Lousy feeds in stores

[Rich]

It has been posted again and again how the retail stores often seem not to care about the picture shown on their tvs. The craziest post I saw on this was that BB supposedly records a HD show on dvds (SD) and then shows that on the HDTVs so that people think they are watching HD. Is that true?

How many of you guys who work at retailers show actual HD content on your HD sets in the store? I often see an HD satelite feed, which often does not look that great, probably split too much. But just as often I see dvds running on the HD sets.

I understand having a few sets showing dvds. But most of these stores are within easy reception distance of one or more OTA HD stations. And they sell OTA stbs! Yet I have never seen one running one of the OTA boxes they sell into an HDTV, in prime time, showing customers the tv shows they actually watch, in widescreen HD OTA I would tune a set to CBS, a set to Fox, etc. And every customer looking at an HD set showing a dvd would also be shown one of the sets with the OTA signal, so he knew what an HD picture looked like. They would probably sell a lot of STBs this way, no?.
Will this change when more and more sets come with built in tuners? I would think it is a no brainer. Put a big ol antenna on the roof, hook up some tvs with built in tuners, and show how good it looks.
Or would that interfere too much with the cable/satelite sales biz?

[57U]

I was told that BB have an HD loop, and send it via their own satellite (or leased space) to all the stores. In Canada we get the "US recording" and, of course, it shows channels we cannot get up here...

[abmoyer]

aye at BB it is a loop off the hard drive. Odd set up. Sat signal comes in and gets recorded on a hard drive and sent back out through a sencore unit. Its not true HD but for the ammount of tv we sell its not to bad. HD from your provider will look better at home

[MICKEY T]

Tweeters, here in chicagoland uses, OTA, i don't understand why other retail outlets don't....at all. (I don't work there..not that, that's a bad thing)

[57U]

OTA doesn't always have something on in HD, especially during the day.

If you record the OTA signal without permission and use it for commercial purposes, that's probably illegal.

Many use hard disk devices, but "pay" for the programming, or get permission.

[Rich]

I know OTA would likely not carry HD during the day, but most people shop at night, and the stores are open to 10 or so. I am just suggesting they set up a couple tvs with the OTA receivers or tvs with tuners built in to showcase what is out there and how good it looks.
I am glad to hear about that Tweeter that does this. The last Tweeter I was in was trying to dump their ota stbs, guy told me they never sold any. If they had one set up to show how good the free ota picture was, they might have sold a bunch!

[kevinw]

DISH runs a continuous demo channel for reataliers. Thaos that do not use DISH often play a HD loop that is on a hard drive. If a retailer does not use an HD feed, most likely they play a DVD and try to convince you that is what HD look like.

[splinter]

I went to CC the other day to compare a couple TVs. Most of the TVs had the CC loop on but a few had a seperate SAT receiver. The HD from the SAT recevier(DiscHD, HDnet, etc.) looked real good and it was probably 10 times better than the loop that was on the other TVs

[brector]

My local tweeter, actually called now audio video, has a dish or directv Discovery feed and it looks great.

[eric gill]

feeds in stores sucks trust me I've worked at cc when they paid commision and now at ultimate electronics tv's and audio always sound better at home. or they should

[bru87tr]

the CC in my area just installed comcast HD in the stores. see the boxes. still doesnt look HD. at times but not all the time.

[tonelocdog]

I went to bb the other day, and the feeds looked pretty good, especially on their sony 60 lcd, Looked real good to me.

