Sony KV-32HS420 32-Inch FD Trinitron WEGA HD-Ready CRT TV
Great choice for 4:3  HD-Ready TV
This TV received some decent reviews online and I would recommend this system for those looking for a 4:3 HDTV. 90% of what I watch on TV is in the format of 4:3 and even thou widescreen looks great for Widescreen DVDs I was unwilling to watch standard (SDTV) definition TV on a widescreen where you have to stretch and zoom the image which distorts the picture and makes images look shorter and fatter (very noticeable) or view the image with side bars (beware of screen burn in). When cable offers 40% widescreen and/or HD then I'll switch to widescreen but I don't see that happening soon, so don't believe all the hype about most TV stations switching fast to this new format, that's years away. Personally, I don't see that happening for at least another 7 yrs but changing to DTV (digital TV) and getting rid of analog will happen sooner. Changing to this new format (HDTV) is expensive for the stations and most people do not own widescreen TV's which will dictate how quickly these stations will transmit in widescreen. \\"Congress anticipates that viewers and broadcasters will not be ready for DTV by 2006\\" and pushed the date up to 2009 to phase out analog. People confuse DTV as meaning HDTV, stations are only required to transmit digitally, not required to transmit in HD and/or widescreen, therefore alot of the DTV will still be in 4:3 format.     1. Used Avia (DVD used to calibrate color, picture, etc.) for basic calibrations. Without this disk try setting the TV to PRO setting with the color turned down 1-4 notches to decrease the red push. Basic calibrations make a big difference in picture quality and I recommend using Avia which is easier for non-tech people. Test the TV at the stores by changing the picture settings (hit the picture button), PRO should be pretty good, VIVID setting is not good, and remember you can fine tune all these settings at home. When I checked out this TV, the store had it on Vivid which was the worst setting for picture quality.    2. Tip: Ifyou have a progressive DVD player, compare the progressive setting on the DVD player to normal 480i(non-progressive) setting. You may find that the TV does a better job in upconverting the signal compared to the DVD. You may think that the DVD player would produce a better picture but that isn't always the case. Search online for more info, worked better for me.    3. I was concerned that all SDTV (Standard cable channels) would look bad on a HDTV. They do look bad on widescreen HDTV's due to the stretching and zooming done to fill the screen. I was happy to find out this wasn't the case for this TV. Some channels, especially local channels (analog) transmit a poor signal and this looks worse on this TV. Half the SDTV stations look the same compared to a regular Toshiba TV, some look better (like DVD quality). The TRUE HDTV stations look excellent (We subscribe to Time Warner), DVD's look great. Discovery HD and the Tonight Show look awesome! Because of this I give a higher rating. Viewing distance is based on 6 and 8 ft, some of the analog stations are unwatchable at close distances (5 ft or less). HD and DVD's look great even at 3 ft.     4. Tip: Some cable installers don't understand this TV. SDTV (Standard cable channels) are suppose to be in 4:3 format without having to zoom in which distorts the picture or having the image with bars all around it. He had no idea of what I was talking about and tried to convince me that this was the way the image is displayed. After he left I set it right but I can see how these TV's are set wrong from cable installers then reviewers are upset that 4:3 stations have a bar around the image. The cable box settings were set to video out to pass-thru, display set to 4:3TV, accept 480i & 1080i formats which corrected the display. Luckily I spent days researching this TV and knew his settings were wrong so I was able to correct it.       If widescreen is important to you then you should look at widescreen TV's, just beware of limitedwidescreen programming, sure it's going to get better but it's moving so slow. If you watch lots of widescreen DVDs then go widescreen, you'll be happier. For me this was a great choice, I watch 1 DVD per week and use the TV's excellent zoom feature for HD programming to fill the screen. Therefore, I can watch over 200 channels in full screen without stretching or bars which includes all the HD channels (I currently receive 12 HD channels). Sure it's heavy and curved on the top (center speaker fits OK, forget about putting a cable box on top unless you're good at balancing).    You should expect that SD channels will display 4:3 without zooming or bars. Widescreen DVD's look great on this TV but you'll have to put up with a top/bottom bar which can't be TV zoomed. True HD will display a top/bottom bar which may be TV zoomed to fill the screen. This is a true zoom which doesn't stretch the picture but expect a slight decrease in picture quality and part of the picture (left/right side) will be lost. Avoid the cable box zoom functions (bad) since this produces noticeably lower picture quality compared to the TV's zoom (which is pretty good). Cable stations that upconvert 480i programs (total garbage, not true HD) to higher definition will have bars on all sides and I recommend the TV's zoom to fill the screen. You have lots of inputs and 4 color settings, and some of the true HDTV programming will be \\"Wow, that's amazing\\". So amazing that I'm starting to watch more programming about nature and scenic places in HD. How good is the picture? In real life my vision is not as good as the pictures I see on this HDTV, but I wear glasses. Just realized I need high definition glasses but they don't exist, no exaggeration. Some true HD programs will look better then others, most of the garbage HD upconverted programs will look worse then DVD quality. Overall, I'm happy with this purchase and wish I made the change sooner to HDTV, it's worth it. Since experiencing true HD programming it's hard to watch standard cable channels because the difference in picture quality is so extreme but we still have a long way to go before HD is the norm. Hopefully in 7 years there might be enough HD and/or widescreen programming available to justify making the switch to HD Widescreen. If so, then at least the pricing will be much lower with newer/better TV technology. Until then this is my pick for now and I'm very happy with this choice.    Update: After 6 weeks, still impressed with the picture quality on DVD's and HD. Watching more HD programming now and using the zoom feature to fill the screen. Based on my viewing distance (6ft), this TV's picture quality beats the Plasmas I see at the stores. For viewing distances of over 10ft, consider a larger screen.