HDTV for low res content?

[Tonybologna23]

I am in the market for a new display, somewhere in the 30"+ LCD range. I have a bunch of HDTV media (TV shows, movies, etc...well i gues no etc) and I want to be able to display them on a large scale at the correct resolution. But does this mean that my non HDTV media will look like shit? Right now my stuff that is around 600 pixels wide looks great on regular TV's and even my parents (non-HD) 42" Plasma but I am afriad on an HDTV it will have to extrapolate and everything will look like crap.

I really don't know anything about how this stuff works so I need help! Do regular DVD movies look crappy on HDTV's because they are for lower resolution TVs? does it make sense to get an HDTV if I am not going to watch a lot of 1080i stuff?

 

[dark_reign]

DVDs will look good on an HDTV. A lot will depend on how well the TV scales 480i/480p to its native screen resolution. I have a Sony 42" LCD RPTV (KDF-E42A10) and it handles SD content very well. It scales HD and SD to 720p and both look very impressive.

 

[xX_Jack_Carver_Xx]

Also remember to think about WHAT the source is for your signals. For example, the comcast HDTV cable box does a great job of scaling up or down, and will feed your HDTV pre-scaled SD content at your HDTV's native res, so the TV's scaling wont even come into play. So 480i/p comes out as a middle of screen with black borders on the sides image from the comcast box.

I think DirectTV HDTV tivo's do the same.

If you are going to run offtheair then theTV's scaling becomes an issue.

I personally would rather have a display that has NO brains for scaling, and I'll do that in a HTPC or settop box. Given what level of compute power you could expect as a addin function on a TV vs a real HTPC or settop box.