it's only about 3-4 ft from my eyes so the apparent size
is about that of a 60" display at a viewing distance of 10 ft.