Video Specs for Dummies: "Home Theatre" + PC


I have several "display devices" for video and home theatre throughout the house including a Samsung HD CRT and a Panasonic HD front projector, mostly with good results.

I am often online and working, however, so I have been trying to converge my online and video environments on at least one screen, so I recently picked up another monitor: a Samsung LN S2341 23" widescreen LDC HDTV/monitor for what seemed like the attractive price of $599.00 marked down from from $799 or so.

Having taken it home and tried to use it for a bit of computing, and a bit of DVD watching, I must say I am not thrilled.

What is particulary disappointing and curious to me is that in the PC environment -- including DVDs, media clips and digitized photos -- my 3 year old Sony monitor seems to put it to shame?!

The Sony I believe is an SDM-HS94P 19" (not widescreen).

It lacks the widescreen format and video inputs, but otherwise looks great and can be found on ebay for < $300 and falling rapidly.

Can anyone please explain to me what I might be doing wrong here?

Or why a 3 year old monitor might still look great today compared to new ones?
cwlondon
TV's will have a factory default picture setting to make the Tvs look best with flourescent lighting (like you find in the sales center) You have to adjust the picture to work in your own setting. You may want to look for a calibration DVD on Ebay. One I recall is AVIA and there is another big name which I can't recall. Another think I'm sure you already know is cabling, least resolution is composite, then svideo, then component and then HDMI.

Maybe your old TV is of great quality but it shouldn't put the new Samsung to shame.

Just my opinion, hope it works out for you!