Help me out here. What good is PIP?

Hello there!
Seems that a lot of people are intensely interested in Picture-in-Picture (PIP) on their TVs. So I'll ask the dumb question - what good is it? Are my powers of concentration so dimmed that I can only watch one program at a time? I really want to know.

What's next - Music-in-Music?

Golden Badge of the East Electronics Enhances Music-Listening Productivity with Music-in-Music (MIM) on New Flagship Portable Stereo (April 1, 2004)

Leveraging its leadership in home-theater and multimedia entertainment systems, Golden Badge of the East Electronics today announced that its new flagship portable stereo – the SLS-007 – will bring picture-in-picture-like capabilities to the audio-only experience. The new Music in Music (MIM) ™ system will empower music lovers to enjoy a secondary audio source at a lower volume while listening to their main musical selection, and instantly toggle between the two sources with a flick of their joystick.

“Our market research indicates that, at any given time, most consumers are doing 3.47 things at any one time,” said George L. Tirebiter, VP, Feature Fullness, Golden Badge of the East Electronics. “With Music-in-Music (MIM), 2.0 of those things can be listening to music.”

MIM has numerous applications in the lucrative MMT (moneyed multitasking) market. For example, a consumer can enjoy a Beatles CD as a primary source, while monitoring a Brian Wilson MP3 for late-breaking high notes.

 

PIP is good for watching two sporting events. That's all I ever used it for. My latest TV doesn't have it.

mud-

 

It's helpful if you have two programs you want to watch in the following way: one really interests you, the other has one little tidbit of information or something that you can't miss and is all that you want to see, but you also can't predict when it will be shown. I use it occasionally, but it frankly wasn't any way involved in my buying decision.

John K.

 

As the great philosopher Al Bundy once said, it's for when there's a "hooter" movie on during the game.

 

But we already have that - they're called "Mash-Ups!"

 

It sells TV's!
It's one of those features, that 'you' just GOTTA have. And after using it two or three times...
I am a BIG fan of split screen!

 

As the great philosopher Al Bundy once said, it's for when there's a "hooter" movie on during the game.



Evan

 

I use it mostly for setting the VCR. If we're watching something and I need to set the VCR for something else, I'll use its on-screen programming menus within a PIP window, thus not totally disrupting the main program, which my wife may be watching.

Occasionally I'll use it if I need to monitor a different channel for whatever reason - waiting for a story, or for a late-running game to finish, that kind of thing.

Our Sony XBR has both Picture-In-Picture as well as Picture-AND-Picture, a way of using the full screen to display two small-sized screens. I've used that mode to compare framing issues of Laserdisc or VHS transfers versus DVDs. By synching up the images you get an instant comparison and can see how the letterboxing improves the overall image composition.

 

PIP/POP were big features on TVs 5-10 years ago. Now they are hardly advertised or used as most people who buy "better" TVs use a cable or satellite box that will only output one channel at a time, which renders PIP/POP useless. Of course you could hook up a VCR or DVD and watch it split screen or in a tiny window, but I digress....

 

I "had to have it" on my last big screen. Used it 2 or 3 times, then the novelty wore off and I haven't used it since.