[ebubman]

you know, i've wondered about this as well. i'm a 1st time shopper for hdtv. we go into some stores (typically cc, bb, costco, bj's & sears) & compare hdtv's and i find myself looking @ some of the pictures and thinking "wow----if that's high definition, then what's the big deal? why do i want to spend all of this money on this quality?" ostensibly some stores take the presentation a bit more seriously than others. we're still up in the air on this thing. i seem to read so often here that what you see when you get the set home can be a bit different than what you see in the store. frankly, this is a bit confusing. the last thing i want to do is get a sparkling new hdtv home & then wonder why i took the plunge. this forum is immensely helpful & once you get the various acronyms down, it's starting to make sense. bub

[Beastslayer1]

Every store is different in the respect of what type of signal they can carry. Obviously a store built in the 1980's through mid 1990's probably will not have the necessary splitters, amplifiers, convertors, ect. that are necessary to carry an HD loop, let alone a live HD cable or sat. feed. Plus the equipment that is needed to facilitate the loop or the feed, and the money that it takes to create a loop or secure a live feed is tremendous. It is very costly, plus there is the ever changing factor that connections can change. Let's say that you design a system solely based on the component video connection, then in a few years, what if everything went to DVI or HDMI only on the televisions? Now you're company has just spent millions of dollars on this system and now it's obsolete.

[tonelocdog]

Well the bb that i go to just opened up not to long ago, so im figuring they got the necessities they need, to display their hd feeds, to look as good as they can, since most of their tv's do look pretty good in hd, in exception of a few lower quality brands of hdtv's at bb.

[Rich]

"Every store is different in the respect of what type of signal they can carry. Obviously a store built in the 1980's through mid 1990's probably will not have the necessary splitters, amplifiers, convertors, ect. that are necessary to carry an HD loop, let alone a live HD cable or sat. feed."

Im talking about sticking a $30 antenna on the roof and hooking up a couple of tvs to ota to show what real, free, hd looks like. Should be a selling point, especially with sets with the built in tuners. MANY stores are within easy ota reception of one or more stations. They used to show ota tv in stores in the old days. Show people what the tv can do! Heck, if you have a store that can get indoor reception you can really throw the customer a surprise. Stick a silver sensor up on the set and tune in the NCAA tourney and boom! Its gotta sell more sets!

[Rich]

Of course, that assumes selling sets is the primary goal and that the cut from selling people sat or cable services does not ecclipse it. I suspect one reason the stores soft pedal ota hd is that they want to sell sat and cable subscriptions.

[{FBI}Sokhar]

well I work at costco as a eletronics saleman and I can tell ya they do it because they are cheap

last week they made me switch over all HDtv's to a single POS dvd/vcr player hooked up to a amplified RF spliter and feed coaxial to all Tvs from that one DVD/VCR player

this is no way to sell HDtv's as most customers dont know why it looks that bad and dont understand that this is the worst way to feed these tvs I mean a 50" samsung DLP on coaxial DVD feed come on

dispite complaints of all the salespeople in the dept they wont budge on this makes no sence to me I am geussing they just dont want to sell TVs anymore LOL

[raidbuck]

CompUSA just started selling HDTVs a few months ago. I went in for some computer stuff and asked why they don't have an HD loop for their HD TVs. The guy said they had to use this terrible SD loop because CompUSA paid for a commercial and their stores had to show it.

I can see why somebody wouldn't want to buy an HDTV when they saw the pictures CompUSA was showing. Just stupid marketing by non-techies.

Rich N.

[tharinmfp]

Im talking about sticking a $30 antenna on the roof and hooking up a couple of tvs to ota to show what real, free, hd looks like.

BBY is doing this along with live DirecTV HD feed.

[videobruce]

I can see why somebody wouldn't want to buy an HDTV when they saw the pictures CompUSA was showing. Just stupid marketing by non-techies. They should stick with computers.
Worst setup for HD sets I have ever seen (except for a warehouse club).

As far as OTA, I realy doubt these exec. types really think anyone uses an outdoor antenna (since they, I'm sure, don't).

[BadCamper]

Tweeters, here in chicagoland uses, OTA, i don't understand why other retail outlets don't....at all. (I don't work there..not that, that's a bad thing)

Random useless retail fact out there for ya: a Best Buy store in the Los Angeles area was sued because the salesmen had been selling televisions that were displaying recent movie trailers. A hollywood big-shot was in the store shopping and claimed that if their movies are helping to sell the televisions, he should get a cut of the profits. Took them to court. Now Best Buy can only officially display "approved," i.e. sold advertising space.

[videobruce]

Greedy, money hungry rich. The more they have, the more they want.

