Hi-tech-tv.com: Television technology news & answers

Question: I have a chance to get a 46 sony bravia or 52 olivia LCD.. same price approx: $1100 … any good/bad reviews?

Answer 1: I have a 37 in. Olivia LCD and have no complaints. I’m not an electronics expert, but the picture and sound seem great to us. My wife often turns the volume as high as it will go and there are no pops or crackles or anything like that.

Only negative is we’ve never been able to get it to work with a universal remote (ie: comcast remote, one4All remote). Apparently they are secretive with their remote codes.

Answer 2: The remote thing is a huge pain in the ass, otherwise, I love ours.

Answer 3: Love my Olevia and did a lot of research on them before I bought it a cpl yrs ago. There was an interesting piece in the TIMES where they explained that Olevia and LG for example had their chassis and other parts built by Synatx Brillan etc. Consumer Reports rated Olevia the best for the $ at the time as well. Of course like most HD the sound basically sucks so you need to get a cpl external speakers and a woofer for the floor. I use the JBL creature speakers made for computers and NOT as $ as these $$$ systems they push in the Audio stores. The sound is great.

Answer 4: I have a 37″ LCD. Love it. Has a better picture than most of my family friends’ higher priced, more name brand TV’s. They all say it when they come over for games etc. I have had it for 2 years and really can’t recommend it enough.

Answer 5: Are you comparing a low end Sony to a high end Olevia? Comparing brands is useless, without knowing which models. Every brand has their ‘entry level, good, better, and best”. So those with an Olevia who say there’s blows away their neighbors brand name TV, there could be your explanation.

Food for thought though, I believe Olevia went bankrupt a while ago? If so, understand your warranty may be worth the paper it is written on.

Question: Today, I am the happy owner of a Sony 40″ LCD HDTV. 1080p and 120htz. I’m just waiting for it to be delivered. Yea!!!

Anyway, I intend on purchasing some HDMI cable to hook up my cable box and Blue-ray player. I was hoping to do the same for my XBox360, but it seems my Xbox doesn’t have an HDMI output. Has anyone run into this issue, and what did they do to remedy it? I’m trying to figure out if I need to buy some kind of adapter, do I need to replace my XBox console or just live with the component cables I’ve got?

Any input would be much appreciated.

Answer: I think they sell an adapter. I have seen it in the Xbox section in Best Buy but I’m not sure who makes it.

Answer 2: I have the 40″ Sony Bravia and it’s fantastic. I play the XBox360 without HDMI cables. I use the red, yellow and white adaptor cables. It looks great but I hear with an HDMI it will be even better.

Answer 3: There is an xbox360 hdmi conversion kit. They sell a conversion kit for it.

Question: I just moved in an apartment with my fiance and I got cable installed Saturday for a Phillips 42in 1080p. The channels work fine but for some reason for the hd channels I have to manually change the width of the screen for me to have the whole screen HD. I had to do that with all the football games on Sunday. Isn’t it supposed to be automatic? This is my first Flat screen so I’m not sure…Do I need to buy another wire?

I set the settings for the actual tv for automatic but for the hd football games it came up widescreen and i had to manually expand the screen.

Answer 1: Yeah you can change the settings to automatic. You can call cablevision and they will talk you through it.

Answer 2: When setup is right, your digital cable box should read (left to right) 1080i, hdtv, auto. Time and channel should appear in a larger font below the info.

Answer 3: HDMI cables really help. What you need to do is adjust the box settings. Go into the box menu by hitting settings button on remote twice. Go to Video Input and change if from fixed to auto dvi/hdmi.

You also need to run the HD wizard on the box to set it up. To do this you turn the cable box off, and then hit the info and settings button on the box itself. The program will come up on your tv and just follow the on screen instructions.

I work for cable as a tech so this should have been done for you, but sometimes guys dont do shit the right way.

On a side note, it can also be your TV so make sure you have it on wide screen setting if avail. Also make sure you take your cable box of the stretch setting if its turned on by hitting the settings button on remote once and going to it.