[toenail]

I recently shopped a local warehouse type electronics discounter for HDTV's after looking at Tweeter, BB and CC. What I found was that they had HD cable feed, OTA antenna feed, DVD feed and their own hard drive loop feed for all the TV's. They generally keep their own loop running off the hard drive showing on all sets with the exception of the few units set up with individual DVD players.

While shopping I was frustrated that the same PQ I had observed in BB and CC was being shown here. When I asked the salesperson if they had "real' HD content he gladly showed me NESN HD Red Sox game and ABC NBA (playoffs or finals forget which) from their HD cable box. The difference was amazing and there was a general buzz in the air and excitement as the other customers who were shopping noted the improved picture quality and started taking more interest in the huge selection of HD sets available. I looked at my salesperson and said "You know, you might sell a few more TV's if you show people what they are capable of with this type of signal". He just looked at me sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders in an embarassed manner.

[gparris]

Compare selling anything that is not in its best form.
Do retailers really think the buyer will buy it on their word, regardless of the display or condition?

Displayed HDTVs with SD or DVD pictures (or worse), cars that are dirty on the lot, etc., it makes no difference.

It all comes down to : Do you really think they'll buy it like that?

If a retailer cannot get its "act together" and send the best possible HD signal to the sets being sold, I'm not "sold", either, I leave for the next store.

The problem is, the average consumer is left thinking that HDTV is nothing special because the store is either not caring to display the goods as these are supposed to be seen (HD signal) or its managers do not have a clue. :whistle:

Our very own Time Warner Cable "store", quite recently, had all these plasmas hanging from the walls in a brand-new store attempting to get its subscribers or new subs, to rent HD boxes and and subscribe to their HD package, but had SD and analogue channels feeding from their display screens!
I complained and asked for the manager of that store to be fired. :D

[videobruce]

I complained and asked for the manager of that store to be fired. I'm sure he wasn't his fault or doing. You would have to go alot further up the ladder to do any good.While shopping I was frustrated that the same PQ I had observed in BB and CC was being shown here. When I asked the salesperson if they had "real' HD content he gladly showed me NESN HD Red Sox game and ABC NBA (playoffs or finals forget which) from their HD cable box. Just think what that would really look like it it was OTA and not through the overly compressed cable box!

I beleive the corp. types don''t want any OTA material with any commericals playing that isn't their own period. That's why we have to look at the 'loops' at all the stores and they don't make any attempt at OTA reception.

All one can do is write to corp. and b****! :shootout:

[57U]

IJust think what that would really look like it it was OTA and not through the overly compressed cable box! Although some cable companies compress their (HD) signals because they don't have the necessary bandwidth, most Cable companies have two HD channels/QAM, therefore they can pass the (up to) 19.4 Mb/sec signal uncompressed.

Sometimes PQ differences can be attributed also to differences in STBs.

[newf]

I'm sure when HD-DVD or BLUE- RAY is widespread they'll hook them up and tell us when we get home cable tv will look the same.

[toenail]

I'm sure he wasn't his fault or doing. You would have to go alot further up the ladder to do any good. Just think what that would really look like it it was OTA and not through the overly compressed cable box!

I beleive the corp. types don''t want any OTA material with any commericals playing that isn't their own period. That's why we have to look at the 'loops' at all the stores and they don't make any attempt at OTA reception.

All one can do is write to corp. and b****! :shootout:

Our local cable company doesn't do too bad with macroblocking and compression artifacts. Some of the local affiliates however (NBC) or horrible. I generally can't see the difference between my cable PQ and my OTA PQ. Guess I'm one of the lucky ones. This store uses the same cable provider that I do so they get pretty nice PQ on their displays when they choose to use it.

[pikers]

Tweeters, here in chicagoland uses, OTA, i don't understand why other retail outlets don't....at all. (I don't work there..not that, that's a bad thing)


It is odd. At our shop (not Tweeter :cool: ) we run the same feed you could pull in at home. Why stores don't run realistic feeds is beyond me; you set yourself and the customer up for failure. :boo2: